Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Rainforest Trek

The handshakers dressed in the chilly darkness of the early morning, eager to make our way into the misty rainforest of Kibale National Park. As we ate our breakfast of porridge, assembled in a circle under the hut, everyone glanced up as the sounds of chimpanzee hoots rose up from the forest. Somewhere below us, a community of chimps were crawling groggily out of their night nests ready to begin foraging for fruits. It was exciting knowing that chimpanzee groups were so close.. and the prospect of seeing them in the wild today in Kibale! After a short hang up (Nox's battery died), we were on our way, passing through the tea plantations as the sun rose higher in the morning sky. We pulled into the rainforest and were again greeted by a troop of baboons lingering on the outskirts of the road. Nox pulled up under a few large avocado trees and we all filed out to begin our trek.

Our team was split up into groups of five and assigned a particular guide through the forest. Our guide, Harriet, was one of the few female rangers at Kibale and has been trekking the forest for 10 years. She was extremely knowledgeable about all the medicinal plants and trees (especially the aphrodisiacs!), the wide spectrum of wildlife and all the signs of their existence (animal tracks, dung, signs of feeding, traveling through etc....) within the rainforest.

As we followed the (surprisingly narrow) path that the elephants had taken, we discovered that the elephants found in Kibale are actually savannah elephants (as opposed to forest elephants). Prior to the 1970's, the elephants traveled freely through Kibale up to Sudan. However, due to human encroachment, around 600 elephants have become trapped within the forest. Savannah elephants are larger in size than forest elephants, but they clearly have adapted to the more dense surroundings of the rainforest. Farmers who have cultivated the land surrounding the rainforest, along with the Ugandan Wildlife Authority, have dug huge trenches to deter the elephants from wandering onto their property and destroying their crops. Elephants began to push the earth back to form bridges out of the forest, so now the farmers have turned to using guns to protect their livelihood.

We hiked alongside their enormous footprints embedded in the soggy earth and spotted an array of primates including black and white colobus, grey cheeked mangabey and red tailed and l'houest monkeys. (No chimpanzee sightings, but we did see a lot of their seed-filled dung!) All around us were trees with enormous buttresses that the chimps beat on to communicate with one another. A rainbow of butterflies fluttered through the shafts of light that slanted through the canopy. Dung beetles sat perched on their prizes and colorful birds called their distinct vocalizations as they streaked through the trees. Lying on the side of the trail were two large African snails in the process of mating. At first glance, their beautiful oblong twisting shells seemed oddly out of place in the middle of the rainforest, better suited for a beach somewhere. But all around us were other-worldly creatures, their lives intricately intertwined in this complex ecosystem.

A few days before I left for the Primate Handshake expedition, Oteil asked me if I knew what made a rainforest a rainforest (besides the obvious answer). I stumbled through my answer, vaguely recalling my Zoology courses in college and immediately went inside to look it up. Today, I was able to see firsthand that damp, verdant, magical place that so many exotic species call home. I am certain that no definitions or descriptions can do the Ugandan rainforest justice. I felt so privileged to have a peek inside such a mystical place on this planet.

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