Awake before the 3.50am alarm - recent holidays have had an abundance of really early starts - bears,bats and now chimpanzees! A thunderstorm was passing over head and there was torrential rain falling - oh no! The great staff at the hotel appeared with umbrellas which made for a dry walk to the main building and a much needed cup of Rwandan tea. We collected our packed breakfast and headed off, with Charles, to the park HQ to meet our guide Daniel. An hours car trip later we arrived at a patch of forest called Cyamudongo - disconnected from the main forest and left standing amidst the cultivated areas - mostly tea plantations and subsistence crops - by the locals who feared removing it would anger the spirits - this proved a lucky break for the 40 or so chimpanzees who now call it home.
With over trousers on to protect us from the wet undergrowth, thankfully it had stopped raining, we set off, with an American family, from the car park to find the trackers who had been with the chimps since dawn. We arrived with them relatively quickly -after about 20 minutes- just as they were finishing their first feed - this coincided with a bad day for my camera - the lens hooded came apart and the camera failed to focus properly - this was probably down to the poor light so I missed a photo of a chimp descending a tree.....not that it would have been very good. The next part of our adventure was following the chimps uphill and down dale - which was steep and slippery - we managed to stay upright but the Americans did take a few muddy tumbles. At the chimps next feeding spot (today's photo) my camera registered full - I hadn't brought another card - b***** - but Daniel lent me his so I didn't need to do a mass delete! The chimps headed off again and we followed - this time and maybe because of the rain they made nests in the top of trees, called to each other and had a siesta - it was still cloudy and overcast so the pictures of the chimps in their nests were a tad dark and distant!
Daniel gave us a briefing on the chimps while they snoozed - this group of 40 has one alpha male, they share 98% of our DNA and their diet is 70% fruits with the rest made up of leaves, vegetation and only 1% meat - usually monkey - which they eat with leaves. However researchers have seen chimps surrounding their own children so the age limit for chimp tracking is 15 years old - just in case!
After our hour with them we made our way slowly back as it was both uphill and slippery.
We were back at the car by about 10.00am and headed back to the lodge, collected our bags and relocated to Nyungwe Forest Lodge a very nice upmarket lodge with spa, pool and gym on the edge of the forest and set in the midst of a tea plantation. We were supposed to be here for 4 nights - now it's 3 after a booking mix up - however the HillTop View Lodge albeit tired by comparison definitely set the standard for service. The clients at Forest Lodge were noticeably cosmopolitan - Korean, American, German,Scandinavian, French and African....whereas we didn't see any others at Hill Top.
Our arrival saw the worst of a bad day for my camera - I dropped it shattering the filter but luckily not the lens. We extracted all the glass, as I need to go to a specialist to get the now embedded rim removed, and photography can continue - interestingly the photos look sharper!!
After lunch we went to our lodge, unpacked and recovered from our early start. I then went and tried out the lovely infinity pool before spending time trying to edit my raw photos - I am still learning so it takes a while!