At 16 meters long and 100 meters deep, it's quite spectacular. The deeply forested chasm is surrounded by sharply contrasting cactus-laden savannah. Until today, all attempts at photographing chimpanzees had been very disappointing. Last week, Kibale National Park yielded only two chimpanzees in as many days. Two Kyambura park guides led my husband and me on a six-hour trek.
Lions occasionally wander down the gorge.
Finding yourself in an unenviable position between a hippo and the water is even more dangerous. As it turned out, the only real protection I needed was from a nasty wasp that stung me without provocation. The chances of spotting chimps looked bleak during the first three hours of the trek. We finally heard them call across the Kyambura River at the bottom of the gorge. This meant traversing 8 meters above the river over a single log.