We enjoyed our morning tea wake up call right outside our tent. This morning we had breakfast in the Pavilion then we prepared our luggage to be transported by vehicle from Buhoma where we have been to Nkuringo, which is on the other side of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. It takes 5 1/2 hours by vehicle on the road, only parts of which were tarmac, because there is no road for cars through the park therefore they had to drive all the way around the park boundaries. Hillary, Sam, Stephen, and the two of us decided to walk through the park instead.
First we all went to the UWA Main Bwindi Park Ranger Office and met the Chief Ranger, Minister of Tourism: Godfrey, Minister of Conservation and the accountant. We had a great discussion ranging from sizes of gorilla groups to discussing recent wildfires to comparing tourism tactics of different African countries.
In the forest road there is a split, one way goes to Nteko and the other straight to Nkuringo. We decided that we were going to walk to Nteko and then take a car to Nkuringo because it takes half the time and does not climb a steep mountain.
It took us three and a half hours to walk from Buhoma to Nteko, but it was beautiful! We walked through the lush green rainforest and were accompanied by the sounds of happily chirping birds. There was a large river that we had to cross using a bridge made of three large logs, the river is the park boundary, so once we crossed the bridge we were on community land. While climbing up a fairly steep section, the weather shifted and we got a true rainforest downpour. Finally we made it to the camp site, but since we were at such a high elevation, the temperature was much lower than we had been used to. We sat around the fire they used to boil water in order to heat ourselves and dry our shoes.
We had a nice dinner and met the other guests staying at the camp. After dinner we all shifted back to the fire because some of the guests were roasting a chicken they had gotten in town. There was a girl from the Peace Corp, a girl from England, a man from Scotland on a British version of Peace corp, a tourist from India and a Primatologist named Michelle Goldsmith. We talked with all of them, but it was very exciting to meet Michelle because she knew Dr. Gladys and Dr. Vavra.
It was a late night sitting around the fire enjoying ourselves, but we truly enjoyed ourselves!
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