Mzungu! Hello, how are you?

One of the great things about working abroad is that you get both the American and host nation holidays off.  In Uganda, Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays which gave us a four day weekend!  Since it’s a long hop to Africa for the Easter Bunny (or Easter Kangaroo if you know the right animal representation to talk to) we decided it was the perfect time to take our first big trip in Uganda, joined by two friends and their son.  Of course, things don’t always work out as planned, and due to some house alarm problems, we got on the road a bit later than intended.  Luckily traffic wasn’t as bad as it could be (which is saying a lot for Kampala), and we headed off towards Western Uganda to Fort Portal and Kibale National Park.

As we made our way to Fort Portal we passed some Baboon's on the road, we also saw them just about everywhere else on this trip.

Fort Portal is about a 5-hour drive and luckily is pretty much a straight shot from Kampala.  The drive took us through some really nice scenery, which was a welcome sight after being in a city for so long.  The drive, however, wasn’t fully relaxing as speed bumps and rumble strips like to randomly and frequently appear on the road.  We also drove through what was either local’s chanting/protesting against their Western Ugandan royalty or recreating the Easter Passion play.  Either way, it was pretty crazy to drive through as there was lots of commotion and everyone was either holding or wearing some type of big plant.

The first night was spent just relaxing so that we could get up bright and early the next morning for a cultural village walk with Kabarole Tours and Safari.  The walk was set up to help introduce travelers to rural village life and landscape appreciation, as the walk goes on through villages, matooke plantations, small Crater Lakes, caves and waterfalls.  The walk was supposed to be about 12 kilometers, however, when they asked us if we wanted to drive to the starting point or walk, we all agreed to walk making our total trip about 16 kilometers (just about 10 miles)!  Needless to say, we were all hurting by the end.

The walk started out cutting through a not so developed village of Fort Portal before quickly heading out into the more rural villages.  While in the rural village, Greg asked our guide about trying some locally made Ugandan waragi.  Waragi is a homemade gin alcohol and is made from the matooke bananas.  We stopped at a small store and the women behind the very cluttered counter offered us either the regular waragi or triple strength.  Figuring they would start out strong, Greg and Judd went for the triple strength.  The waragi was poured from what we could only hope was a clean jerry can, and the smell instantly hit you.  The next thing that hit you was the taste as the triple strength waragi punched you in the face full of alcoholic matooke.  We all tried a sip, made bad faces as the waragi burned from the moment the smell hit your nose until it the liquid reached your stomach, and gave the rest to our guide.  Either he is really good at keeping a straight face or is super tough because he sipped the waragi like it was water and commented on the great taste.

Greg about to try his triple strength waragi.

Along the tour, we got to take in the beauty of the Rwenzori Mountains in the background and the rolling hills of tea plantations and matooke fields.  We were also consistently joined by a posse of children that seemed to just want to say hello to white people.  A simple wave from us would elicit giggles, waves, and shouts of “Mzungu, how are you?”  Mzungu basically means “white person,” but in a positive brother way and not anything negative.  “Mzungu, how are you?” was also the only phrase that some of the children could say in English, so they just repeated it over and over regardless of how we answered them.

One of the many posses of children who followed us.  Here everyone was checking out the eastern green mamba snake in the bushes.

Greg introducing himself to the kids.

We made it to the top!

The view was spectacular!  You can see some of the Crater Lakes below and the Rwenzori Mountains in the background.

The Amabere Waterfall was not much of a waterfall, but still cool to walk through.

On our way back, we saw a dung beetle!

The tour lasted until almost 5 PM, which gave us enough time to eat dinner and get back to the hotel before dark.  It was definitely a great trek and led to many fun interactions with the locals.

Our next day was spent in search of the Rubona Basket Weavers Association, who we’ve been told have the best baskets around.  The baskets are made by women in the community and the profits go straight back to the community and the women who make them.  Unfortunately for us, they appeared to be closed so we headed up the street to Bunyangabu Beekeepers Cooperative (BBC) where we saw signs for honey and candles.  We met the owner of BBC and mentioned that we stopped by after trying the basket shop.  He was excited that we were interested in making local purchases, and called the Rubona Basket Weavers Association to tell them to open up the shop for us.  It was definitely worth it for all of us, as we bought a ton of baskets.

On our way to Kibale, we took a quick stop at some lake.

Taking in the scenery.

With one of our main souvenir goals taken care of, we finally got on our way to Kibale National Park.  Kibale National Park has the most primates throughout Uganda and certainly lived up to this as we were constantly stopping along the drive to see the baboons and other monkeys that were either in the road or in the trees.  One of the most famous of the 13 species in Kibale is the chimpanzee, our closest relative and the main attraction for the trip.  In the park, there are approximately 1,450 chimpanzees, representing Uganda’s largest population.

Unfortunately for us, it rained both nights we were in Kibale making it very difficult for us to see any potto or bush babies.  However, we made up for that by seeing almost all of the day-time primates, including the vervet, red-tailed, L’Hoest’s (we didn't see any), blue monkeys (we didn't see), grey-cheeked mangabey, red colobus (we didn't see), black-and-white colobus, and olive baboon.  (A quick side note, I have looked high and low for all the primates names.  Everything says there are 13 species in Kibale, but everyone only lists 11.  If you can figure out the other two please let me know because it's bugging me.)

We didn't even see any of the Vervet Monkeys inside the park, but we saw these guys munching away on our trip to Kibale.

We saw a ton of the Red-Tailed Monkeys on this trip, their tails were so long!

The Eastern Black-and-White Colobus Monkey.

On our way back to our hotel, we finally saw a Gray-Cheeked Mangabey Monkey!

Looking to spread some Easter cheer to the monkeys, we trekked out in search of the chimpanzees.  Within the first hour of the hike, we found a family of chimps enjoying some breakfast in a tall fig tree.  Some of the mommy chimps and their babies didn’t seem to like that so many people were down below, so they took the babies and headed off.  Luckily some of the other chimps stuck around so we got to spend more time with them.  We were also almost joined by a group of forest elephants that we heard off in the not so distant woods.  While we thought this was really cool, our guides quickly moved us out of the area and walked us far around the elephants as they are known to be aggressive.  Our chimp luck continued as we found one relaxing on the ground eating a large fruit, then ran into a few more in much lower trees.  After almost 4 hours, we were dirty, tired, and ready to relax at the hotel.

The first group of chimps we saw!

Mama reaching for some figs while baby hangs on.

Just chomping away.

A mama and her little one!

I love the look on his face, oh hey guys, how's it going down there?

Our guide said he apparently isn't the nicest chimp, and the fruit he's eating is like a jackfruit, but he wasn't sure what the English name for it was.

Still feeling in a monkey mood, Greg and I went for a walk on a path at our hotel which took us through the forest towards their no longer used tree-houses.  Heading out for a walk on our own was a great decision as there were monkeys climbing and jumping in the trees above us!  We even had baboons walking on the path in front of us.  As cool as it was, we had to be mindful that they were wild animals and we had to keep aware of our surroundings.  Helping us stay aware of not being in Kansas anymore were the loud grunts and yells of what had to be some pretty large monkeys off in the forest.

Luck somewhat ran out for our last day in Kibale as it began pouring before we were able to get out for the Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary walk and a traditional Ugandan meal at Tinka's Homestay.  We decided to head home as not even the guide at the wetlands wanted to go on a hike through the sanctuary and it was way too early for lunch.  This just means that we have to head back to Kibale and Fort Portal again to do the wetlands walk and see the nocturnal primates!  That and pick up some more baskets!!!

For more photos from this trip, check out our SmugMug!