Headed Home

We drove all the way from Budongo to Entebbe, leaving demolished gas stations and craft stores in our wake. Nana and Denise fly home tomorrow, hopefully with a better opinion of Uganda than when they arrived. Nana has learned about red birds, blue birds, and mixed birds, and how to pick the best seat to avoid falling geckos. Denise has learned to love the Red-Eyed Dove and African tea, and that one should go to bed early because the morning is full of strange bird/hippo/monkey sounds.

We consider it a success!

The 3rd Chimpanzee meets the 1st Chimpanzee

Back at the Budongo EcoLodge, where Jess and Andrew somehow managed to upgrade themselves from a dormitory room to the room next door to Nana and Denise, a heated discussion was underway. Jess and Joyce, a guide, were working to convince Nana that she could take on the forest hike in search of Chimpanzees. When she agree, we tied her up, blindfolded her, put her in the van, and dropped her off at a trail on the side of the road before she could change her mind.

Having no choice now but to walk through the forest, we followed a trail with Joyce pointing out giant Mahogany trees and astutely ignoring all the poisonous snakes for Nana’s benefit. Chimps are often high in the canopy eating tender new leaves, but the first one we found was only about 20 feet off the ground. We watched for several minutes as he chewed on leaves and use leaf a tool to dip water from a pocket in the top of a snag. Eventually he climbed down and wandered off to a taller tree. As we hiked on we heard the loud bangs of Chimps smacking tree buttresses, followed by hooting and screaming. We spotted a couple more dark spots high in the canopy and craned our necks to examine them while realizing how lucky we had been to see the first one. Nana made it all the way back to the lodge, where we thanked Joyce for the great trip and promptly fell asleep!

For all the Ladies

After retrieving Nana, breakfast, and our luggage, we crossed back over the Nile for the last time (After Chris skillfully maneuvered around a bus full of mission-trip Americans-who had cut us in line- in order to get us a spot on the ferry). We headed south to the Budongo forest and an EcoLodge near the park gate. Finding ourselves there early and with little to do for the rest of the day, Jess managed to arrange a visit to the local women’s cooperative in the community just outside the gate. We spent the rest of the afternoon learning from Edna, head of the co-op, how to weave baskets and plates out of banana leaves and papyrus fibers. Denise demonstrated her weaving expertise while Chris and Andrew tired not to look bored and ignored the men-bashing conversation.

The next morning we returned to the community for a short walk organized by the women’s co-op. There were a few cows and crops and children along the way. We also stopped to hear stories by local men about courtship (something about asking the “kitchen” for a “chicken” and marriage as well as the birthing process (how they became experts I’m not sure, but birthing apparently involves grabbing the centerpole of the house). Jess translated the African English into audible American English for Nana, Andrew fended off hoards of small children, Denise took pictures of everyone, and Nana chatted up the German girls that had joined us. We were all impressed by the enterprising spirit of Edna and it was a nice pair of counterpart activities to all of our safari-ing which didn’t have any interaction with local people.

The Boat Trip (that almost Wasn’t)

The next day we had a relaxing morning, taking a short walk down to the river (watching out for crocodiles!) and scanning the river for hippos and other wildlife. A Goliath Heron stalked on the opposite river bank and an African Darter floated by, trying to swallow a fish it had impaled on its bill. Just as we returned from our walk we saw our first ELEPHANT of the trip, meandering through the marsh on the opposite side.

After lunch we re-entered the park and drove to the launch where boats cross the river (there’s a ferry but no bridge) and go to the waterfalls for which the park is named. We arrived about a half hour early so we waited in some shade and watched a Cape Buffalo across the water. As the scheduled departure time approached, the boats of a couple other tour companies took off, but we noticed that our boat was on the other side. They finally launched, but started going upstream with no sign of coming to get us! Jess was frustrated, because we had made reservations, paid for the ride, and the company had assured us that they picked up passengers on our south side of the river. Chris, our driver, made urgent phone calls to the hotel associated with the boat, but it still didn’t turn and we were all a bit perturbed as it was our only planned activity of the day. Fortunately, a British gentleman training some park guards in how to do monitoring on a motorboat overheard our plight, grabbed some lifejackets, and zoomed us across the river to join the cruise where they had stopped to look at hippos. The quick-acting captain works for the Uganda Conservation Fund, so we told him that we would tell all our friends and relatives- if you’d like to make a gift in appreciation or just learn more, visit their website)

The tour on the double-decker pontoon boat was spectacular and a nice break from our previous days of long car rides. We saw dozens of buffalo and waterbucks, warthogs and elephants, lots more snorting hippos and enormous, gaping crocodiles. It’s hard to imagine, but our guide, Amon, told us that in the dry season, there are even more animals down at the edge for a drink. Jess and Andrew chatted with Amon, who turned out to be a big fan of birds- he showed us African Fish Eagles and several types of kingfishers, rare Rock Pratincoles and a cliff where hundreds of Red-Throated Bee-Eaters had carved nesting cavities. The trip was capped off with a view of the raging, misty Murchison Falls, formed where the Nile drops through a narrow gorge.

We stayed for a few minutes before turning back for the port as sunset approached. Jess and Andrew took advantage of the hot showers and we continued our strategy of splitting 3 meals between the four of us, which was still too much food (apparently they think all visitors can eat a huge amount). After putting Denise and Nana to bed with the sounds of distant hippos and not-so-distant Vervet Monkeys, we hiked back to the campsite. When it started raining at 1am we moved the whole tent and suspect rainfly to the bathroom, where we slept soundly for the rest of the night.

Queens of the Nile

After a morning of birding (starting with some early morning roosters) we got back to the main road and raced our way northwest, passing many kilometers of rangeland and Lantana bushes sprouting along fencelines. We stopped for gas in the town of Masindi, then pushed on through the southern gate of Murchison Falls National Park, where we would spend the next several days. Once inside, we kept our eyes peeled for more wildlife. We saw mostly birds, but Andrew did have Chris slam on the brakes so that we could inspect a suspiciously leopard-shaped bunch of leaves in the branch of a distant tree. Continuing on and finishing off some packed cheese sandwiches, we turned and actually left the park, passing a school and a small community (many of whose residents probably work for the park or nearby lodges).

We stopped on the banks of the Nile River at a complex of open-air lodge buildings, appropriately called Nile Safari. Denise and Nana got set up in their fancy bathroom/canvas tent big enough for twin beds/porch overlooking the river, while Jess and Andrew made their way to a nearby field, where they set up a borrowed, moldy tent. While the matriarchs enjoyed their fire-heated, hand delivered by bucket, hot-water showers, Andrew and Jess enjoyed the cinderblock showers with slightly lukewarm cistern water of the campground. Not that we’re jealous...

We could hear hippos roaring on the Nile and see big groups of egrets roosting in the trees. A couple resident kites and barbets bounced between tree tops and there were just enough birds and lizards on the metal roof of the cabin to make Nana nervous. At night the bugs came out, and so did the bats and geckos. As we ate dinner in the open pavilion, we could see one or two geckos staking out a feeding spot at each lantern. Meanwhile the hotel staff was spraying who-knows-what kind of chemical insecticide in the rooms. As Nana and Denise settled in for the night, we made our way down the hill, across the muddy hippo footprints and up another hill to our tent. Fortunately we had a guide/bodyguard (with a small stick!) and there was a young night guard named Dominic at the campsite (with a spear!), along with a campfire and lanterns around the field’s perimeter. It all seemed like a lot of effort for one couple in a single tent, but we were grateful and quickly fell asleep with the sounds of hippos in the bushes and flickering shadows of spear-wielding men to keep us company.