Stephen Chaitoff, Daniel & Roger Pomerantz, Cathy Colt and Hope Koncal in Kyambora.

Only 40k from Mweya, Kyambora is a world onto itself. It stretches 21 km into the Kazinga Channel and is at no point more than about 200m wide and often much less, but about 150-200m deep. A stream runs through the bottom into the channel.

The surrounding plateau is typical QENP bush: grasslands with acacia and other trees. But once inside the gorge, the world changes completely. There are rain forest trees like podacoporus which tower above the plateau ceiling, many giant ferns and several types of palms.

It is like suddenly stepping out of one world into a completely different one.

Thirty chimps live in this rather confined area, and there are problems with the gene pool getting too inbred. Recently this has been exacerbated by an unusually high frequency of male babies.

Without too much trouble we all saw Brutus and Hatari, and some of us saw the indiscreet female who had broken the normal rule of not mating until your child is off your back, and who as a result carried a 4-year old on her back and an infant at her breast!

We found the small group of chimps after hardly a ten minute walk once at the gorge bottom. So we decided to continue on the elephant trail just to see more of this beautiful forest. We passed one cycad, the dinosaur of the rain forest, and a multitude of other palms and giant figs. The tinker birds and greenbuls never stopped calling, and every once in a while a huge black-and-white casked hornbill would fly through an opening in the forest looking like a 747.

Kyambora Gorge

We then ascended the gorge and our guide switched the 7 of us for the other 6 in our group. We learned that as soon as they had descended to the pool, Brutus and Hatari were there waiting to greet them!

The two sneaks had followed us on our walk, absolutely quieter than they usually are! So it wasn’t just we humans walking through the looking glass curious to see the magical creatures on the other side, it was so the magical creatures could observe us!

The experience is not as intense with the chimps as at Kibale, and it’s not intended to be. This is an unusual group in an unusual space, and it was beautiful just to see!

Cleveland Zoo Director, Steve Taylor, with wife, Sarah, watching chimps in Kibale.

The majority of us trekked today, waiting for longer than we expected at park headquarters, for the trek which began around 11 a.m. Aston was our guide, one of the better; he’s been there since 1991.

My first trek in Kibale was in 1995. I’ve trekked three times since and to see the difference is incredible.

It’s quite easy, today. We walked out of the back of the park headquarters down a gorgeous trail filled with magical plants and wondrous butterflies and amazing trees. Less than 20 minutes later we could hear the chimps screaming and a few minutes after that, we were amongst them.

An ordinary trek takes a total of several hours, of which the majority of that time is actually with the chimps. Our family of 30 stayed with us for nearly 70 minutes.

Aston identified many of the individuals, including an old “retired” male, the second and third males in command, and we watched several mothers with babies. In fact we watched one of the mothers making herself a day nest, with the little kid pulling giant leaves around in an obvious and hillarious mimic.

The crazy vocalization of chimps that most everyone would recognize is accentuated in the forest. This is IMA sound and was truly exciting.

Aston would locate a good viewing spot and position us, and then after a while or when the chimps moved, we would, too. But we never moved very much except the one time that Aston screamed, “Run! Run!”

I looked about me to see if some aberrant chimp was descending on us, but in fact it was that we had wondered into a collection of safari ants. Most of us got out with only a few bites, but Hope Koncal spent a long time picking them off.

Aston explained that there are currently 1,140 chimps identified in the park, of which 120 are fully habituated. The habituation process takes a full 5 years, much longer than with mountain gorillas, although they do start bringing in visitors after three years.

You’d never know they once may have run from us, or thrown things at us, or charged us! I really felt it was only the younger ones who had any interest in us at all.

And we encountered many beautiful birds that seemed to sing constantly: the yellow-rumped and spectacled tinkerbirds, several greenbuls and the loud and piercing croaks of the black-and-white casqued hornbill.

Together with the forest setting, those absolutely magnificent trees that seemed to tower into the stratosphere, it was absolutely a day to remember!