DAY 79
The chimps are waiting! We get up at 5 and get in the boat. It's very dark and turns pitch black when we leave the bay of Kigoma and its lights. We have the endless lake on one side and the mountains standing out against the star files sky. Then gradually dawn comes. It's far from yesterday's display because we're hugging the shore. It takes much less than the 3 hours we were told yesterday (good surprise). We're even too early at the park. They offer us coffee while waiting for the guy is charge of tickets to get ready. All buildings in the park have wire netting on all windows and all the doors must be kept shut. We understand why very quickly as a few baboons try to open the doors to invite themselves to breakfast! These creature are too intelligent for our own good :D And it's not just one or two, there's a big colony in the area, always trying to get some free food. We wait some more after breakfast to give more time to the trackers. They warn us that it'll be complicated to find them today. The wind is strong today, making it more difficult to hear their shouts and localize them. One of the scientists there spare some time to talk to us about them, super interesting. We're about to leave when one of the baboon starts a show, clearly entertaining us. I understand much better why I was told so many times as a kid to stop “doing the monkey” (french expression)
After not even 5 minutes in the park, we already have a tail of red tail monkeys (pun intended) but we end up loosing them. The wind is indeed very strong, even in the forest and it makes it sound like the sea. A bush-back antelope runs into us and looks as startled as we do but quickly disappears from sight. A little later, we play pick-a-boo with young baboons. They are as curious to see us as we are! We arrive at Jane's old feeding station for a short break. Things changed a lot since that time. Now it's not allowed to get closer than 10m (7 meters is supposed to be the limit for contagion for airborne illness). They discover after years that some human illness can be transmitted to the chimps. It caused epidemics in the groups they were studying...
On our way to the waterfall, another group of baboons is loitering on the path and reluctantly move out of the way to let us pass. The waterfall is nothing special except that it's where the research station gets its water. As we walk back to the camp to check with the trackers, we stumble upon two chimps, a mother and her baby. They are quietly by the stream. We could have easily walked right past them without noticing. Meet Swine 17y old and Shwari a 3y old little guy (each family has its members' name starting with the same letter). They take us for a walk for a good half hour. Stopping every now and again to look for food or groom. The path, with leaves of different colors and patches of light, and the 2 apes strolling by carefree makes it a very magical moment for us.
Back at the main station, I get a few bananas and some cookies out to eat. Not even 5 minutes later a baboon shows up and clearly wants a bite of what I'm having. I finish quickly and store the rest away. We have to finish the break inside with all the doors locked or surrender our lunch money ;) For the second part of the track, we pass by Jane's old house (everything has been left as is), follow the beach a few minutes and finally enter the forest. We startle a group of red colobus monkeys and they start jumping away from us from tree to tree as we get near. Crazy jumps on top of that. We don't want them to be even more reckless so we give them time to “evacuate” their tree by the beach. We resume the tracking with a gruesome hike up and down steep and slippery slopes for what feels like forever to end up again at the feeding station! There's a group of baboons there to entertain us while the trackers are making desperate attempts to find the chimps. We're about to give up when we finally hear one chimp and locate him shortly after. Meet Thomas, 12y old male. He's super cozy up his tree, half hidden. We watch for some time and again when we are about to leave, he comes down. We follow him for a bit, observing and taking pictures. He stops then turn around and go in between us. Perfect time for my camera to be full... I can only watch him pass super close while deleting old pictures on my camera (Murphy's law!!!!). We follow him a bit more then head back. It's past time already. We say goodbye to our great guide and to Anthony (the researcher) who gives us a little present. The lake is rough at that time of the day but we make good time once again. We learned it just before boarding but today we were the only group who could see chimps, the others were not able to find them... lucky us! It was short but such a privilege to see them from up close. What was troubling for me was the way they move and their look. The way the baboons move is also very close to ours but their look is mostly animal. For the chimps, the look is very very close to ours... strange feeling.
DAY 80
After too many days waking up before sunset we can finally sleep in... bliss!!! All we have to do today is a bit of grocery shopping for tomorrow's lunchbox, enjoy the slow internet and that's it. We call the companies in Mwanza about the safari but they don't have anything new for us. They offer a little discount but it's still way to expensive for us. We still have 2 or 3 days so maybe we'll be lucky and find 2-3 persons to share the costs. We end this very unproductive but satisfactory day with another gorgeous sunset on lake Tanganyika.