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The bellowing sounds of chimpanzees broke
the silence. Within minutes a troupe of 20 chimps appeared,
walking on the soles of their feet and the knuckles
of their fingers or, in the case of wrinkly-faced babies,
clinging to their mothers' fronts or backs. Two families
of humans sat nearby, still and wordless at thetop of
several large boulders.
The chimps approached, but they showed
no sign of alarm. They had seen human visitors before,
so they went about their important business of swinging
on vines and climbing trees. One juvenile ran up a boulder
to inspect a backpack, held it up and shook it. Then
she rejoined her family. As the chimps moved on, the
humans followed them along the river bed, through the
pristine forests of Mahale Mountains National Park,
the newest park in Tanzania and the first to be designated
for "walking only." It was a thrill the Rosen-Robertson
family will never forget.
"It was an other-worldly experience,"
said Debbie Rosen, who visited the park last August
on a Thomson Ultimate Safari. "It was a bit scary at
first to see them coming. There was no one there but
us and our guides, and we were meeting these animals
in the wild. I have never had such a feeling of excitement,
wonder and awe."
After the chimps moved on, her daughter
Sadie went back to the boulders to swing on the same
vines the young chimps had used. Then she joined her
friends for a swim in Lake Tanganyika.
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