A few notes on the chimps

As Mike wrote, the chimps were truly a highlight, along with the Red Colobus Monkeys and the Baboons (very entertaining creatures). The baby chimps, Grimly and Tabora, were particularly captivating and playful and toddled along much like human babies do. One fun moment was when Gremlin, Gimly's mom, was pounding a wild mango on a rock to open it and Grimly grabbed some leaves and started mimicking her mom :) We were also lucky enough to see Titan and Tarzan, two males, the males being much more elusive than the females. We were really lucky with how close we were able to see them and the variety of activities we saw them engage with. They have intelligent looking faces, a calm demenour (though this is not always true), and are quite avid groomers. As Mike wrote as well, Gombe is a beautiful park and Lake Tanganyika is gorgeous- rippling crystal waters the color of aquamarine.
While in the town of Kigoma we stopped by the Jane Goodall Institute and talked with the director of the Roots to Shoots Program and also the premere researcher of Baboons, who moved to TZ in 1972 and worked side by side with Jane Goodall. People spent an hour with us there and were really generous with their time. The Institute is doing great work re: trying to re-establish a cooridor between Uganda/ Rwanda/ TZ b/c the chimps live on "islands," such as Mahale and Gombe Parks and can't migrate due to deforestation. Inbreeding is becoming a problem for the chimps and their physical size is decreasing. So, JGI is doing some really progressive work trying to re-establish these cooridors and working *with* the locals to do it, as opposed to creating more problems for the local people. You can read more about JGI and also check out their Google Earth site to see Gombe where we were (can see Jane's research site and the buildings where we stayed). I am a proud member of JGI and "adopted" a little chimp named Nani. :) Check 'em out at www.janegoodallinstitute.org