But first we have a stop in Queen Elizabeth National Park, directly west of Kampala and only 30 clicks from the Congo border. This Park is based on two large lakes, Lake Edward and Lake George, and the surrounding flat plains. I am relaibly told that the 'Big 5' inhabit this area but what we have come here for is to find a family of Chimpanzee's. This family migrated here through a 'corridor' that connected it to the ancestral homes of the main group of Chimps but in the late 70's this corridor was blocked off because of the ever expanding human settlements. The group that remained behind have now settled down in a lush ravine and have called it home. Because of the size of the group, only 24 Chimps, and the relative range that they move, I was really confident that we would find them. Our tour guide, was so sure. Off we went, down into the ravine, following animal trails (which we were told by the Ranger, were made by Elephant, Buffalo, Lions, Water Bucks and Hippo's: hence the gun he was carrying) in search of monkeys. Almost immediately we found the Black and White Colobus Monkey. Funny things, running and jumping through the trees as though they were on the ground. Really amazing to see it. We kept on walking and only 20 minutes later we came across the first Chimp, the male Boss of the group, just lazily eating leaves off of a branch, not really caring that we were watching him. After about 10 minutes, he decided to move on and we decided to follow. The Ranger asked everyone to halt but Audrey was a little curious, so she wandered into the scrub to see what she could see and came across a mother and a little one. I followed, and with the Ranger we crept through the undergrowth towards the river only to come face-to-face with Boss, not more than 4 metres away. Wow. As we where getting into position, we heard a large splash, a Hippo about 10m away, the Boss gave us a little charge (which the Ranger stopped) and just to the left of us was a green grass Snake. When you actually sit back and think about that, it's pretty impressive, if not a little dangerous as Hippo's cause the most deaths in Africa (large animal related). But because your adrenaline is pumping you never really consider it while you are there, you are just in the moment.
We watched the Chimps, there were 4, for about 30 minutes before we had to move on. It's not Gorilla's but it was needed after a few very boring days. And the best thing is that the Gorilla's are only 2 days away now.