Christmas in Greystoke

Two very happy families shared Christmas with us here in Greystoke this year. Luckily our guests had all behaved during the year and Santa managed to navigate his sleigh to our remote shores. He seemed to enjoy his glass of Amarula left out and reindeer stocked up on carrots for the onward flight.
Our families had a wonderful time with excellent chimping, relaxing lake cruises and leisurely swims in the deep open water.
 Even Big Bird enjoyed the festivities and was thankful our turkey arrived on time. Christmas in Mahale was truly magical!

Monkey hunting

Guests have been enjoying fairly relaxed forest walks on the lower slopes nearby to encounter our hairy cousins lately but as mango stocks in the camp trees are depleted, alternative food sources are being exploited.
With a lack of ripe mangos the red colobus monkeys have become very nervous as hunting parties of male chimps have been seen actively pursuing them. This is a very raucous and chaotic spectacle as the chimps use noise, decoys and general confusion to single out the young colobus they prefer. Captors get to keep the preys head but the rest goes to Primus who then distributes the scraps amongst those others who he needs to keep on side with.
 Bonobos arm seems to be nearly fully healed and Darwin remains thoughtful and has some great new poses for the cameras.

                                                           Primus with a red colobus

                                                               Darwin posing again

                                                                       Gwekulo