Our first stop in Uganda was the Kibale Forest National Park to see the chimpanzees. There are lots of chimpanzees living in the forest that have become habituated to humans. This is a process that can take many years and is achieved by researchers and other groups of humans spending time in their presence. Over time, the chimps become habituated to humans and are able to be tracked for tourists and also for research purposes. The habituation is also helpful for conservation purposes because as the chimps are comfortable with humans, they can be more accurately tracked and observed. For our purposes, it was great because we got to spend time with them and observe them just being chimps and doing chimp things!

The plan for our time in Uganda was to spend one day trekking to see chimps and two days with gorillas. Going into the trip, I was much more nervous about the chimps than the gorillas. Even though I knew the gorillas would be bigger, in my mind, the chimps would be more dangerous. We had guides with us the whole time who made sure we kept a safe distance and there was also an armed guide just in case things went really sideways. Obviously, that is an absolute last resort, but it did make me feel a little bit better!

We trekked through the forest a bit before we reached the chimps and even got a good scare when a chimp came running through the forest past us to meet up with the rest of the group we were trekking to! When we got to the chimps we had one hour with them. Once habituated, the time that humans spend with the chimps is limited to one hour per day so they can still live their wild lives and not become friendly with or dependent on humans. We used every minute of our hour just enjoying being so close to wild chimpanzees!

Mike took a couple of videos of two chimps interacting:

And I took loads of pictures!