Many years ago, I was a high-school student in Israel. Since I was a fluent English speaker I asked to be excused from English lessons. After a bit of a struggle with the English teacher I was allowed to skip English classes, on condition that I spent the free time widening my horizons in the school library. Luckily for me, someone had donated about 40 years of back issues of National Geographic Magazine to the library and in these I immersed myself. Between the secret lives of Salamanders and obscure tribes of far-flung regions I discovered Jane Goodal and her reports on  life with the Chimpanzees in Gombe Stream. So, when I started travelling around in Tanzania and saw offers of trips to visit this legendary place (now the smallest of the country’s National Parks) – resistance was futile. I had to go there.

On the way to Gombe

Gombe Stream is in the far North-West of Tanzania, on Lake Tanganyka, nowhere near any other popular safari destinations. Not many tourists go there – another larger park with bigger and better facilities attracts most of the would-be Chimp Trekkers.  So it takes some time to set this up, to find some partners to join me, share the costs and the adventure. But now it’s happening!

At the end of our South Tanzania trip (see previous post) while the others are still asleep at the Kunduchi Beach Hotel in Dar es Salaam, Claudia, Monique and I are on our way.  A taxi takes us through silent streets back to the airport for our early morning flight. The turbo-prop lands in Kigoma 2 hours later. Already from the air we can see we are in a different climate zone: it is green , green, green.  At the airport there is a rather strict security check – this is a frontier region: DRC and Burundi are both just a short hop across the lake and Kigoma has a reputation as a busy spot for all sorts of smugglers, refugees and exiled activists (Che Guevara set out from here to liberate  the Congo in the Sixties – unsuccessfully).

At the airport we are Met by Joshua from Gombe Trekking Safaris. I am all set to load our luggage in to his new SUV but he guides us instead to a rather beat-up old Toyota sedan and hands us over to James who will take us to Ujiji for the obligatory visit to the historical site of Livingston and Stanley’s meeting and then put us on a boat to Gombe.

Ujiji

The historical site is all you can ask: a very cute museum, a memorial under Mango trees (descendents of the original one under which the meeting took place) and, best of all, a charming old story-teller who recites the whole saga in a sing-song voice with suitable dramatic inflections.

“Dr.Livingstone I presume?”

Then it’s off to the busy port of Kigoma, where among the larger lake-boats a  nice little motor-launch awaits us.  After introductions to the crew and a brief  entanglement with a fishing-boat’s mooring we are out in open water and heading north along the coast.

I have been following the weather for a while (on the internet) and was worried as it seems to have been raining non-stop in Kigoma for the last month. As we cruise along  the lake the sun shines on  us as we pass by little fishing villages and overtake the larger, slower boats carrying cargo and passengers to Burundi and Congo.

After about two hours the landscape gets much wilder. We are nearing our destination. The forest reaches right down to the lake-shore and there are no more villages.  Here and there some Baboons enjoy a little beach party. It is green and lush and I can’t wait to explore. Clouds are building up and by the time  we arrive and dock at the park head-quarters, check in at the little guesthouse and sit down to a lunch of lake fish and rice, a tremendous thunderstorm hits. Our guide for the afternoon trek, Hussein, is unconcerned by the torrential downpour and asks us to be ready in about an hour.  He is pretty accurate – we only wait about 10 minutes to be sure it really has stopped raining before setting off in to the forest.

We head up the gentle slope of the valley bottom, following a large stream (I guess this is Gombe Stream itself?). Our first encounter is with a young man coming down the path looking rather grumpy – Hussein explains to us that this is the “boy” who keeps track of the Chimp’s location and that he is going for lunch, so we will have to find them on our own, though he has a location for where they last where. We head on up the valley and start to pick up faint distant hooting calls from somewhere  above us. We stop at the gushing waterfall and then it’s time to head up the steep slope to where the sounds are coming from. It is  very steep and the paths are not much more than muddy slopes going straight up the mountainside.  Monique in her sports shoes has a hard time, but we all take some spills; once in a while we hear the Chimps – closer and closer – as we struggle ever higher up through the tangled jungle.  This is hardcore stuff! Hussein leaves us to rest and tries to locate the group – we hear a branch crack in the other direction and discover a solitary Chimp in a tree – our first!

We are totally thrilled but Hussein when he joins us is unimpressed – the group are on the move and he wants us to follow them.  We surrender to his authority, bid the solitary Chimp farewell and climb on. Thankfully, the Chimps are now moving across the slope on a well made path, we see fresh droppings as we follow in their wake. However Monique needs a bit of a breather, so Claudia and I hurry ahead to try and catch up with the troop. We reach the cross path (where we are supposed to wait) and no Chimps – and then Claudia picks up some sound downslope – we investigate, and there they are. It’s been quite a chase but now we can just sit and hang out with the group of a dozen or so Chimps who seem to be in no rush to go anywhere.

It’s an Idyllic scene: Chimps on the leafy forest floor, on low hanging branches, playing, grooming, being very social and (mostly) gentle and loving with each other. Surrounded by the lush forest, chirps of insects and birds we just sit and watch, ignored by the apes (though some of the youngsters seem to give us an occasional wink as if to say: everything fine folks?).  It’s really perfect and well earned after our tough slog up the mountain.  Also ideal for photography/video but either we are too engrossed in watching or too pooped by the climb – we take some decent photos and I get some video when I think of it (see clip below) but not really anything mind-boggling.

Gombe Stream Chimpanzees from David Yekutiel on Vimeo.

Finally Hussein announces it’s time to go – we have a long climb down to the guest house before sundown. We set off and the Chimps pick up the idea and follow – dawdling behind the others, I have to jump out of the way as a long column comes along the path behind me: it’s their right of way!

At sunset Claudia and I have just enough time to change in to bathing suits and dive in to the lake to wash off the mud and sweat of the afternoon. The water is warm and sweet, crystal clear….

Paradise has to have a Serpent in it. Next morning I wander around before breakfast hoping to spot some rare birds ( the Green Twinspot is supposed to occur here). I am looking up at the trees and almost fail to see the bright green Bush Viper warming itself on the gravelly beach: very handsome, but not someone you want to step on!

A troop of Baboons keeps us entertained at breakfast and then we head off in to the park again. I have declared myself entirely satisfied with our Chimp encounter yesterday and mean to spend the morning birdwatching. However the Chimps have other ideas and Claudia (who joins me despite my warnings about the dullness of forest birding) and I keep running in to them.  Still I see some new birds and we take some time to simply enjoy the forest, butterflies etc. We even see a Chimp with a termite-fishing stick and come across the nest he has been pillaging – stripped leaves (from making the tool) and angry termites.

Too soon we head back to HQ, have a quick swim and lunch, wait for another thunderstorm to pass, and then it’s time for our boat trip back to Kigoma. On the way I look at my friend’s faces  – they look different. It has been a very short visit but this place has a powerful magic and it has worked on us, I am sure.