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UGANDA THE PEARL OF AFRICA JANUARY 4 2001, DOUALA CAMEROON TO KENYA TO UGANDA PART1 I flew from Libreville to Douala, Cameroon to lay over 8 hours before my final leg of my African journey to Uganda, East Africa. I stepped outside to watch the sunset, and listened to the cooing of doves preparing to roost for the night. Bought a couple of framed village scenes made creatively from butterfly wings, and ceramic necklaces for my two daughters. After about 7 hours of waiting Kenya airways announced boarding just past midnight for our flight to Nairobi Kenya. No more anxiety as Paul and I made the connection. Airport travel is truly awful, and I am tired, and cramped, now stuck in another seat for a 4.5 hour flight east of CAR. I couldn’t sleep, but was awarded a magnificent sunrise view over the Ruwenzari Range with colorful cloud formations. At 40,000 feet the high anvils were airbrushed in mauve, casting deep blue shadows across the African landscape. It was raining heavily still in east Africa. Nairobi airport was modern and clean with a professional staff that helped us as we missed our connecting flight to Entebbe. They put us up in the boarding room and gave us lunch but I ached all over and was too sick with diarrhea to eat. We departed on a 2:00PM flight to Entebbe, and was greeted by Emmanuel, our guide and driver for the next three weeks. Warm smile, rounded face, he was a welcome sight as Paul and I were pretty tired. We headed to the Victorian hotel in a British Land Rover and was checked in. The Victorian is a colonial style hotel in a setting within perfectly kept grounds and garden with a view of Lake Victoria. Swam in their huge swimming pool and felt life coming back to me, although still battling diarrhea, thanks probably to some of the food I ate in the Douala airport. Looking forward to the trip, and a hot shower. I had arranged this trip with a reference to a trip operator that gave me a substantial discount in return for sharing my photographs. January 5, Friday, Kampala, Uganda I was thankful I recoverd the next morning from the aching and intestinal malady. Finally could eat and had a great breakfast at the hotel. Emma as he liked to be called picked us up in the land rover, and we packed it with our gear and began

our trip with a drive through the capital of Uganda, Kampala at morning rush hour. Exchanged our travelers checks for shillings at the Crane bank, then re-entered the awful traffic jam on our way to Fort Portal to the east, and the Kibale forest that was a chimpanzee and primate sanctuary. Everything was so clean here as we followed a newly paved road bordered by

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clay brick homes with corrugated metal roofs. No garbage scattered at the edge of the road as it was in Gabon. Emmanuel had a great sense of humor, and was so willing to please, a character trait of most Ugandans. We saw all sorts of entrepreneurial businesses in Entebbe, and one particularly caught my eye which had stored sawed off front and back Japanese’s cars and mounted on a steel rack, steel doors and windows. And there was a variety of building supplies, CD music and cloth shops. We finally left the city and wove through beautiful countryside farms with rich soils as agriculture was one of Uganda’s primary export: coffee, tea, and cotton. The rich volcanic soils and foot-thick humus supported good crops of potatoes, tomatoes, passion fruit, bananas, corn, manioc. The more typical red laterite clay substrate is found in the lowlands. The countryside was tranquil with mixed forests, filled with bird life: doves, barbets, blue turaco. Transportation was primarily bicycles and motorcycles in contrast to Gabon with its taxis and trucks. We stopped by a small gas station for diesel, where the attendant hand pumps the fuel into a 6 foot high glass cylinder, then gravity feeds into the tank. A Nissan sedan drove up next to us, with a loudspeaker mounted on the roof, blaring some village language in musical rhythm, advertising that he was hawking medicinal brews and concoctions from the forest, traditional medicines that supposingly cured everything from stomach aches to fevers.

Villages north of Kampala towards Sudan After a five hour drive east from Kampala road conditions deteriorated as we entered the foothills of the Kibale. Here manicured tea fields spread across the foothills in a green blanket with tea pickers, reminiscent of Gibbs farm I stayed at in Tanzania in 1981. Emmanuel had mail to drop off from friends in Kampala, and he simply threw the letters out of the window onto the road while passing through town. No postage. I inquired as to this strange method of mail drop off and he replied “guaranteed delivery and its cheap! Free!” Apparently this is how mail is delivered in Uganda as a village passerby walking by will pick it up, and pass it on to the recipient. We left the sea of tea plantations and finally entered Kibale forest, an island of natural plant diversity in the midst of expansive tea plantations. The park is only

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750 Km2 (290 Miles2). We drove into a troop of olive baboons grooming each other on the road, while several others were feeding in a large tree bearing a grapefruit-sized fruit hanging on a long stem. The baboons would grab one and run across a large limb to withdraw with its prize. Arrived at our first camp located just outside the park and next to a large wetland and cultivated fields. Simple and basic, the canvas tents were covered with thatch roofing, and there was a central dining area. The staff came to greet us with fresh pressed orange and passion fruit drink. They were almost too servile, obsequious, treating me as a ‘bwana.’ I felt uncomfortable with this, but Emmanuel assured us this is the way it is. We were also given a hot towel to wipe the dust off our face and hands. And I felt so relaxed. This was going to be fun. Paul and I showered, and refreshed, shared an awesome dinner by candlelight, and listened to the evening call of the great blue turaco as the red sun set over the marsh. Wonderful day. Rt Blue turaco

January 6, 2001 Kibale Forest, Uganda I was woken up by melodious bird songs, then headed to the main tent for a wonderful breakfast of eggs, sausage, papaya, and watermelon. We were to have an incredible morning spent with chimpanzees, red and black colobus, grey-cheeked mangabees, red tailed monkeys, and L’Hoest monkey. After breakfast Emmanuel drove us back to the forest, and to the park headquarters where we met our guide Bibi, who had worked for a number of years at Kibale. He was an animated guy, full of ideas and conversation, and he like people. We learned that Kibale is inhabited by three large communities of chimpanzees, each numbering over two hundred individuals. Our tracker locates the chimps by listening for their pant-hooting calls, then lead us cross country to observe them feed in the trees, lounge, or hunt. Chimps can move quickly through the bushy canopy hunting red colobus monkeys and bushbabies, and will occasionally capture ground dwellers such as small duiker or dik-dik. Though they feed primarily on figs and other fruit, they are effective hunters. The guide told us the chimpanzees' strong social order and behavior is fascinating to watch, since they are noisy, communicative, and often confrontational with each other. The male is territorial and uses elaborate boundaries and defense techniques to protect his turf. Fierce battles between communities occasionally occur, sometimes with fatalities, yet young females can pass from group to group ensuring genetic diversity. We also learned that we could encounter red-tailed monkey, red colobus monkey, black-and-white colobus monkey, gray-cheeked mangabey, olive baboon, and vervet monkey. The forest is the habitat of the spectacular great blue turaco, the African gray parrot, and the ground dwelling Angola pitta.

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We left single file and entered an area of high grass, then the trail immediately immersed us into the forest. It was a beautiful place, with a sapling understory and an amazing array of large trees, most of them buttressed. Bibi led us up a trail that followed the top of a ridge and passing over an arterial column of safari ants, and we threaded through a maize of elephant and buffalo trails and mineral licks. This area is the eastern range of forest buffalo and forest elephant. The sun is filtering through the clear morning of ground fog, and we descended into a narrow wetland of palms and nettles. Many trees are now in fruit here, but the most interesting tree was one with giant grapefruit-sized fruit 10 inches across and suspended on a long stalk (Monora sp. Annonaceae). It was green colored on the outside with white pulp inside. Watched a red-tailed monkey try to break through the tough skin, and it couldn’t get a good purchase for a bite because of the small size of its mouth. It had such an interesting face, and observing from below as it struggled to overcome this fruit, I couldn’t help but laugh at why it had bright green colored testicles. Gods sense of humor? Could see lots of Chimpanzee sign along the base of the tree as Bibi then continued to track for several more hours before we encountered the troop of chimpanzees. We could hear their loud hoots, and the breaking of branches that would send a shower of leaves that rained down from the canopy. It turns out that the alpha male wakes the group up in the morning in their tree nests, and gets the troop to move and find a tree to feed in. Normally chimpanzees rest after feeding, but many of the more active individuals will dance, or beat the buttress of a tree with their hands and feet. They also do the latter to show aggression, or to communicate. We stayed with the chimp group for several hours, an exhilarating experience given their wonderful sounds of communication, and their animated ways of expressing themselves. Most of the individuals were dark-colored, several older adults pot bellied and eating large fruits (Monora?). Part of the troop remained in trees, while others moved on the ground. Within five minutes they became quite used to us. But it became frustrating to photograph them in the low light of the forest, even though I was so close to them. Part of the troop moved on, and we followed them as they continued to hoot to communicate and keep in touch with each other. We followed fresh knuckle prints and areas where they had urinated or defecated.

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Green-breasted pitta, Black and white casqued hornbill, Robin chat

Brown-headed parrot, Brown-crowned Tchagra

Came back by 2:15 in the afternoon and had lunch at camp. Paul and I were going to hike around the adjacent huge wetland bordered by Nile papyrus. The surrounding forest of the wetland had been cut, but there was general 200-300 foot buffer of native trees. We met our young tracker named Amos, a thin lanky young man who had been trained in birds. Amos began our walk to the south, and within ½ mile found red colobus feeding in a tree. Red colobus are the more aggressive and brave species, and are often attacked and fed on by

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Grey-cheeked mangabey, L’Hoest monkey

Red-tailed monkey, Red colobus Monkey

Red colobus, gladulosissimus spp. flower, chimpanzee

chimpanzees. Amazingly graceful animals, the are capable of making huge leaps. The red colobus look similar to the black colobus, but their fur has less white markings, brown along the back with an ‘Irish’ red forehead. They moved off, and we continued to walk along a trail that wove through the forest at the edge of the wetland. I stopped and talked to numerous farmers working their clearing at the edge of the lake, who were trying to protect their crops of maize from marauding baboons that especially came out at night. The bird and animal diversity was amazing here, even though the edge was cleared to corn, coffee, and pasture for grazing cattle. Observed numerous troops of black and white colobus, a troop of red colobus, and grey-cheeked mangabees. Was able to approach a blue turaco and black and white hornbill pair known to mate for life.

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We learned of the local practice of bee keeping with mud-bee hives, and hand made fish traps of woven Nile papyrus. The conical traps are baited with corn and termites, then placed in the water to attract the small gambesia fish. Met villagers passing through that spoke basic English and most of them shared with

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me theirdeep faith in God. I met one family baking bread in a mud oven during the late afternoon, while keeping vigilance over their unharvested cornfields. It was a blessing to share our common faith together. Thankyou Lord January 7, 2001 Kibale forest This was an incredible day. We left camp 6:30 AM in the morning fog, met at the forest tracking center, and met our tracker Vincent and Julian who both work for the Jane Goodall Institute. The fog was condensing in the forest canopy and dripping. Great blue turaco’s were calling, and heard the soft hooting from an unseen owl. We worked up the same ridge we had explored the day before and followed chimp vocalizations. We passed under magnificent trees of ficus, with large octopus limb arms, through fallen fruits of Monora, crossed a wetland stream, then waited for some time to discern the direction of any communication calls and hooting. Saw blue duikers feeding with their cotton-tail like tails held up, resembling large rabbits and were so tame. Listened to tinker birds, red headed cuckoo, and the calls of doves. Vincent paused and in a soft voice, explained how chimpanzees hunt and feed on duiker. They post guards that surround the animal in a large circle, and then one side makes noise, pressing the duiker towards the silent chimps on the other side of the circle. Then they close in the circle, communicating with hoots until they capture the duiker, and brutally tear it apart limb by limb. Vincent said he had seen a chimpanzees yesterday carrying the leg and thigh of a red duiker. We were closer to the troop and heard loud hooting begin followed by buttress banging that created a hollow wood sound like a tom tom-drum in the forest. Amazing animals, and within ½ kilometer we reached the group and began observing. Watched a beautiful female sitting on a limb close to me, perched just above the ground and I shot a whole roll of film on her. Then the large alpha male passed by and I saw him only briefly, watching his huge big head turn towards me and his large grey body amble by. Vincent and I then tracked 4 subadult males with black fur, but one had a grey patch on his back just above

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the rump. They allowed us to get within 30 feet. Amazing experience. According to Vincent, this large group consisted of about 55 individuals. He said they also have documented infanticide, where the young of a first time pregnant females die, and they are not sure why. The young are eaten. We move behind the group in the dappled light of the forest floor, until they stopped at a tree full of red colobus monkeys. Suddenly there was a lot of noise and movement around the tree, and I watched several of the male chimps look up at the monkeys and vocalized, positioning themselves into a large circle around the tree with colobus. Paul and Julian were on the other side of the tree. Showers of leaves rained down on us from the agitated and aggressive red colobus, which generally retain more males in the family group than black colobus, and thus are more inclined to defend or even attack a small group of chimpanzees. They were almost ready to attack by sending up the dominant males to grab one of the monkeys, but just at that moment a couple of guided

tourists appeared and the hunt was broken up. But there was more hooting and buttress slapping. While the troop continued to move, we held back for a few minutes. Looking at the top of the tree where the red colobus had been feeding, Vincent said that grey-cheeked mangabees we saw earlier also feed on new young leaves at the top of the canopy, and where new fruits ripen first. But here they are more exposed to birds of prey like the long crowned eagle we saw yesterday. Eagles fly through the canopy searching for prey, and snatch young adults or subadults before they can escape. Its an element of surprise and we had seen one scene where the presence of an eagle passing through close to a group of feeding mangabees sent females and males scattering down the tree trunks in rapidity.

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Pseuderanthemum ludovicianum, Platycerium elephantotis fern,

We got back on the discussion of chimpanzees and learned that they are strategic hunting red colobus. They approach and typically encircle while on the ground, a tree the colobus are in, then they move in for a quick attack while attempting to grab an individual. Once they capture a colobus, the males join in and pull its limbs apart, biting the monkey until it gives up. Vincent said its gruesome, and dominant males don’t share the meat with sub adults, but sometimes they will with females. The troop of chimpanzees move up on a hill, where we saw many nests created from previous days. Vincent noted that there is a hierarchy of nests with males sleeping the closest to the ground. We were interrupted with more hooting, buttress banging in pairs of thumps. Each chimp has a different style it develops for buttress banging. Some use a hand then a foot, others two handed banging, and still others a hand followed by a sweeping kick or front snap kick. Each chimp passing a buttress will not pass by without thumping it.

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For almost three hours in the afternoon, we observed the troop in the surrounding trees with both males and females feeding on leaves from a plant we still hadn’t ID'd. They moved around, sending shower. The males were always interacting, testing each other in dominance hierarchy, or a female passed by without being recognized and was out of sorts about it. A lone female gave out a wailing cry as though she was being attacked, and it was only because she was alone and ignored. There were so many intricate interactions I didn’t understand, and I was amazed at their acrobatics. While trying to photograph them in the canopy, two large males passed by silently right in front of me, only 10 feet away. Paul tried to alert me, but I didn’t hear him in time. Finally the entire chimpanzee troop came down out of the trees in a response to hooting and buttress thumping, and I caught two subadult males, one with a pink face, the other much older. I sat for quite some time while we watched their many different ways they communicate with each other. Julian was from England, and had spent a year here observing, and had seen chimps in Kibale use tools, especially the use of a leaf crumbled up into a ball, then dipped into a stream, a drinking sponge. The chimps would drink like this. She also described the arched handclasp. We also had seen a subadult male playing with a fruit or small piece of wood as though it was a toy.

Julian shared her many other interesting observations at Kanyawara, where she saw an 8-year-old male carry a log the size of an infant chimpanzee like a doll for 4 hours. She also witnessed the death of a 16-18 year old male fighting for his chance at a fruit tree. Chimps have been seen swallowing whole Aneilema leaves occasionally to self medicate, and only at dawn. The chimpanzee observations were over in 6 hours, and amazingly an experience I will never forget. But this also gave me a chance to witness to Julian about my faith in God’s design in nature, and to encourage a believing Ugandan guide, Vincent, who was tired of the entire evolutionary diatribe. Vincent was an

incredible man who loved God’s creation, but more importantly the creator. I enjoyed sharing with them and encouraging Vincent to not be shy about a divine designer. Returned that evening for a night walk in the forest, which was somewhat uneventful since I was the one who found only two nocturnal animals: bushbaby with large red-orange eye ring reflection from a flashlight, and a dwarf galago,

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with a narrow finger on each hand, pointed nose, and small eyes. I was only able to obtain brief views since both ran off quickly. Great dinner in camp of cream of tomato soup, roasted chicken, and potatoes with gravy. We certainly ate well. January 8, Monday 2001 Paul and I did the swamp walk in the morning to try and find more red colobus. We saw almost two groups immediately, but they were backlit by the sun. The are such amazingly powerful leapers, and seam to defy gravity. It was a lovely morning with the sun breaking over the trees, birdcalls awakening the new day: blue turaco, black headed oriole, black headed turaco, doves, cuckoos. We came across the farmers I had shared with the several days ago who are believers in Jesus. The men were hoeing in their field, mixing sand and a small amount of clay into the soil, preparing it for growing tomatoes. Passed several small streams where woven fish traps were just pulled out of the water. One older woman showed me the contents, small, sardine-sized fish (like small herring) that are probably very good to eat. Tracked above black colobus, and learned that they often feed with red colobus in the same tree. This wetland is an amazing place. We left the Kibale forests by 11:00AM and drove towards Queen Elizabeth Park heading south, with the foothills. Could see the Ruwenzari mountains to the west through a haze, and passed many villages filled with happy, friendly Ugandans. The people are blessed here, able to grow their own crops and feed themselves, in contrast to Gabon and Congo, where it is difficult to live off the land, clearing a patch of ground in the forest that will only sustain about a 2 year cycle of manioc and corn. But they supplement their diets with bushmeat. We dropped from the mountains into the grassland/acacia plains. Queen Elizabeth Park is a magnificent grassland and euphorbia shaped like giant, green candelabra’s, and a landscape of volcanic cinder cones. We stopped at the Mweya lodge overlooking the Kazingha channel at Lake Edward, and the south end of the Ruwenzari range to the northwest. Beautiful lodge there, and the wildlife within the surrounding grasslands include the Ugandan kob, waterbuck, elephant, bushbuck and warthog. We left by late afternoon to the kob mating area, where males establish territories that approximate 10 meters apart. They guard these vigorously for females. Amazing! Enjoyed a beautiful sunset in this beautiful place, a red ball sinking to the west, with kob and Cape buffalo surrounding us. Before we drove off, Emmanuel talked about a lone Cape buffalo that attacked two park guards in this area. The buffalo waited in the brush as they walked by, and charge and gored them, killing them both just last year. He said they are not as dangerous in a herd.

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Arrive at the Jacana lodge by late evening. Beautiful place set on the edge of a volcanic cinder cone and lake. The entrance was paved in stone, and the waiting area was set in stone and wood beams, and Persian carpets. Thankyou Lord for a bit of luxury and the beautiful bungalow I had, complete with wood interior and a real shower.

Ruwenzari range on the rift valley south of Kibale Forest, north of Queen Elizabeth Park

Ruwenzari Range, Impatiens bombycina flower, Impatiens congolensis, Impatiens stuhlmannii

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Ruwenzari Range Uganda

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Sunbird, Ruwenzari Turaco bottom: Ross Turaco, Ruwenzair Turaco

Top: striped Ruwenzori chameleon, Three-horned Chameleon male Kinyongia xenorhinae Nyakalengija Valley Bottom: Three-horned Chameleon male Nyakalengija Valley, Three-horned Chameleon male Nyakalengija Valley Ruwenzari