We got up at 4:30 as we had to have our bags out on our porch and be at breakfast by 5:30. As the room was dimly lit, we had to be careful not to leave some gear behind. We walked over to breakfast and then piled into the two vans for the 20 minute ride to the park headquarters. We were assigned an armed guide and took off for a birding hike through the forest. The woods here have huge buttressed trees, surrounded by smaller trees, vines and bushes. Footing is treacherous as there are roots everywhere and thorny vines. We walked out about a mile to a place where Brian thought we might be able to call in the rare Green-breasted Pitta, although it hadn’t been seen in two weeks.
We spent the morning walking slowly over 3 miles and didn’t see the pitta or much of anything else. We returned to the headquarters, ate our box lunches, and relaxed a bit. At two a new ranger was assigned to take us on a Chimpanzee Trek. There are many troops of chimps in this forest and about 6 that are habituated to humans. Our guide used his walky-talky to check with the morning guide as to where they had been earlier.
 |
| Foot -long Seed Pod and Seed |
We took off walking swiftly through the forest, me with two walking sticks, trying not to trip or fall! At one point, I stumbled and Bob reached out and grabbed me, saving me from crashing to the ground! We walked about a mile until the guide admitted that the expected chimps were not there. He then started walking quickly on a trail in another direction and we followed for another mile, up steep slopes. The ones in front said that two chimps had just crossed the trail and they and the guide took off running through the brush with us following. After another mile of this and only a few glimpses of the chimp, we crossed the dirt road on which our van was parked; several of us said, “Enough!” and went to sit in the van. It was warm and very humid and we were all drenched.
 |
| Cooperative Baboon Family along the Road |
Meanwhile Bob was getting frustrated as the morning was wasted looking for one species of bird rather than the many others that are around here and now the afternoon was quickly disappearing. Thirty minutes later the others arrived, having gotten closeup views of the male chimp. This was quite disappointing as I was hoping for a view of a chimp troop complete with females and babies, with a chance to observe them interacting rather than one animal fleeing at high speed!
But that’s mammal observing - back to easier birding! We finally all got back together and took off in the vans, stopping along the road and walking some more. I was pretty tired and after seven miles of walking all day, Sandra and I dozed in the vans until the others thought it was time to go to our new hotel. We first had to drive back to the Chimpanzee Forest Guest House and retrieve our luggage, then drive 15 minutes to Crater Safari Lodge. The reason for this inconvenient hotel move was explained as an overbooking mistake at CFGH - don’t know if that’s really the reason, or not, but as most of us were hoping to have laundry done and avoid the inconvenience of packing and unpacking, we were not especially happy!
 |
| Our Flower- and Leaf-strewn Bed!! |
However our new place is lovely, overlooking another caldera lake and has canoeing available even though they have a resident “tame” hippo!! - not that we would have time to do such a thing with a one night stay. Our room has a spacious balcony overlooking the caldera and a king size bed with real leaves and flowers sprinkled all over it!! I took a shower in the modern bathroom, lacking a working light bulb, but felt better afterwards and we went up to the dining area to join others for a good dinner of beef tips for RR and pea curry for me. We get to sleep in until six tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment