2. Primate walks, Chimpanzee Tracking or Habituation.
Primate walks, Chimpanzee Tracking or Habituation.
Chimpanzee tracking and habituation form a unique African travel experience. Uganda is ecologically diverse with some of the big apes on earth; mountain gorillas and chimps. In Uganda, some of the places where chimpanzees live include: Kibale forest national park, Budongo forest, Kalinzu forest, Kyambura gorge, Semuliki national park and Ngamba island sanctuary. These destinations have habituated chimpanzee groups which are open for tracking by tourists.
The chimpanzee is an ape species native to the savannah and tropical forests of tropical Africa. The human and chimpanzee DNA is very similar. Chimpanzees display numerous signs of intelligence, from the ability to remember symbols to cooperation, tool use, and perhaps language. The chimpanzee body is covered with coarse black hair but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms and soles of the feet. It weighs between 40-60 kilograms for males and 27-50 kilograms for females. It has a gestation period of 8 months and the infant is weaned for about 3 years but maintains a close relationship with the mother for several more years. Chimps live in groups of between 15-150 individuals, which are headed by the dominant male, but spend most of their time travelling in small, temporary groups consisting of a few individuals, which may consist of any combination of age and sex classes.
Chimpanzee trekking as an activity takes from 1-6 hours depending on the location of the chimps that day and the trekkers speed. The activity starts with a briefing by the guide and is usually done in the company of an armed ranger guide. Chimps are seen jumping from one tree to another as they go about their daily activities or at times on the ground. Other wildlife might be spotted along the trail like monkeys, baboons, elephants as well as various forest bird species. Chimpanzee habituation is a full day activity and involves starting the activity before they awake up in the morning. Follow them as the feed, play, groom, hear some of the sound they make as a way of communication and watch them as they make nests where they shall spend the night.
Manya Africa tours offers interesting and complete chimpanzee tracking safari packages that include single destinations and others merge other destinations and tourism products to create incredible experiences.
Price per person $150 chimpanzee trekking (from 1st July 2020 it is $200 per person), $220 per person for the Habituation
