I wouldn’t call us morning people. We are barely mid-morning people. So when we are voluntarily getting up at 4:00am, you know it must be for a very good reason. Today we get to see some chimpanzees! Yep. Totally worth it.

We drive for two hours as the sun is rising and the locals are making their way to work, to the field, to school. Our roads get significantly smaller and more treacherous as we make our way into the jungle area. We pass dozens of small villages, farmlands, plantations and very rural areas. The villages here have a different vibe than those off the main highway.

We arrive at the Cyamudongo Community Center where we will start our trek on foot. Two other Canadians will be joining our small group. Felix, the park ranger and our guide, gives us a quick briefing and makes it very clear that we only have an 80% chance of seeing the chimps. Sometimes, they are just too far into the jungle, off the pathway, that we can’t get to them. We are all okay with those odds.

We walk down…down…down on a very muddy and slippery slope. I am very grateful that we brought our walking poles! Felix is extremely fast in his rubber boots; we are struggling to stay upright in our grippy hikers. Wait – is that? Yes, yes it is! Chimpanzee poop! And wait? Do you hear that? Chimpanzees calling out to each other! Ooooohhhh!! These are two very good signs!

After about 50 minutes of fast walking, we catch up to one of the trackers and he points to a chimp in a tree very far away. Even with our binoculars, the chimp was very far away. It didn’t stop us from staring at him for 10 minutes. We were all in awe.

So imagine our delight when this 25 year old chimp came down from his tree and got onto our path about 15 meters in front of us. Squeee!!! We follow him, at a very safe distance, and then he just stopped. On the path. Right in front of us. I guess it was a good spot to do some grooming, stretching, yawning, pondering, and nose picking. It was amazing to watch. And watch we did. For at least 15 minutes. He rolled over, stared at us, scratched and yawned. He didn’t care about us being there at all. It was awesome.

You could hear his community calling out to him, so eventually he decided to listen and got up to join them. Of course we followed! We came upon the whole group within minutes. Lucky for us, they were right beside the path so we got to see them up close and personal.

There were two males sitting by a tree grooming each other, a female was climbing a tree to avoid two others that were chasing her while shrieking. There were others just calmly watching the world go by. We watched them for as long as we could, but eventually, they got bored and moved on.

We weren’t able to follow them because they went deep into the jungle. How lucky were we that we came upon them when we did?! If we had been 15 minutes later, we would have missed them completely.

And just like that, our chimpanzee trek is over. Wow. I can’t seem to stop saying this, but what an experience. It was time to hike back up the hill (mountain???) and it was a hot, sticky and sweaty climb. But with the memories of those chimps fresh in our minds, we were easily distracted from the pain of the climb.

100% recommend.