Camping in Akagera

Here is the back of Sue's head and I am looking like I am scowling at something or other. We couldn't have asked for a more glorious day for the boat cruise.

The boat trip was a bit of a splurge, but only about $18 per person and the boat was brand new, in excellent condition and while we had hoped to see some crocodile, we did not but it was a wonderful bird watching experience. And, of course, Ginny had a birds of East Africa book so we could identify them all!

I was a bit enamored of the baboons and have many photos. Really liked the "family" scenes. Here baby is suckling, while the male grooms the mother. Seems like a civil activity and rather supportive, don't you think?

Ginny, was our resident camping expert. She has the short dark hair and is wearing her headlight. And, along with Maggie, in the red fleece, handled the cooking for us. We had a few issues because the fuel for the Coleman stove and for the other stove were not pure...by the way, folks here call kerosene, paraffin. Whatever was bought...was not pure and caused all manner of problems. We had a mini-explosion and we all had to laugh our butts off.

When we arrived at our campsite, between 25-30 baboons were in residence, sitting in the covered picnic hut which had a table. Not only had they been sitting, they had peed and pooped all over. There was a parked vehicle in the area and apparently, they had left out their dishes and utensils to dry and the baboons had scattered everything around and broken the glass dishes. Who takes glass on a camping trip?

We shouted, clapped our hands and they ran off...except for the dominant male who was around almost all weekend, watching us, waiting and making forays into our area. Because it was dry season in the mountains, we didn't see as many animals as my last visit.

More coming....