Initial photos

I'm on a really slow PC and trying to sort through my almost 4 GB worth of photos is proving daunting, so I'm going to wait until I get back to Boston. For now I've uploaded a couple of the better photos that I could quickly extract. These are unedited raw photos for now.

To the left is one of the younger chimps balancing on a couple of jungle vines. This chimp had been swinging along in the jungle and then came to rest here and I watch him/her for a bit. The chimp just seemed to be contemplating life in a moment of deep thought. If I can, I'll try and get the Mahale staff to ID the chimp and then I can upload some info about him/her as they sent me brief background sentences on each chimp in the group.

This is a shot of the male lion in Ruaha eating the giraffe. This was taken in the morning of my last day there, so is about 22 hours after the kill was made. If you look closely you can see that the lion is gripping the hip / upper thigh area of the carcass with both forepaws and pulling with his teeth. He has extended his right front claws for a better grip (like domestic cats lions claws are retractable). You can also see that the entire body cavity of the giraffe is empty and the ribs are clearly visible here. Although it is difficult to see in a photo, I hope that this conveys some of the power combined with grace that these animals have.

More photos will be posted in about one week's time as I should have a better PC and connectivity then. Feel free to add your comments in the meantime.

Gorilla tourism

While I was browsing the news on CNN.com today, I came across this story (link below - about 5 minutes long) about the Congo's gorillas and the hope that tourism might help them in the war torn country. Given my recent trip it was very relevant. The video also may help you to understand exactly how wonderful the apes are and what it is like to visit them. I'm definitely planning on going to see them in the future, though likely not the ones in the Congo unless the situation radically changes.

Click for source

Mahale part 1

After 4 weeks of being on the road I returned to London on Tuesday. It was a long 29 hour trip from the camp at Mahale to the flat in London involving a boat, single engine prop plane, jeeps, big jet, and subway and so as you can imagine I was a bit tired when I arrived here. I've been back for 3 days now and I'm still adjusting in a BIG way. The sounds and the volume of motion around me is very hectic and I can feel that it is causing me some stress. Not necessarily undue amounts, but coming out of the bush where my biggest concern each day was what I was going to be served for meals or whether I should sit on the beach or go swimming, the difference is palpable.

Back to the trip though. So I left off in Arusha where I spent the night before flying to Mahale. The next morning I awoke to a nice sunrise highlighting the coffee fields and Mount Meru (about 30 miles west of Mount Kilimanjaro). I got a ride to the airport and boarded another single engine prop plane to fly to Mahale. This was a bush charter though, which means that it was scheduled to maximize the passengers moved since the lodge company (Nomad) had chartered it. 5 passengers flew from Arusha 15 minutes to Kilimanjaro airport where we landed and disembarked. We waited for almost an hour while the plane was refueled and 2 more passengers joined connecting from another flight that had just landed from somewhere else. The 7 of us then boarded and flew 2:30 to Katavi, another Tanzanian national park where Nomad has a camp. We landed there and all the other people got off and 9 new people got on. After 15 minutes of this shuffle around we took off again for another 45 minutes and finally landed at Mahale's airstrip. This was about 5 hours after I had boarded the plane that morning and I've now learned that I don't do very well on those small planes. I don't get motion sickness, but I get very tired and a little light headed from the altitude. They fly at well over 10,000 feet up and the cabins are not pressurized at all so you feel the altitude and most importantly experience the lack of air. Stop me if I ever decided that I want to get a pilot's license - I would pass out and the plane would crash. So on to Mahale.

Greystoke Mahale
We land on a small dirt strip like so many others in East Africa, but with one notable difference. This one ends at the water, meaning that if you over shoot the plane is going swimming. It is a spectacular view as you are descending and the water seems to extend forever in front of you. It looks like the ocean, because there are waves and you can't see the other side, but it actually Lake Tanganyika which is about 30 miles across at that point and is more than 400 miles long and an astounding 4,700 feet deep.

After disembarking we are met by the staff of the camp who carry our luggage to the waiting wooden boat for the 1.5 hour ride down the lake to camp. Due to the logistics, guests at this camp all arrive and depart at the same time (arrivals and departures are every Monday and Thursday) and you immediately feel how different the experience will be from the other camps. This is a place where guests move in groups and activities tend to involve most if not everyone at the same time. After being the only guest at a few places and enjoying solitude, it is a strange and bit intimidating experience to suddenly be thrust into interacting with a group of people, most of whom have just spent 3 days together at the Nomad camp in Katavi. We all trundle, well actually wade, aboard the boat and set off down the lake.

The camp itself is beautiful and well situated on the shoreside edge of a sandy beach in a protected bay. Each of the 7 huts is for two people with the bedroom area opening out onto the beach. There are heavy privacy curtains for use at night if desired, though I found not using them allowed more of the light breeze from the lake and the pleasant wave sounds through. Behind the camp is a forest which after a few hundred yards of relatively flat land quickly becomes steep hills that go up over 1,000 feet. It was very reminiscent of places in Hawaii and made me feel at home fairly quickly.

After a quick unpack, all 10 guests (4 singles and 3 couples) gathered in the main dining building (no doors and no complete walls so it wasn't exactly a room) for our briefing. Magdalena, a half-time camp guide/chimp specialist and wife of the camp manager Doug, briefed on the background of Mahale, the chimps there, issues they have had and expectations for our visit. In less than 30 years (2 chimp generations), the chimp community in that area of the park has gone from 140 individuals to 52. This has largely been due to human introduced diseases. This year alone 13 chimps were lost to a pneumonia brought by people. No one will ever know whether this was from the researchers or the tourists, but in the end 13 chimps (20% of those remaining) were lost. Health matters are serious there and Magdalena spends the other half of her time as the official park veterinarian observing the chimps and collecting samples for study (direct contact is not allowed so sample collection is from droppings, partially eaten food, etc.). To help reduce health risks, we are told that we should keep 5m away from the chimps at all times when possible and if they approach us to back up to keep the distance.

She also informs us that while we are likely to see the chimps, this cannot be guaranteed and we may have to walk far or wait for long periods in the forest to do so. Some of the others seem a bit concerned about this, but I'm happy just to hear that there isn't a ban on seeing them as I had feared. Magdalena explains to us that we will generally go out in the morning to try and see the chimps and spend the afternoons on the beach, swimming / snorkeling on the lake, or just resting. She estimates that we might see them twice in the 4 night stay (really 3 full days due to the transport logistics). This is in part because the park and researchers are trying to limit the number of people visiting the chimps each day. The rules officially allow for only 6 tourists at a time to see the chimps and no more than 3 groups per day. Unfortunately since there are 3 camps each with capacity for 12 or more guests and it is an honor system, often the chimps see 4-6 groups in a day.

In light of the limited daylight left, we decide to do a light nature walk that afternoon and start out fresh the next morning for our first chimp search adventure. So we set off into the forest on the trail network led by our local guide who begins to explain the various plants to us. As there are 11 of us (10 tourists and the guide) we end up stringing out single file along the trail. We hear the calls of chimps in the distance and also see a few monkeys, but they are very wary of humans as they associate us with chimps who actively hunt and eat the monkeys (I watched video of this later and it is a bit gruesome). Suddenly the line comes to a halt and the guide motions us to get off the trail to the side. As we do it becomes apparent why. There are two chimps walking down the path toward us!

They seem so non-plussed at seeing us there and while they obviously acknowledge us they don't seem to care. One even stops quickly to defecate right on the path in front of a few of the people. Struggling to get my camera set and in low lighting (flashes scare the chimps and you cannot use them) I get a couple of blurry snaps as they go by less then 5 feet from me. They are larger and much more muscular than I had thought. It is understandable how they can literally tear apart another animal limb-from-limb. They walk down the path and continue into the forest as we stand there in shock.

It was a wonderful first afternoon's walk and it seemed almost too easy to have seen them. Little did we know what was to come over the next few days though....