Early the next morning we boarded a tiny single prop plane for Mahale. This was a highlight of Tanzania for Val as it is one of the few places where you can go on a chimpanzee trek to see chimps in the wild. Val was slightly nervous about the flight but James our pilot assured us everyone would be in good hands. He then told us not to be alarmed when we hear a voice from the flight deck say "Warning! Warning! Nose up! Land mass ahead!" It´s only a test warning because it´s a new aircraft, he assured calmly, not to worry at all. Indeed the aircraft still had that new plane smell so we settled into our seats for the 3.5 hour flight. As we were making our descent, that unsettling mechanical voice did indeed herald its warning and quite loudly too. It was good that James did warn us in advance.
The airstrip in Mahale was just a grass field right on the edge of Lake Tanganika, the longest freshwater lake and the second deepest lake in the world. On a clear day, one can see the mountains of the Congo on the other side. We were all curious if they ever got any refugees coming across the lake into Tanzania but were told that the border patrol in the middle of the lake is quite effective. We were also told that occasionally, they saw fireworks of artillery shells going off across the lake. Yikes. Surreal how there can be a deadly conflict going on just on the other side of this otherwise peaceful body of water.
We were met at the airstrip by some staff from the Greystoke Camp. We boarded the boat where lunch awaited us and sailed about an hour to get to camp. There were five of us heading to camp and only 5 of us for the entire 4 days. It´s a good thing we all got along. There was Pip and George honeymooning from New Zealand, Ariana - a Kenyan born safari tour operator out there on "research", and Los Dos Chamorros.
Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Mahale is paradise. Very very remote paradise.
When we neared Greystoke, there were about 15 staff members on the beach waving hello, waiting to greet us. Among them were Magdalena who runs the camp with Doug her husband, and Patience, the new chef. Magdalena and Patience showed us to our bungalow and made sure we knew every nook and cranny of our new home and how to use everything. For instance, the footbath at the stairs to the bungalow is where you can wash the sand off your feet before entering but don´t be surprised if you find a warthog or a leopard drinking from it late in the night. Ok, we´ll keep that in mind. The lake is great for swimming and is very very safe and clean, Magdalena said, but try not to swim after dark as there can be hippos and crocs in there. Otherwise, her three year old daughter swims there every day, it´s perfectly safe. OK, we´ll keep that in mind too. And aside from a couple of rules like meeting every evening at 7 at the bar for cocktails and 8 for dinner in "mess" (what they call the dining hall), we were asked to enjoy ourselves. From what we could see, there wasn´t going to be enough time to do all of the things that we wanted to, it was better that we got cracking immediately. After we finished shrieking about how insanely cool our bungalow was and taking a million photos like we´ve never seen anything cool before, we met at mess to be briefed about our next 4 days. It was exciting to find out that Magdalena worked for many years in Gombe National Park (not far north of Mahale) with Dr. Jane Goodall, a pioneer of chimpanzee research.
Very disappointed to find out that we only had a one hour maximum viewing time with the chimps each day. We assumed that we could watch them for as long as we wanted, pretending to be primate researchers. There are several reasons why: the most obvious one is that although this group of chimps is more used to seeing people, they are still wild and we do not want to take advantage of the time we have with them. This is not a zoo. As it is, there is a group of Japanese researchers that follows and watches them every day. The other very important reason is that chimpanzees share 98% of our DNA. They are the closest relatives to man, meaning they can also contract our diseases and this can be quite dangerous for them. So not only do we have a time limit, we also have to maintain a 10 meter distance from them and wear a face mask in their presence. Since it was rather late already, we did not have a chance to view the chimps that day but went on a hike anyway, then met for cocktails at the bar, then had a delicious dinner altogether, the 6 of us guests, Magdalena, Doug and Patience. It was like we were at a dinner party at their house. We all got to know one another and ended the evening with wine and port and other nightcaps around the campfire.
Unfortunately our next few days in Mahale were quite rainy. This meant that the chimps were not only harder to find, but if we did find them, wé were all going to be quite soggy as well. This is how the trek happens: every morning at 6, the Greystoke trackers radio the Japanese researchers to ask where they last saw the chimps the evening before. As chimps tend to sleep in (til about 9), the trackers have a 3 hour head start on them. They hike into the mountains and radio back to camp when they have located them. We start our hike at around 9 or 10 and keep in contact with the trackers until we have found them.
That first day we were introduced to our head guide, Mr. Muhamedi. He looked to be about 70 but was probably 110 and still in amazing shape. He is from one of the original tribes that inhabited these mountains before it became a national park. Mr. Muhamedi is also a medicine man, with an extensive knowledge of every leaf, fruit and seed in the forest and their medicinal properties. Our group of 5 and another guide, Tolluh, followed Mr. Muhamedi in single file into the forest with an occasional hack from Mr. Muhamedi´s macheti at low lying branches and out of place tree roots. We hiked for at least 2 to 3 hours before we started hearing the sounds of the chimps hooting and calling. Very very exciting. But because the chimps happened to be in a very densely forested area, we had to wait at least another hour to see if they would move into the open. They seemed to be heading towards the river, and the trackers were afraid that if they crossed the river, we would not be able to follow them as there are no trails on the other side and who knows when they will return. So we waited anxiously and finally decided to make the trek into the dense forest to see them anyway. There was much more machete hacking and branch cracking and by now it had started to pour. We finally reached a small clearing where when we arrived, a male chimp was displaying some aggresive behavior, we weren´t sure if it was meant for us or if we happened to show up when he was already in mid-display. He appeared to be charging towards us, screaming at the top of his lungs. Our guide Tolluh extended his arm in front of the group like a protective father shielding his children. But the chimp stopped short. Whew. We saw a female chimp up in a tree, a twig in her hand using it to draw ants out of a hole so she could eat them.
We moved farther along and saw a mother and her young baby, (all of these chimps have names but I've forgotten what they are) but because of the rain, they continued to move deeper into the forest. We followed them through increasingly dense brush, a lot more hacking and breaking and by now we were completely soaked in spite of our raincoats. After about an hour or more of insanely dense brush and what seemed like walking in a huge futile circle, we started our descent to camp. All in all we had about 20 minutes with the chimps and as it turned out, the last time we would see them again.
The next couple of days we were rained out and the chimps could not be located and the trackers believed that they had crossed the river. We hiked up each day in spite of that information, investing hours of hiking there and back hoping for that small chance that we might find them. No luck. Oh well. They are, after all, wild.
Aside from chimp treking, we also did some fishing one day where we caught a special fish that was served as sashimi that evening. DELICIOUS. We also went snorkling for mussles (you find them sticking out of the sand and just pull them up) which we had that evening baked in cheese and white wine in their shells.
Before we knew it, our time on Mahale was up and we were back on the boat that took us an hour back to the airstrip. Our time in Africa was also almost up. In a couple of days, we would fly to South America to explore an entirely different continent.
For photos of Mahale, please go to:
http://flickr.com/photos/31967627@N00/sets/72157594448276098/
