Finally Found Chimpanzees deep in the Jungle of Tanzania S7 EP.44 | Pakistan to South Africa
What are these two up to? They don't seem to stop any time soon. And they have got us their tail. Morning. How are you? Hello. How are you? Welcome. Thank you. Are you ready? Yes.
Assalam Alekum Everyone. And welcome back to the channel from Kigoma, Tanzania. We had a rather early start to our day here. I was up and ready by 5.30 am. It's 6.30 am now and we are standing at the shores of Lake Tanganyika.
You can see the boat behind me. Where did it go?? Yes there it is. We'll have a 2 hour ride across Lake Tanganyika. We'll be visiting Gombe National Park which is famous for chimpanzees. I consider myself lucky to be able to show you a lot of wildlife in this tour.
Especially the animals and national parks that I always wanted to visit. I visited all those places and also shared them with you. Today, we'll be undertaking another trip like that. Because this is a very remote park in Tanzania. If you look at a map, you'll see that it's at a very remote location compared to other parks. It's a very rare place to visit.
Now that we are here, I wanted to make this day trip happen. Today we'll be seeing chimpanzees. I'll try my best to ... Show you not just this national park and Lake Tanganyika ...
But whatever beauty I could capture here, I'll share with you. Time to get on the boat. What's your name? Isiac Nice to meet you Isiac.
So you'll be going with us? Yes. You and You. Both. Balawa and Isiac. Okay May Allah make this a safe ride for us.
This lake is huge. And when it's windy.... The boat service is shut down during windy conditions.
Even now, our boat is swaying a lot. It's just the beginning... Lets see.. May Allah have mercy on us.
The lake seemed very calm in the beginning. However, gradually, we find ourselves riding on huge waves. And our boat is swaying. The lake is so big that it can easily be seen as a sea. This is the second deepest and second largest fresh water lake in the world. The largest is Lake Baikal in Russia.
If you look at the length of this lake on the map... It starts from Congo and Burundi... And it flows all the way down to Tanzania and Zambia.
So, it is a rather long lake. I think it's the longest lake in the world. The journey has just begun.
Still more than 90 minutes to go. This boat sails from Kigoma in Tanzania all the way to Congo. Right now it's coming from Congo. It's a beautiful lake.
At this early hour in the day, you see many fishermen in the lake. There are huge, lush green cliffs on the banks. I can continuously different villages around.
Big and small villages alike. Some villages may have a road as well. Many villages are connected to Kigoma through this lake. Ferries as well as boats are used as a means of transport to go from one village to the other.
So far, we have been sailing for an hour and 20 minutes. It's been a great ride. I think we still have another 25 minutes or so. It's a considerably long ride. Took us 2 hours. There's a big lodge here. I had assumed that the tourists come in the morning and leave in the afternoon.
But they have proper arrangement here. As soon as you enter... You experience the sounds of the jungle and the lake. It's such a wonderful place. You'll observe that the village back there have cut their forests for agriculture.
However, in the national park, you see a rather dense forest by the lake. Let's see what's next. We didn't have breakfast in the morning. It felt great to hear that the national park management is preparing a breakfast for us.
Once we are done with the breakfast, then we'll go for chimpanzee safari. I was checking out the tents here. They look really nice from the outside. The facilities are similar to the ones in other national parks. These tents are beautiful and neat. There's the kitchen.
Let's see what we get in the breakfast. This is the restaurant. And if we go a little further, we see another tent here. There's no guest here at the moment. But the place looks nice.
I'm told that they charge 59 USD per tent. I think this is the tent for mess. What about the one next to it? You are sure to get a great view of the lake from here.
Right at the lake. So we have pineapple. There's honey. Okay. Thank you. Our breakfast includes tea... Some pineapples...
Omelet and some bread. We also have some honey and coffee. Anything we need. It's good that we are gonna have a fulfilling breakfast because our safari can get long. We'll be needing energy.
Our chimpanzee safari/hike has begun. We have paid a fee for the national park and have also arranged a guide. According to Google, the total amount was 120 USD. 100 USD park entrance. And 20 USD was the fee. However, they have charged an extra 18% as tax...VAT.
We ended up paying, 143 USD. So that we can have this adventure. Anyways, the hike has just begun.
Just like we experienced in gorilla safari or red monkey safari... The trekkers in different parts of the park locate the chimpanzees first. And then we'll get to that location. Latest update is that they are still trying to locate. Lets see when we'll spot them. Therefore, although the hike has begun, we still don't know if we'll spot them at all.
That was our guide on walkie-talkie. He was asking the trekkers for the update. We still have whole day in front of us. Hopefully, we'll be able to locate the chimpanzees for sure. We're told that there are about 68 chimpanzees here. We visit a particular group of chimpanzees which has 46 members.
Let's see. All of them live together in one group. But they scatter in search of food during the day.
Chimpanzees mostly... As I told you that gorillas only eat leaves, grass and similar stuff. But these chimpanzees hunt even other monkeys and baboons. They also eat insects from the ground.
In case we find some of them having a meal, we'd definitely show it to you. So they don't just eat grass but meat as well... In whichever form it is available. Look at this beautiful waterfall. Our tour guide told us that there is a natural spring behind this one.
The water is very clean. The height of this waterfall is around 25 m. And this same water is also used in the lodge. They told me that we don't give this water to tourists. But they drink it themselves. We have hiked for almost 45 minutes to 1 hour.
The forest is amazing. It's a rather dense forest with beautiful trees. That's what made our hike more beautiful. We'll be relaxing here for a bit before we move forward. To explore more areas. The section after the waterfall is quite tough.
Because we still need to go up the mountain. And this is an area with lot of water. This water makes the tracks, stones and even tree branches very slippery.
On top of that, it's an ascent. I am already thinking about the descent on our way back. This is one of those days... When you ask yourself exactly why you wanted to do what you are doing.
However, I'm quite fortunate ... That I didn't have many days like this in my Africa tour. The 90 minute hike after the waterfall has been quite tough. We are already on top of the cliff but we are yet to see any chimpanzee. I expected something similar to what we experienced in Rwanda and Uganda.
Trekkers go out early to spot the animals and then share that location for tourists. And you just have to hike for an hour to have the whole experience. Although the system here is not much different. But the problem is that they only have one trekker for the whole park. And it's not an easy job to find the animals in the whole park. Anyways...
Apparently, now we are just randomly looking for them. The hike was really tough though. You must already have an idea about that from my condition. I didn't expect it to be so tough. Our guy just received a message on the radio... That the chimpanzees are near the lake, where we came from.
By the time we get back there, they may already be gone. Anyways, let's see what happens. Look at that... We have finally spotted two chimpanzees. There may be more in the vicinity.
But we can only see these two for now. They are chilling. They are gradually moving now. We are allowed to follow them at some distance. The tour guide told me that they live in groups of 30-35. And they choose their leaders in 3 ways.
If someone is powerful enough to scare everyone, he becomes the leader. In the second case, a leader shares his food and resources with everyone. That a more democratic way. In the third case, some relative of a chimpanzee, father or brother, is already the leader. And that chimpanzee takes their place when the former leader gets old.
Not much different from humans. Both of these are males and we are at their tail. I'm told that... A female chimpanzee has an 8 months 2 weeks long pregnancy.
And there's a gap of 5 years between two consecutive pregnancies. That's why they are so few in number. What are these two up to? They don't seem to stop any time soon. And we are just following them.
Could have stayed at one location so that video making would be easier for us. Walking by the lake side. We're back at the park entrance after the chimpanzees hid in themselves in the trees. Back for lunch at the same restaurant where we had our breakfast. What a day it has been... and how tiring... We went up the cliff after a 3 hour hike.
Didn't find anything there so came back. And we're finally able to spot them, my energy levels were quite low. Also because it's a rather hot and humid day.
This is our lunch. I was very hungry. Thank you very much. Hopefully, we'll have a great lunch. Regarding my overall experience, I think I expected a little more from it.
I had hoped to see a bigger group, like the gorilla and monkey families we saw. We were told that chimpanzees live in groups. But sometimes you can only see two of them; sometimes just one. Sometimes even 10. That just depends on your fate. And that's what happens in the wild.
You cannot get your expectations too high. You see what you get to see. There's not much we can do about that. However, we can have a nice lunch.
Let me show you this chicken. I think there's more to it. Looks like tomatoes...
Or vegetables. And here we have some rice with salad. This is pineapple and avocado juice. It's really delicious. With the amount of energy we consumed today, we do need a good meal.
The food is okay; not bad. It was a long ride. We are back now and it's almost sunset. And we have with us, Imran. He's a Pakistani Punjabi and a Tanzanian.
He was born here in Kigoma. His grandfather came here in the previous century. He has helped me in booking this boat trip and everything. Because I didn't know anyone here. So he called everyone for me.
These boat guys only speak Swahili. Thank you so much for this Imran. This whole trip cost us about 400 thousand Tanzanian shillings. Or 170 USD. 170 USD for the boat trip.
And 140 USD for park entrance and guide fee. 15 USD for the food. 35 USD tip. And I don't remember any other expenditure. So you can imagine that we spent almost 350 USD today to see two chimpanzees.
But anyways, this is a beautiful sunset. Let's enjoy this before we go back to our hotel. Finally we are back in our room after a long day. I woke up exactly at 5:30 am today. And came back at 9 pm.
Spent the whole day seeing Lake Tanganyika and the national park. The lake is really beautiful. I'm in love with it. I also wanted to explore the areas around the lake. That's why I chose Gombe National Park.
The nature is just amazing. Especially if we can spend a night there... With the lake in front of you and the forest behind you. You may get to see a lot of chimpanzees but it depends a lot on your fate.
But... Personally, I feel that if I plan to do a safari again... To see gorillas, red monkeys or chimpanzees... I'll go for Uganda. Because it's cheap there and this is the core of their tourism. Probably that's why their system is a little more well organized.
Anyways, I tried my best to share this experience with you. If you enjoyed this, go ahead and Like, Subscribe and Share. Remember me in your prayers. Gonna get some sleep to wake up fresh tomorrow. Allah Hafiz
2024-03-12 12:47
