It’s a Chimp Eat Monkey World Out There

Heading to the Nile was the last big trip for the girls before they unfortunately had to head back home, but for Matt, his trip still had one more adventure to Queen Elizabeth National Park.  Our main goal here was to go chimp trekking, and while we had only ever done it before in Kibale National Park we heard this would be a unique experience.

The drive to the park was interesting as we drove through a rally for President Museveni (M7), who was working to get re-elected for yet another term (he's been President for 30 years).  The M7 rally was interesting in that they bought yellow t-shirts for everyone in the village to wear.  So as we drove through, every boda driver, storekeeper, and other person strolling down the street was clad in yellow.  Basically, you stood out if you weren’t wearing a yellow shirt, and if you were in blue (the main opponent’s color), you probably would have gotten hassled a bit.

We had a beautiful sunset our first night.

Sunset in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

The safari was good as usual, and even better this time around because we found a whole new set of trails that we had never known about before.  In our book, they are listed as unmarked trails, so we never realized that we were allowed to drive on them.  These trails were different than the previous ones, as they were more wide open plains like, except that they were lusciously green and you could see the animals from far away.  We lucked out on these trails and saw a few large prides of lions.

This guy greeted us our first morning of safari.

Greg with our new friend.

A new bird for us - African Hoopoe.

So many elephants!

Our chimp trek on this trip was the real highlight.  Chimp trekking in Queen Elizabeth (QE) is different than other parks because all of the chimps in QE are stuck in a wooded canyon (think wide open dry plains and then a tropical rainforest right in the middle in a deep canyon) and are unable to get out (or choose not to).  The guide said years ago they were separated from the larger group, but too many people and cars popped up between the two groups that this group has never been able to get back to the larger forested area.  This actually causes breeding problems for the chimps as they do not have any other chimps to breed with and are basically one big interbreeding family.  The other way trekking in QE is different is that the guides do not know where the chimps are when you start hiking and instead track them as you walk through the woods.  In Kibale, they have always had people go out and track them ahead of time.

The canyon we went chimp trekking in.

Lizard.

Beached hippos.

Once they noticed us they all started running into the river.

An elephant grave, we were told it supposedly died of natural causes.

After hiking for a little while, I was starting to think that we weren’t going to see any chimps as the guide said they hadn’t seen any in a few days (though the other guide with us said they saw some the day before, so yeah…).  Our guide either got lucky or really knew what he was doing because we found some chimps hanging out in a tree.  Cool to see, but the really cool thing was that one of the chimps was munching away on a red-tailed monkey!  *Warning: Below are pictures of the chimp eating the monkey.  While some pictures are pretty graphic, they are also pretty cool, so if you don't want to see a monkey getting eaten, scroll down fast until you see pretty pink flamingos.  For even more pictures of the chimps, visit our SmugMug page.*

Some of the chimps munching on a red-tailed monkey.

This chimp was using his fingers as a tool to get bugs/honey out of a hole in the tree.

The guide told us they munch on leaves in-between to help clean their teeth.

Yummy yummy.

Chimps mainly eat fruit and things like that, but if they can catch them, which is rare, they will eat small monkeys.  It was a bit sad to see the red-tailed monkey being torn apart, but it was so awesome to see the chimps tearing away at it.  There was another chimp behind the one with the monkey, that kept reaching his hand in to try and get himself a taste of monkey meat as well.  Eventually, he was able to come away with a leg, which broke off with a loud crunch.

He kept reaching around trying to get some of the monkey.

After a little while, the chimps were done with us watching them and climbed down the tree.  The chimp with the monkey threw his treat over his shoulder like a shawl and disappeared into the forest.  This was the first time we’ve actually seen an animal eat another animal in the wild, and was such a cool moment to see.  Even our guide was in awe as this is such a rarity to witness.

Climbing down the tree with his prize.

After the chimps, we still had some safari time in Queen Elizabeth and we finally got to see the flamingos.

Big yawn.

A pride of lions enjoying a nice sunset in Queen Elizabeth.

There was a mommy & daddy Grey Crowned Crane each with a baby in tow.

The Lesser Flamingos.

Unfortunately, this marked the end of all our siblings' visits as this was the last big event for Matt in his Uganda excursion.  It was really good to have all our siblings here and to show them around our new home.  While we all miss each other, I think they saw just how much we are enjoying our new life and that we are by no means roughing it in Africa.