Sunday, June 14 2019 Chimpanzee habituation, drive into Rwanda

This is written as I sit on the deck of my cabin watching several black & white colobus monkeys in the tree across from me. Up at 4:30, breakfast at 5, left with Male, my driver, at 5:40. (Horrible road most of the way.) Reached the national park about 6:30, signed in, met the guide and one other tourist, Chrsty (we later met 3 or 4 of the “Chimpanzee Trek”) groups. Set out hiking in the dawn light, lovely bird song, no sign of chimps for a couple of hours. Then while we were taking arrest and listen break I walked up the road a ways to pee, and heard noises from a tree a ways farther on. Called to the guide, who confirmed it; we walked on up, circled the tree, finally spotted 3 adults and a juvenile way up near the top. (I’m so proud of myself – usually I’m the last to see or hear an animal.) We watched for a half hour, took several photos (which I’m sure I will delete now). I thought, “well if all we see is chimps high in the trees, that will be a pretty successful day.” Then they started down to the ground. They lay down near us to rest; we watched them for a total of close to 2 hours, then the guide suggested we look for other groups so we set off. We ended up seeing several groups, I was able to record two segments of chimp cries, we watched one other group for close to an hour, about 10 meters distance. Probably walked 8 or 9 miles during the day. We encountered 4 or 5 groups of the other type, the “Chimp Trek,” which starts later, does less walking (the drive to where the animals were last spotted) and all have at least 6 people; one had 8. Chrysty remarked to me that she was really glad we were on this group and I heartily agreed. Same effect as seeing the animals in Botswana: I don’t know if I can watch chimps in a zoo again. When they are in their natural habitat, free to do anything, go anywhere, they are vastly more interesting. Our job was supposedly to help the animals get used to humans so they are less likely either to flee or fight – but most of the ones we encountered were pretty tame. Only a handful kept moving away from us when we would try to get an interesting picture (but even they didn’t exactly run away. Amble away is more like it.) I had traditional local cooking last night – mashed up boiled green banana, a kind of pasty concoction of , a peanut sauce that made the other dishes a bit less bland, and goat stew (tasty but very chewy). I can see why cuisine from this region has never made the big time. Right now I’m eating a jack fruit Male got for me at a roadside stand yesterday – it is also on the bland side (a squirt of lemon juice would work wonders for it. It is subtle, very slightly citrusy; one could learn to like it I think. June 18 first gorilla trek Background: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park was established about 30 years ago. It was plagued by poaching for some time but that seems to have been brought under control. It is now home to over 400 mountain gorillas, in families of 8-16 usually (but one is smaller for reasons I will explain.) The terrain is very steep and densely forested; the occasional clearing is dense with shrubbery and cane 4-6 feet high, including nettles and at least a couple of thorn-bearing shrubs (why they recommend leather gloves). The park also host forest elephants, who tromp wide “trails” through the forest and clearings – the reason for armed guards (to frighten, not kill). Gorillas are vegetarian with the exception of occasional termites; they eat leaves, branches, and fruits, sometimes climbing clear to the top of fig trees for the ripening figs. When I was there the forest was lush with nettles and a kind of cane the animals love; they spent most of the time we were watching them stuffing food into their mouths as fast as possible, then napping or (the juveniles) playing. They are rarely aggressive toward humans or indeed to anything other than other gorillas: The males fight over status and over control over groups of females. Once a male becomes the dominant member of the group, its fur turns grey, which is why they are called silverbacks. They are usually considerably larger than the females. The second status male in a group is called a “blackback.” Gorillas are susceptible to human diseases: We were cautioned not to cough or sneeze in their direction, to urinate on the ground not on vegetation, and if we needed to defecate to allow the guide to dig a deep hole first. A tourist with even a serious cold would not be allowed to go on a trek at all. Other warnings: We were not to eat, drink, or smoke in the presence of the animals. Generally we were to maintain about 7 meters distance although, in practice, when the gorillas were completely engrossed in eating or napping we were allows as close as 3 meters. If a gorilla approached we were to back slowly away but definitely not run; if very close, we were simply to freeze and stand perfectly still. On my second trek one passed very close to me, ignoring me as if I were a stump or rock. It was both bizarre and thrilling. A permit to spend an hour with these marvelous beasts is quite expensive - $600 in Uganda, $1000 in Rwanda. 20% of this goes to the local community; this, plus the fees and tips for guides, porters, and other park staff helps maintain community support for the park and for preserving the animals. The rest goes to park maintenance and to general infrastructure. In my view the park was in quite good shape. We met at the park headquarters, where we watched some traditional dances from various tribes in Uganda, then Gad, one of the guides, talked to us about the history of the park and about the dos and don’ts of gorilla watching (mainly, don’t get too close, don’t come at all if you’re sick, don’t eat in front of them). I was assigned to his group, along with seven other pretty fit people (because this group was going to visit a gorilla family last spotted high up the mountain, probably requiring several hours of hiking). I was worried about the 8 person group size (but as it turned out it really wasn’t a problem.) Tourist groups are allowed just one hour with the gorilla family, in order to minimize stress on the animals. Gad talked us all into hiring porters, because it provides employment – hence support in the community for preservation. I didn’t really need one; my pack isn’t heavy, and when I’m carrying it I scarcely notice it. However, I was glad I hired him, because I was able to hand my trekking poles to him and not worry about them while I took pictures. So we drove for 40 minutes over the pretty ugly roads (think secondary forest service roads) up the mountain, climbing the side of a beautiful valley. Uganda is generally very beautiful – very green, lots of tea plantations as well as banana and other fruit. As we neared the turnoff, the trackers stopped Gad’s vehicle and talked a few minutes; we ended up going to a different trail than planned, because during the night the family assigned us had started moving down the mountain. We got out, milled around a bit, met our porters and handed them our packs, and started single file into the woods. In addition to the guide, 8 tourists and 7 porters there were two guards armed with rifles – the park has a large population of forest elephants, which are often aggressive; the guards carry rifles to fire into the air to frighten dangerous animals off. “Fit group” indeed: we encountered the first two members of the family less than 20 minutes out; I doubt we hiked even 2 miles total. The viewing itself is… almost literally breath-taking. We watched the first two grazing on leaves and stems for a while, then went farther down the hill toward where two females, the silverback, and two immature males were – along with two 2 year olds, equivalent to a human 4 or 5 year old. The location was far from ideal – a mixture of several bushes and very small trees, some black-berry like vines, etc. But some of the bushes are what the animals love to eat, so that’s where you’ll often find them. The guide and the two guards whacked and stomped paths in the direction of the gorillas, and as they grazed their way through the shrubbery they wallowed down paths. We were allowed to approach much closer to the animals than I thought: At times I was within 6 or 8 feet of one or two. They seemed to totally ignore us. At first they each picked a bush, sat down in front of it and ripped off leaves and canes, stuffing them in as fast as they could. That was interesting enough, but then one lay down on his back and started “eating in bed.” The babies ate for a while then started playing. One climbed a tree, ate for a while at the top, then began a slow fall to the ground: I was lucky and caught most of that on video. Unfortunately the file seems to be too big to e-mail, since it’s been rejected twice. Maybe when I’m back in the U.S. I also got a video of the two babies fighting, rolling back and forth on the ground like a couple of human first graders. The experience was all I hoped it would be, and the hour went much too quickly – the guide almost had to send the guards to round us up when it was time to go. Part of the reason is that the kids started getting very playful just as the hour was ending. As with the chimps the other day, this experience has probably on both nature shows and movies and seeing primates in a zoo. Nature shows and movies tend to pick up on idealized and exaggerated activities and behaviors, and the behavior I observed in the wild is so different from anything I’ve ever seen in a zoo that you could almost believe they are different species. Fortunately I have one more hour tomorrow morning. Second Gorilla Trek This trek started out with a more satisfying hike, probably a couple of miles. 1.5 hours, but we went pretty slow both ways. This time there were only four adults – three females and the silverback, plus 3 month old infant. Because there was only one group of animals, and because they had nestled down in a thick brambly area next to a large fallen log, there were only a couple of spots from which you could get a decent line of sight (and take pictures) at any one time; it changed a little as the animals moved, but they didn’t move much. As a result, the large group (8 tourists) was much more of a problem – for this small a gorilla family they really should have kept the group size down, maybe 4 people. Otherwise is pretty interesting; unlike yesterday, it was easy to get a really good view of the silverback, who was badly injured in a fight recently – lost some fingers, huge gash on neck and shoulder. He survived, but lost half his harem, and is so badly weakened that it would be easy for an aggressive younger male to finish him next time. He didn’t move much while we watched, and indeed acted weak and sick. The group size was mainly a problem for seeing the infant, who was down between mother and silverback from soon after we arrived until only a few minutes before our hour was up – at any one time there was only a very narrow line of sight to him. I did manage to get a few photos. Also interestingly, near the end a couple of the females came up right next to where 3 of us were standing, and crawled off into a cave-like gap in the undergrowth where they embraced each other and made crooning noises; guide said it was a kind of yearning for the silverback to recuperate and copulate with them again. Later both of them ended walking back through the three of us; had I cared (and dared) to I could easily have petted one as it walked by – totally ignoring us, as if we were stumps or something. I was really glad I went twice, since the two experiences were quite different. This whole part of the trip has been very satisfying. I feel that I understand what I’ve read about both chimps and gorillas much better than I did before. June 21 The drive over into Rwanda yesterday was lovely, although the haze in the air limited the view. Crossing the border into Rwanda is particularly interesting. I think they’re freaked out both by the ebola epidemic in the Congo and by the attendant refugee crisis. So Male stopped the truck 50 feet short of the double gates at the border, and instructed me to visit the immigration office on the Uganda side. There I had to submit my passport to 2 individuals, each of whom separately questioned me then stamped my visa. After that I walked the 50 feet to the gate, passed through, went to a UN health agency tent on the left, where a young woman dressed in scrubs sprayed my hands with disinfectant soap, directed me to rinse them, while a computer readout announced my temperature, then sprayed a Clorox-smelling substance on my hands, then directed me to the police unit next to her. The police woman asked me some questions, scrutinized my passport, and directed me across the street to their immigration office. More questions, more stamps on my passport, and wait for Male, who is busy filling out his own paperwork. Finally the gate opened, he drove through and parked next to the police station, where I was directed to put my luggage on a table and open it. The policewoman rifled through it a bit, then sent us (finally) along our way. This whole time one other tourist vehicle, 4 locals on bicycles, and one pedestrian passed through. Heavy traffic indeed. For the golden monkeys, we started at the national park HQ, where over 30 people met a guide… my heart sank. Fortunately another guide came up and they split the group – but there were still 17 in the group I was assigned to. As I feared, that was way too many, especially in the dense brush, some up to 10 feet high; we kept getting in each other’s way, much worse than the second gorilla trek, although after a half hour the guide and trackers managed to find enough smaller monkey clusters to divide us up into almost reasonable-size subgroups. Before that happened, though, I almost got into it with a couple from New Zealand. It also helped when some of the monkeys came down out of the dense foliage in the tree-tops closer to the ground. From the negative to the positive: The monkeys are beautiful, active, with interesting behaviors. A high point for me with my interest in grooming: I caught 2 or 3 videos of two females grooming each other on a branch 12 feet from me, maybe 8 feet above the ground. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the golden monkeys but I’m not sure I’d recommend going to quite such lengths to see them – a full day driving there, a full day for one hour with the monkeys and the drive to Kigale, and then a full day’s flight tomorrow to Zambia. To be fair, getting to Zambia from Uganda might have taken most of a day as well. However, aside from the huge tour group size, I’d recommend it to anyone who is planning to be in that part of Rwanda for other tours.   A few words about this area. It’s almost all mountains, most (aside from the national parks) covered with fields nearly to the top – incredibly steep fields of tea, beans, corn, sorghum, bananas, yams, and closer to the national park itself, potatoes. Small villages string out along the roads – the main roads well paved but most of the roads dirt / gravel, badly eroded and very rough. Buildings are mostly dilapidated; half the population is dirt poor. I saw several women employed sweeping eucalyptus leaves off the graveled road shoulder – I shudder to think what they are probably paid. Everywhere you see people pushing bicycles, piled precariously high with stacks of potatoes or onions, bunches of bananas, sawn planks (they saw the logs into planks where they are cut) and other loads. The bicycle freight people work all day long, load after load, for the brokers who buy from producers and sell to consumers. We saw many women with infants strapped to their backs working in the 20 degree slope fields or carrying what looked to be nearly 100 pound loads on their heads. Horridly hard work – but it’s (barely) a living. About 2/3 of the kids up to age 8 or 9 wave and call hello enthusiastically as we pass. I’ve seen only one beggar (an old drunk who hit Male up for drink money) but the slightest show of interest opens the door to being hustled to buy this, that, or the other. A positive note; several NGOs (I was particularly impressed with one named, I think, Rescue The Women – I will check it out when I get home and contribute something) are working on training women and children in money-earning skills, including weaving baskets and carving the wood statues, bowls, masks, and walking sticks tourists will buy. I have some pictures of one of the craft schools. Saturday, June 22 Beginning of a long day. Security at the Kigali airport is really tight – they check both cars and people driving in, then do a regular security check on the way to the gate. The security guy looked askance at my Kind bars (maybe he thought they were laced with drugs or something…) Anyway, this is a chance to catch up with sorting and deleting photos, and cutting a few really good ones down for e-mailing. The hotel did a poor job with my GF breakfast; in spite of a long discussion last night, it had pancakes, a muffin, coffee cake, and granola (which often has wheat in it, alas). There was a banana and very small container of yogurt; I gave the rest to Male, who hadn’t had breakfast yet. Glad I brought all those Kind bars! End of a long day – ended better than it began, with a night game drive: male lion, several hippos grazing, a mongoose, followed by an excellent dinner. A hippo is snorting right outside my door right now – we saw it grazing on the lawn as I was being escorted to my room (no walking outdoors alone at night!) They have internet here at Mfume Lodge, the main lodge, but I won’t have access again for a week. I’ll send this before breakfast tomorrow and that will be it until I’m on the way home.   Weaver birds There are several species of these birds in Africa, not all as beautiful as these. All of them have pretty songs, however. They weave hanging nests of whatever fibers are locally available, usually long grasses, like these. The opening is always at the bottom, to render it less vulnerable to predators. The birds build their nests in colonies, sometimes all hanging from branches of the same tree (in Namibia trees are sparse; I saw one single tree with hundreds of birds clustering around it. In Rwanda trees are more abundant; as you can see in the picture nests hang from branches of several trees as well as from palm fronds.) Statue made of bamboo strips in a park where they celebrate the mountain gorilla. One of the volcanos in the background.   Grooming This behavior is common to virtually all social primates and many other social species. Many primates live in large groups and have complex social relationships, both horizontal and hierarchical. Grooming plays an important part in managing these complex social structures. At a purely functional level, grooming consists of picking parasites off the other animal’s skin as well as removing burrs. But touch itself is very powerful in other animals, as it is in humans. Grooming tends to release endorphins (hormones that reduce tension and create a pleasant, relaxed feeling that is very pleasurable), so grooming helps both create and strengthen bonds of affiliation (friendship and mutual support). But grooming also helps manage hierarchies: When conflict breaks out within a group, the winner often grooms the loser, helping to reduce stress and animosity. Primates in species with complex hierarchical social structures often spend as much as 90% of their waking time when they are not eating grooming and being groomed; that’s how important it is. Note that touch is also a powerful force in human relationships – when nurses touch patients frequently, healing is faster and complications fewer; children who are not touched, held, hugged, etc. frequently by caregivers and others almost always develop psychological disorders. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar claims that human language may have developed at least in part as a way to supplement and extend grooming: In his research 65% of all conversation is about relationships (not about “getting the business done”). Language triples one’s ability to maintain social relationships: you can talk with and “give strokes” to three people at once, but usually only engage in affectionate touch with one at a time. So, according to Dunbar, language allowed humans to triple the size of our primary social contacts, from around 60 to nearly 200. (However, the chimpanzee groups in Bwindi National Park total about 120 each, organized in smaller family groups as small as 4-8 and as large as 20 or so.) I got videos of grooming among chimps (it was hard to get good footage because of the relatively dense foliage) as well as some excellent video of both baboons and golden monkeys grooming.