Halfway through our total time in Rwanda, we found ourselves in the Butare/Huye bus station trying to get to Nyungwe National Park. In the end we got a taxi. On our way there, we saw a big chimpanzee. He crossed the road and kept on walking. The next day we took a 130-meter canopy walk. First we hiked down, then did the walk above the canopy, then hiked back. That day we walked our tails off because we had walked five extra miles in the tea plantations. That’s another post.

The day after we trekked for Angolan Colobus Monkeys. Their leader was very strange. She was a hybrid of Red-tailed monkey and Mona monkey. Colobus monkeys have many natural predators. Young are taken by large eagles, and chimpanzees will occasionally kill and eat adult colobuses. A colobus is no match compared to a chimpanzee. The weakest chimpanzee is 20 times stronger than the strongest colobus. Colobus Monkeys avoid them by sitting in little branches that cannot support the weight of a chimp. Chimps catch them by hiding in branches when they jump to branch to branch. The chimps kill Colobus Monkeys by breaking their necks. They are eaten with herbs, like a colobus casserole. But, their leader did not allow this, because when the chimps came, she would be in front. The chimps would turn around, because Mona monkeys are friends with chimps. We saw them follow the leader and we walked back through the tea plantations. I’m so tired but I don’t have to go to sleep now.