Day 255 - 258 / 20 - 23

Date: 23 - 26 December 2022
Sleeping location: Leader’s Lodge, Kigoma, Tanzania, one night in Gombe National Park
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 0 / 15903 / 1066
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 0 / 136600 / 18600
Leader of the pack: Fudge
Day in three words: Wonderful Chimpmas time

The first morning I went out to run errands, and such revelations! Tanzanians are helpful, even if they don't speak English! They smile and make eye contact! It is such a relief after Burundi. I was worried it was me shutting myself off to Africa but it wasn't, and I feel much freer here. After more than 24 hours in Tanzania I realised that the clocks had gone forward an hour, which is a bonus as it means it’s light an hour later*.  At the information centre for the nearby Gombe and Mahale national parks I found out that two people were taking the boat to Gombe the next day and coming back exactly 24 hours later, which would cut costs massively for me because the boat and daily park fees are pretty expensive, so I decided to hop on that plan and go see some chimpanzees. I had been messaging two other cyclists who were also planning to be in Kigoma over Christmas and they decided to come to the same hotel as me, so all of a sudden I had two friends for Christmas. They are Charles and Anne-Claire from near Biarritz, they are friendly and nice and it’s good to meet people again. They are also keen on the Gombe idea and hop aboard as well.  We went out for dinner together and for dessert ordered the "Fresh fruit sallad", which is banana, pineapple, cucumber and carrot. They have such good ingredients here but they don't know what to do with them. 

In the morning I was almost late because I hugely underestimated how long it takes to cut up an enormous pineapple. On the boat we meet the "other two", Paula and Lotte from Germany who are doing their elective at a hospital in Moshi and took the (30hr) bus here for Christmas. The other boat passenger was a goat whose name and circumstances were unknown, other than it liked to eat crumbs from Paula's muffin. Stepping on to the boat I whacked my head so hard that it drew blood and I was in a bit of a daze for the rest of the day.  The boat was noisy and slow but the views were good, steep sided hills plunging into the lake, mostly unspoiled with the odd village along the way. After we enter the NP zone this turned to thick forest and we started to see animals; loads of monkeys with red heads, baboons, and some kind of lizard furiously swimming after the boat. Perhaps it is a Burundian child in disguise and it wants to come and ask me for money. The NP HQ was a small collection of buildings amongst the forest, right on the lakeshore, in a very beautiful setting. This area is where Jane Goodall did her pioneering research into the chimps, and this spot is where her camp was. Lunch at the onsite restaurant is for some reason not available so the five of us pool our resources of the aforementioned pineapple, spicy peanuts, bread, avocado and ginger biscuits for a strange smorgasbord.  

That afternoon we went out trekking with our guide Paolo, a sweet squat little man who is not built for the steep sweaty climb through the forest to where chimps were. They have trackers following them at all times, as the park is pretty small, plus researchers who follow them and make notes of interesting behaviour. The chimps are no longer where they were, so Paolo cups his hands, makes a "woo woo" sound and waits for a response; at first I thought he might be able to communicate with the chimps but it turns out he's calling the tracker, who doesn't have a radio. Eventually we get a response and follow it, and then hear the chimps for the first time. They make very stereotypical chimp noises. Our first glimpse of them was a group in a tree eating fruits. We were only tens of metres away so could see them pretty well, but whilst I was watching them a big male came down from the trees on the other side of the trail and just walked straight past me, less than a metre away. I was worried he would be intimated or aggressive but he barely even registers me. 

And then this is how it was for the rest of the afternoon; we followed the group as they moved around looking for food or water, and saw scattered parts of the larger group a few times. Often they were just metres away. They are not bothered by humans at all, though we have to hide our hiking sticks in case they see it as a display of dominance. In front of us they just did basic stuff like eating and shouting, but they are smart. We learned that one of them learned to disassemble banana traps to get the bananas, and one of them had lowly status until he realised that he could intimidate the others by banging kerosene cans, which allowed him to become the alpha. We also learned that the current alpha is called Fudge. On the way back we found a mother, baby and teen and followed them up the small "chimp" trail for a bit. This is a lovely end to the trekking, immediately followed by a swim in the lake back at the HQ. What a wonderful place this is. The five of us had Christmas eve dinner, though it is not quite up the standard of one at home, and celebrated with a bottle of something which just about qualified as wine. It is "proper Christmas" for the French and Germans so they go off to speak with loved ones and I sit by the lake and listen to the waves for a bit, content with my Christmas arrangements. 

On Christmas morning we set off on another trek with Paolo and this time the chimps were much closer. There were two other trekking groups out and initially it seemed like it might be too busy, but today the chimps were in relaxation mode rather than feeding mode and they were mainly just lying around in clearings, so there was plenty of space for everyone to just sit and watch. Some things about them are so human: their hands and the way they move them, their ears, their facial expressions, the young ones play around with things seemingly just for the hell of it, or because they are interested. The really small ones are constantly testing out their climbing skills on small bendy trees with a watchful mother nearby to offer help or advice (or grabbing them by the leg when they go up the "wrong" tree). We left the other humans to head back towards the HQ but Paolo heard some chimps nearby and we bushwhacked up towards them. There was a group of about ten relaxing, grooming and playing and we watched them for around fifteen minutes before we had to say goodbye and head back for our boat. The whole experience was incredible, to see them so close for so long. 

After taking the boat back to town we had Christmas lunch together (beef and rice, eaten with fingers) then said goodbye to Lotte and Paula, who were a good addition to the Chimpmas experience, and spent the rest of the day relaxing around the hotel. I’d been planing to leave on Boxing Day but as Charles and Anne-Claire were heading in the same direction a day later I decided to delay and go with them.

Boxing Day morning consisted of endless rain and cups of tea, just like it often does back in Britain. After it cleared I went out for a haircut, during which the barber only used clippers, erratically, and I think he smelled of gin, but a haircut is a haircut and it was only 80p. Then the Boxing Day tradition of seeing a former First World War German gunship, this year the MV Liemba, which has been in use as a passenger ferry (when not broken, as it often is and currently was) since it was repurposed in the 1920s. We had to pay a nominal bribe to the security staff at the port but were then shown around by a pleasant young man who sleeps on and looks after the ship. There was a disappointing lack of Imperial German Navy regalia but it was still an interesting experience. All in all an excellent few days in Kigoma. 

*Yes I know that the total amount of daylight is the same, but getting up at 7 to catch it all is somehow much more palatable than getting up at 6