So finally we had made it to Uganda. Albeit that it coincided with the general elections, it was such a treat to be with our new found South African friends. It did cost us $50per person and a further $40 odd for the car. Our first night in Uganda was spent at this lovely locally run guesthouse. It was clean and the best part was that it cost us only $5 a double room. What a bonus! The next morning saw us head out on the dirt road towards Sipi falls. The views are beautiful but the road quality leaves much to be desired, as you might expect. For those of you that plan on drawing cash as you go, a word of advice, have lots of space for notes. It was a strange feeling going to the local Stanbic bank and drawing 700000Ush. As for Sipi falls, they are something special. We camped at a site that had a great view of the falls and they served cold beers and locally prepared chicken.
Our third day in Uganda was spent driving. We drove very near to five hundred kilometres and much of the tar we drove on was in bad repair, not to mention the final 80km of dirt road from Masindi to our campsite in Murchison falls National Park. I’ll take this opportunity to mention the extortionate prices that the National parks in East Africa charge. Take for instance Murchison falls. It costs $30 per person and a further $50 for the vehicle. Compare this to South Africa then you realise just how crazy their prices are. What makes it worse is that the further east you go the more expensive it gets. Anyway back to the travels. We camped at the Red Chilli Campsite. They have warm showers and prepare decent food. They are a tad on the expensive side, but not too bad though. We even managed to go for a night drive in the park. Michnus and I sat on top of the car while the girls drove us around. The only things we managed to see were two civet cats and a black backed jackal. It was fun though. We had a full day of game viewing scheduled for the next day. This was particularly exciting for our South African friends. They were on bikes, so driving in a national park is something they have not really done before. Reason being that it is not allowed in S.A. To avoid sounding too much like a moaner, I would just like to say that in terms of game viewing it was a disappointment. Especially considering the price we had to pay for admission. We did get pretty close to some elephants though. That evening we camped right next to the roaring White Nile. It was in a Gorge about a kilometre fro the falls. I would definitely recommend it to those of you who are self sustained. There is nothing there except for a ‘long drop’. On that note, you are meant to pay 15000Ush for camping there. We refused because the guy only tod us this the next day and he never showed us any of the facilities. The falls themselves are spectacular! The sheer volume that passes through that narrow gorge is truly astounding. In some respects it is as great as Victoria Falls. After leaving the falls we headed out of the park, stopping at the Eco-resort for a wonderful breakfast. It was too late in the day to do any real birding.
We spent the next two days camped at the Masindi Hotel. They have brand new facilities and their restaurant serves good food. It costs 20000Ush per person to camp there. On the morning of the second day in Masindi we parted company with Michnus and Elsebie. The reason for the temporary split was that they had to meet up with friends they had met earlier on their trip and we wanted to go birding in the Bidongo Forest. So we headed towards the Bidongo Eco-camp. We arrived there discovering that it was virtually deserted. This was a pity because it is right on the edge of a pristine little forest, where we spent three days birding. Someone did eventually turn up and he said that camping there is 5000Ush per person. We were happy to pay, seeing that we had the place to ourselves and no one bothered us. It was wonderful falling asleep to all the forest sounds. The campsite has the potential to be great if they can sort out some showers and running water. We spent our time walking through the forest for which we were supposed to have a guide, but since no one turned up we just sorted ourselves out. We did come across locals cutting down some indigenous trees, but they dropped everything and ran as soon as they saw the two Mzungos. Well I’d be scared as well if I’d never seen a white person before. We did mention the happenings to the forest ranger, but he seemed to think that nothing could be done about it, even though it was illegal. We visited the Royal Mile, which is a particularly good birding site in Uganda, but we didn’t find anything there that could be found in the road just outside the camp.
Having spent three nights in the Bidongo Forest it was time to head south to reunite with our S.A friends. We were scheduled to meet in Fort Portal. The road down was mostly a narrow little dirt track. Surprisingly a lot of it was well graded so it did not take us too long to reach our destination. However there was one aspect of the journey that was particularly disturbing. The rate of deforestation is sickening. If we had to do this trip again in five years, I doubt any natural forests would still exist outside the national reserves.
The Town of Fort Portal is nothing spectacular, but it does have a wonderful view of the Ruwenzori mountain range and the campsite we stayed at, The Whispering Palm, is well maintained. They have a great little garden walk and it is walking distance from the town centre. We spent three nights there along with the S.A couple and another Dutch couple, Martijn and Wibien. We drank a lot of beer and ate some great food. Martijn is quite the chef. There is only so much lazing about one can do so it was once again time to head south We bid our new Dutch friends goodbye and started for our next birding destination. We were meant to go to the Begodi swamps, however we never got there. We instead spent a night camped at a communal eco camp. It is set on the rim of a crater lake and they have a piece of natural forest that one can walk through. We did this; unfortunately we got caught in the rain. It was fun, however, cuddling up under a tree waiting for the thunderstorm to subside. We spent the evening making supper and listening to the rain falling on our tent. Luckily the next morning was sunshine and we could continue our journey. Most of that day’s driving consisted of driving down a single track that looked like it hadn’t been driven on for at least ten years. You should have seen the look on the local’s faces when we drove past their huts on top of the hills. Unfortunately most of what we say was banana trees. We were due to meet Michnus and Elsebie near to Queen Elisabeth National Park, however, our route meant that way took far longer than what we had first anticipated. This didn’t turn out to badly though. We spent that night camped in the park. The best part was the fact that all we had to pay for was the 30000Ush for the camping. I simply told the guy at the gate that I had burnt the entry tickets by mistake. We drove off before he could come up with an answer.
The drive from Queen Elisabeth National Park to the Buhoma camp in Bwindi National Park was harrowing to say the least. Our trusty GPS routed us through some of the most rural Ugandan roads out there. There was some incredibly beautiful scenery. It still took us the better part of eight hours to cover the 200kms to our destination. What made the journey just that little bit more interesting was that our fuel had become contaminated so we drove the last few kilometres at a snail’s pace (literally 5km’s/hour). A fact that had Silvie in quite a state. We did arrive safely though to find the amazing forests that are Bwindi National Park. We were greeted by Elsebie running out into the road in front of us. What a sight for sore eyes. We decided to stay at the community campsite along with Michnus and Elsebie. The people at the campsite aloud us to open our tent in there car park for $20. Not the greatest deal, but what can you do. At least the showers were hot and the facilities clean.
It was here at Bwindi that we met Alex. This man is a local bird guide which is trying to make a real difference. He, along with a local touring company started a bird guiding course for local youth. We were really impressed by the way he ran the course along with his enthusiasm. It stuck us that this would be the ideal project to which we could give the binoculars and telescopes that we kindly donated to us by Opticron. Everyone involved was super excited, especially the ones that did not have any binoculars of their own. As you might expect the birding was awesome.
We spent two full days walking around in the beautiful forests. Unfortunately our funding did not allow us the luxury of doing the gorilla trekking. Well we can’t do it all and we have decided that Uganda will definitely see us again. The landscape is breathtaking and the people have to be some of the friendliest we have met up to this point. This however did not mean we could not explore the other extraordinary sites in Uganda. Our next stop was Lake Bunyoni. Here we resided at the Bunyoni overland resort. It is set on a picturesque lake with great facilities and an affordable price tag. We enjoyed food from their exotic menu and I even had a swim in the crystal clear water. The only downside to our visit to the camp was that the rains had finally caught us and we thought at one point that we might be washed into Uganda’s deepest lake. Subsequently we weren’t so we were able to continue south to the border.
Unlike our usual routine at the border. You know, get your passport and carnet stamped then continue on your merry way. This day we decided to not proceed with that and instead turned 180 degrees and headed back north. The reason for this turn in event is that contrary to our previous understanding, Uganda does not issue multi entry visas at the border. To us this would not have been a problem, however, our travelling companions needed to head back to Nairobi at some point so having to pay the $50 per person entry stamp was not really fair on them. This worked out for the best as we had not yet been to see Kampala and were going to visit the Ssese Islands as part of our northbound excursion.
If you have been to South Africa, or any other Southern African country for that matter, you would know that finding a campsite near a national park is a pretty straightforward affair. Not so in Uganda. We came across this very phenomenon at the gates of Lake Mburo National Park. There was not one campsite outside the park’s borders. This meant we had to either cough up the $110 for entry or make another plan. No points for guessing which option we took. Luckily for us Michnus had well honed negotiating skills and was able to convince the guard at the gate that we were poor travellers stranded in the big out doors with nowhere to go. The man had a soft heart and a “rubber arm” so he let us camp right there next to the gate. There was a lot of game about so it made for a lovely evening out in the African bush.
The next morning we bid the guard a friendly good bye and headed on to Lake Victoria. We did give the guard a little gift simply because he was so kind to us. The drive to the lake was pretty uneventful. It was only bout 100km and most of it was flat. The only part of the journey that does get one’s heart rate up a little bit is the road works. The fact that there are road works is not the issue, it’s the fact that no one knows what’s going on. You have cars driving in six different directions at once, trucks dumping sand in the middle of the road, add about a hundred cyclists and it all gets pretty hair raising. So due to this we decided to spend the night on the mainland before debarking on our island adventure. We alighted at the Lake Nabugabu campground. It was nice enough apart from the wind trying to blow us off the side of the earth. We ate supper at their restaurant and consumed more of the local beer. By now this had become norm. Rock up to camp, order the local cuisine and stock up on beer. Not a bad way to have a holiday, but not a great way to stay healthy either. What the hell, you only live once.
We packed up camp in the morning and headed for the Ssese Island Ferry in Masaka. This was a free ferry to the island, but we experienced a two hour delay. We made the most of it though by sampling the local cafe’s food which included a prehistoric donut and hard boiled eggs. Silvie managed to start an argument with one of the officials, which was later resolved with a bribe of about 200 Ugandan Shillings, that’s about 10c US. Hehehehe, not bad price for a little entertainment. The lake flies gave us more than our share of entertainment for the rest of the journey to the island. The island had a good mix of forest and farmland. The predominent crop seemed to be Palm nut. The first evening we camped at a venue with DSTV so Neil could watch the rugby. It wasn’t too bad here as there was direct access to the Lake which we took advantage of. We had a good evening watching the rugby and having dinner. The only distraction was that someone was having a party at the bar, so the doof-doof went on for quite a while into the night. It would have been that bad really except for the fact that the dj couldn’t get the track off the birthday celebration song, and then the builders were at it the next morning at 8am. I’d like to add that it was a Sunday, so we didn’t expect the builders to be there. We decided that it would be best to move to another camp. Thus we spent the rest of our time at a wonderful camp where we were waited on hand and foot by a chef who supposedly worked for the Ugandan President… very yum and oh so posh. We explored a little of the jungle forest, but ended up in the mangrove so we had to return, but not before passing one of the local bars to have a beer. Ultimately we had the laziest time possibly imagined on this island. After about 4 days we caught the Entebbe ferry back to the mainland. This ferry wasn’t free, but the money paid was well worth it for a seat inside the boat.
In Entebbe we headed for the botanical gardens, we sat chatting for a while and decided that we would find the campsite. Even though we paid to get in, we organised it so we could return later that day. We found accommodation in the zoo, where they had 4 person chalets available. The chalets were terribly infested with mosquitoes and the nets had holes in them. Neil and I decided to sleep in our tent, which has excellent mosquito protection. The next day we explored Entebbe on motorbike compliments of Michnus and Elsebie. Ooh I want a motorbike now!!! I think the age 30 calls for a midlife crisis if it should be called that. Well we had a lovely lunch of chinese food and beer and headed back to camp where we explored the zoo. Entebbe Zoo has quite a comprehensive list of animals including 3 lions, 2 rhinos and giraffe. The monkeys were a fun bunch to watch and the Shoebill was a pleasure as well.
The following day we headed to Kampala. We found a Shoprite and sorted out our laptop charger saga by purchasing a multi purpose charger pack. We bought books and various other techy bits. Boy were we excited to see a sign for Spur Steakhouse at one of the shopping centres, but it turned out that it had been closed for some time already. We did manage to find a good alternative, Rancher, where I had the best ladies steak possibly in Africa. All shopped out and nowhere to go, we headed for camp. The place to stay is the Red Chilli in Kampala. They have a tiny splash pool, a massive pig, pizza nights and best of all they have DSTV so that we could catch up on the Super 15. We spent two nights there enjoying the company of Michnus and Elsebie. But alas all good things must come to an end and we had to say farewell to our new friends. They had to return to Nairobi while we had to continue our journey south. We had had an inspiring time with them and it was quite sad that we now had to go our separate ways. Not to worry we had swapped details and are bound to meet up in the future.
So we were on our own again. It is always a mixture of uneasiness and excitement. It is so easy to become accustomed to a certain way of doing things. It was now strange to only have to think about what we wanted to do and to know that it would only be us at camp that evening. So as our first point of action we decided to fulfil one of the goals of the trip. As you might have gathered we are quite avid birdwatchers. So it is only natural that we would want to see the famous and much endangered Shoebill. This bird is to the birding world what the Simien Wolf is to the animal watcher. Luckily this is such a tourist attraction that our faithful Garmin actually had a site where we could possibly have the chance to see this incredible bird in the wild. It routed down the main road past Entebbe and then on to a gravel road. We thought that the coordinates must have been wrong, but low and behold we were met by two excited guys on a motorbike. Our innate scepticism immediately kicked in and we were on guard from the start. It turned out that our fears were unwarranted. One of the gentlemen on the motorcycle happened to be the local Shoebill guide. This man, Winston, had been a guide for the past ten years. He had sponsored by UNESCO and had his training done in South Africa. He was a wealth of information and was able to share with us some of the most extraordinary facts about this incredible bird. For instance Shoebills only mate once every five years. What makes matters worse is that they won’t mate if there is another bird in the area with a chick. This means that certain birds could go for as long as ten years without mating. Seeing as they only live to the age of twenty, some birds never mate successfully. Besides the facts, this was one of the cooler things we’ve done so far. With the trepidation of leaving our car in the village, we took a ride in a dugout canoe on the waterways amongst the overgrown reed beds. This is what I wanted out of our Africa trip. Felt like being on a filming session of the National Geographic Earth Series. I could hear David Attenborough’s voice soothing away the problems of the world in my head. A good one and a half hours and some awesome views of the Shoebill later, I was on top of the world. I hadn’t felt this feeling of awe since the volcano in Ethiopia. We drove off with such a feeling of accomplishment and we agreed once more that Uganda would definitely see us again. We camped that evening in a forest camp where we were able to walk by ourselves amongst the gnarly old giants these Africans call trees.
We rode the next for what was to be our final destination in Uganda. As fate would have it, our radiator burst halfway there and so we limped into Mbarara Rotary Clubhouse. We met up with a lovely lady who happened to have a brother who was a big shot at Toyota Kampala. Before you could say “where’s your hat” we had someone over and an appointment for repair the next morning. The rest of the evening we whiled away at the Rotary club where we were able to camp.
What do you know; the next day we had our radiator fixed and exhaust rewelded for the equivalent of £35. All done by 2pm, we headed for the border, which was pretty uneventful compared to the entrance border. Goodbye Uganda, it was a pleasure and we will see you next time.
