Guinea: Nimba Reserve – Chimpanzee Trekking

White Guinea is not a wildlife watching destination (the impoverished, coup-overloaded country has hardly any wildlife left that hasn’t been poached, eaten, or used up for voodoo amulets), there is a unique national park in the tri-border area of Guinea/Liberia/Ivory Coast that is teaming with rare animals – the Nimba Reserve. Here, there is a population of rare western chimpanzee, that are quite famous for their intellectual abilities and use of tools to forage and crack nuts. After about an hour of tracking and having almost given up on the hopes of seeing them, it was the chimps that actually found us. The male was probably the largest chimpanzee I’ve ever seen – he climbed the tree just above us and was observing from above before climbing down on continuing downhill along the slope of thick jungle.