Kalinzu part III

All visitors walking the trails at Kalinzu are supposed to be accompanyed by a guide. As you all know, I like self guiding very much if it's possible. After walking in the forest a few times, I could see the labyrinth of trails and it could be difficult to walk alone in the forest here. But after walking the research road yesterday, I thought ' Hey, I can walk this on my own.' I asked Robert and finally got permission to do self guiding. I told them I would just stick to the research road. After breakfast I headed out. I walked slow and silently along the road. It's an overcast day with no sun. The sun hasn't been out much at all since I've arrived. Throughout my walk I see all the primates of Kalinzu, except the chimps. I come back after 3 hours. After lunch I realize I lost the piece attatching my camera to my tripod somewhere on the road. At that moment I thought I really needed that piece so I went back to the road ( I would later learn a way to still use my tripod without that piece). I kept my head down and search meticulously but without luck. I didn't want to go back to the trail, I just wanted to relax but I had to give it a shot.


The next day I was going out of the Kalinzu down the main road to a viewpoint. It took me an hour to reach the highest viewpoint. It was a great view, though by this time in the morning 10, it was obscured by haze in the distance. On one side was intensely cultivated land where mostly plantain was visible. On the other was the forest of Kalinzu. Shortly after I got back it turned cold and started to rain a lot. I had planned on doing an afternoon forest walk with Robert but cancelled this. I went to my tent to sleep and read. When I got up and went up to the office I saw a backpack lying on the ground. Frank, a 40 year old German backpacker had arrived. We got along instantly as he was in Africa for the animals and had travelled a lot throughout southern and eastern Africa. It was nice to have someone to converse with. After our dinner of beans and plantains, we hung out at the campsite till we both crashed. Frank was camping as well. Actually, there is no formal accomodation at Kalinzu, only a campsite. That was one other thing I really liked about it.