We are the only ones camping in Fort Kibale National Forest, Uganda. We made a quick get-away from our city camp site and headed to what the guidebook described as a nature paradise: the Kibale Primate Camp.
I felt relieved driving away from the noise and smog of the city. The road became winding and the passing cars fewer and fewer. Every now and again we paused as a baboon strutted across the road, his ridiculous butt swaggering behind him.
We spotted the sign, a win in Africa, but were surprised when we pulled up to the main building, all was in disarray with construction and no campers to be seen. But as usual in Uganda, there's never a reason not to camp, so they sent us down the dirt road to the secluded grassy patch, surrounded by dense trees.
I personally loved the spot. I don't like being in view of the road. Ever since I was a child I've been hunting the perfect "fort" location, and this one ticked all the boxes: soft grass for carpet, an obvious perimeter, a place seemingly hidden from outsiders, and a mysterious surrounding jungle.
We set up our tent, our table, and I got the stove going, making curry with the veggies we picked up at a roadside stand.
Then Beth and I dragged ourselves to exercise in the 1pm humidity and heat.
Just as we were finishing, out from the thick foliage come baboon after baboon. They moved slowly and cautiously at first, eyeing us with every stride. At first we were delighted but quickly changed our minds as they sniffed around our camp. They gained momentum, seemingly sending a signal that there was no danger from humans here. More appeared from the thick jungle. My mind flashed to the slow moving "hoards" made of zombies on the show The Walking Dead.
The cocky leader started in with handfuls of cooked rice. I thought, "Maybe they're like bears and we should make loud noises..." Beth said "Don't be too aggressive!" and mentioned she'd seen too many documentaries about primate attacks. The book Congo came back to me quickly. I made noise anyways, and was only barely recognized with indifference. They scattered for a moment as we crept closer, but I felt like prey being watched by many pairs of eyes just past the jungle's edge.
I grabbed the simmering curry, amazingly untouched, and threw it on the dash of the car as Beth and I took cover. They crept back in. I honk the horn. They didn't flinch. We proceeded to watch the 10 baboons tear apart our camp as we sit behind closed windows, drenched in post workout sweat in absolute humidity in a car that smells like an Indian food restaurant. The eeriness of their human-ness combined with our fear of their power, had us in a captivated but fearful state. They open my suitcase, rifled through the contents, sniffed my lotion. I felt as if I was witnessing a robbery! One stood on his hind legs, and put his hands to our tent door, ready to let himself in. Another settled on his pink bottom, and used his opposable thumbs to scoop out handfuls of rice. They tossed around our water bottles, and bit straight through my bottle of bleach. In my defiance, I laughed as he tasted bleach. Beth inched the car towards them, until we were head to head. But they held their ground and Beth and I backed out, leaving our destroyed camp behind.
We drove back to the lodge and ask the construction workers what to do. They looked at us like silly girls and said, "why aren't they afraid of you?" They had no advice.
We're both scared. We return with the car and this time act like we're serious with our threat of moving vehicle. They retreat a bit. We can't take much credit for taking back our site as anything edible is gone. Beth walks the perimeter banging plates while I clean up the mess. We feel eyes on us constantly.
Once I've bleached everything by squeezing it out of the teeth holes in the bottle, we pack up and move camp 100 yards away, as far as we can get from all the spilled spices on the ground.
This time we want to be in the wide open space. All my desires of the perfect "fort" having disappeared. No more wish of seclusion, just keep me as far away from the jungle as possible!
And just when we thought we could never love another primate, we notice the monkeys. As opposed to the baboons, they seem delighted by our attention and put on a show. They sporadically leap like a wild child, nearly falling from branch to branch, and then also lazily like a drunk. We watch them in delight for an hour until they move past our site. We decide we like monkeys much better than baboons.
Night comes. It is dark and I imagine hundreds of pairs of eyes. I flinch at every sound.