The next day found us "on the road again!" as we got an early start towards Kibale National Park. Traveling in the shadow of the Rwenzori or Mountains of the Moon we also enjoyed views of more of the crater lakes in the region.
Similar to our alpine lakes, these are small lakes clustered together and surrounded by lush vegetation.
We got a chance to stretch our legs a bit and chat with some local children as we walked along the road to see the views of the brother and sister lakes, Nyinambuga and Rukwanzi. Between the lakes the land was cultivated with crops of corn, matoke and tea. Most of the corn is exported, often by the World Food Program to the refugee camps in and near Uganda. The matoke is taken by the truckload for sale in Kampala and transported locally by bicycle. Some of the bikes we saw were loaded down with as many as 8 stalks of the large green bananas.
On the road just outside the park, we were greeted by a group of baboons who were quite accustomed to the cars and motorcycles zipping by. One of them even lied down in the middle of the road to be groomed. Our baby sightings continued and photos of an infant baboon will be added to our collection.
It was mid afternoon when we pulled into Kibale Forest Camp, KFC as our chimp trekking guide would say the next day. We made our way through the lush tropical gardens to reception and decided to eat lunch before exploring the trail around the grounds. We were happy to hear they had hot showers as we were directed to our tent after lunch.
We explored the trail hoping to see some monkeys. They were probably there spying on us but we did not see them. We did find several of the 140 species of butterflies who live in the forest.
As advertised, a hot shower and early dinner rounded out the day as we retired early. We wanted to
be ready for our early start chimp trekking the next day.
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