January 23

Today we got to go for a safari on the way to a chimp sanctuary, started by Jane Goodall. Here, they have 2 families of chimps - 26 in one, 15 in the other. 9 young in the first family are new arrivals. It kills me that there is still need in the world for a chimp sanctuary, where all the babies are confiscated from people who took them from the wild/the pet trade.

We drove through the Obajeta Conservancy and saw giraffe, warthog, impala, waterbuck, zebra, helmeted guinea fowl, and the back end of an elephant. African crowned cranes, fire finches, hippo, ibis, cape buffalo, crowned plover, and a black rhino.

I can't really say the black rhino was "out in the wild", as he's relatively tame. 33 years of tourists posing with him - it was odd, and seeing as he was laying down when we posed for pictures with him, it looks..... well, it looks like we're posing with a dead rhino! He lives with armed guards, 24/7/365.

Back to the trucks for the ride home for lunch. It was such a wonderful place, we had a marabou stork begging for food just a couple feet from us (Trent shoo'd him away), and black and white colobus monkeys in the tree!

A brief interruption with the ipod I got for christmas - Trent also bought me a camera converter, so I could upload my photos from my digital camera to the ipod. It wouldn't work! I've already taken 2-512 MB cards and I'm about 15% through the 2 GB card - which is... I don't know, almost 1000 pictures?!?! Can we say camera happy??

There is a talk on the bush meat trade tonight by a friend of Les'. I don't want to go, considering the information will probably give me nightmares for a while, but I think I should.