Masindi

Masindi is a small provincial town in northwest Uganda. There's not much to see in town but it's a jumping off point for Murchison Falls national park and other places. My first stop here after checking into the Softie Guesthouse was the U.W.A. office. The ranger on duty was named Gift. He told me about the one place to view chimps inside Murchison Falls that we drove by on our way in and out. I knew about this place but the info in my guidebook is outdated and things change quickly here so I wanted to know all the facts before venturing there such as how much was the chimp tracking, is there food available and how do I get there. Gift gave me the info and also told me of another place that was once the cheapest place to track chimps in Africa but has since discontinued the chimp tracking. My guidebook was out of date on that info. While eating lunch at the Traveller's Rest I noticed an ad on their local bulletin board. It was promoting Kigaju Forest Reserve, only 10 minutes from Masindi with the forest containing chimps, black and white colobus, red tailed monkeys and others. I had never heard about this forest and it wasn't in my guidebook. I asked Gift about it and he didn't know a lot about it either but apparently it's kind of an 'illegal' site because they haven't registered with the U.W.A. of the forestry department. The ad stated that gratuities were appreciated but not necessary and I thought maybe they got around the redtape for becoming an official reserve by not charging people to visit. Gift the told me about another ' yet to be registered site' that was about 30km away. He spent 4 days there checking out the place. The name was something like Kisenguiro forest. The forest was much larger but had been shrinking due to encroaching sugar plantations. The forest has since become an island amongst sugar plantations and the chimps are more or less trapped in the forest. He says the chimps eat the sugar cane and are happy but they can't be happy about their home constantly shrinking. This sounds like the most inexpensive option for chimps and I returned to the office today after Gift got more information. He told me to be at the UWA office for 6.30am tomorrow ( sunday) and he would have a boda boda ready to take me there. I'm excited to see chimps and do something not in the guidebook.
Masindi is basically a one street town with some minor side streets but hardly any traffic at all. By all accounts I would think of it as a quiet town but Boxing day it was anything but. Even the Softie Guesthouse played their music fairly loudly all the time but there was a truck driving around with huge speakers promoting the Liquid Club, across the street from Softie. Another place down the road was blaring music from a local concert. Maybe it's just because it's the holiday season but the town was very loud and I couldn't escape, at least for tonight. I had a few beers to help me sleep and crashed at 10.30 with my earplugs in. I slept ok but the music was on again early at the Softie and I had to find another quieter place to stay. I told the manager, John, honestly why I was checking out and he understood, no problem, he said. I found an even cheaper room for $3 at the classy sounding Executive Hotel. I ate lunch of rice and beans there and have been hanging out most of the day at an internet cafe. An hour of online time only costs about 90 cents, the cheapest I 've seen so far.
I am going chimp tracking tomorrow at the place Gift told me about but also, Dan, from Kagaju forest is meeting me tonight to give me more information about that place so I might be going there as well the next day. Stay tuned for (hopefully) some good chimp adventures!