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Today we woke up early to go back to the Nat'l Park for a Chimpanzee walk. We had breakfast up at Ezra's main house, and we had a chance to get to know him.

Ezra is a Anglican minister who, along with his wife, Marjorie, runs an AIDS/HIV community center. His small village has been devastated by the disease, as have many areas in Uganda. He said that he had tested around 500 people so far, and about a third have tested positive. The majority of these are young women, and there are quite a few young children who have tested positive too. Of those that have tested positive, he said that around 15 have died so far. His center is involved in testing, counseling, and education, and they do not receive any government funding. AIDS medications are not available, because they are much too expensive. It was really heartbreaking to hear about all of this from someone with direct experience, but inspiring to know that there are people like him working so hard for the cause. He very much wanted us to visit his center while we were in town, but unfortunately our schedule was extremely tight, so we had to decline. I took down the center's info and address, and I will send in a donation as soon as I can. If anyone else might be interested, please let me know.

We left his place, feeling greatful that we had met him - we could have been sleeping with the spiders in the forest! At the Park Info center, we started our Chimpanzee walk. We found the chimps after about 45 minutes - they were hard to miss - their shrieking was so loud! We initially saw them high in the trees, but we eventually found a couple on the ground for a closer view. At one point, the dominant male asserted his strength by screaming, running around, and breaking a tree trunk! I tried to take some good photos, but unfortunately the lighting was very low, so even the "good" photos were pretty crappy. :(

Back on the road again after the walk...this time we were off to Lake Mburo, another national park. Since we were going to be staying in park housing again, we were expecting the worst. When we got to our tented camp, we were pleasantly surprised. They weren't bad at all, and there were no spiders! We headed on an afternoon game drive and ended at the lake where we could eat dinner. The lake is full of hippos, so we were finally able to see some! So far we have seen 4 of Africa's "Big Five." Still need to see the leopard. After dinner, as we were sitting having beers and watching the geckos, one of the hippos got out of the lake right near us!! It was such a massive animal! He disappeared into the brush near the restaurant. Oh, one other "lovely" thing -- as we were sitting having our beers, and rat poop dropped into my drink from the rafters :/

Animals seen today:
Oribe
Impala
Bushbuck
Waterbuck
Vervet Monkey
Warthog
Chimpanzee
Topi
Hartebeest
Zebra
Hippo
Fish Eagle
Crown Crane (National bird of Uganda)
Red legged Spur Fowl