Wild animal babies and bonkers man swims naked in a dangerous lake

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I never expected to witness a naked man swimming in a lake teeming with dangerous snakes, crocodiles and hippos, but part of the fun of travel is witnessing sheer insanity I believe! And also seeing lots of wild animals and their babies.

Today’s excitement began with a neighbour’s cat visiting us during breakfast. It even let me stroke it :-). Glyn pointed out that it’s fur wasn’t as soft as our boys’, but it does look like it is well fed.

Now our lodge is a distance from the main area, and does have an electric fence to keep out elephants and predators, but I did wonder about the walk between the fenced places, what happens when we get big and wild visitors? However, there was a man at the gate with a torch ready to walk us through this morning and there was only some waterbuck nearby. Did I mention it was it was still dark? Safari often means an early start, so breakfast was at 6.30. However, Zedius seems not as good at getting up as us and we asked one of the staff to knock on for him (we weren’t sure which room was his) at 6.45.

We set off just after 7pm as Zedius received a call. The guides keep in contact and the word was that there were lions near to the main road, so off we shot! On the way, Glyn spotted a lonely male hippo, who had probably lost a fight and would be living alone now. I also spotted a lonely male elephant who also probably had lost a fight! Lots of losers around here!

We soon spotted jeeps that had gotten there before us. In the distance we could see alarmed kops and underneath some stumpy trees were a few female lions, potentially on the hunt. We were also blessed in that we could see lion cubs trotting behind, trying to keep up and learn from mum. The lions were walking from bush to bush, but eventually settled down together for a rest. Hunting is exhausting work after all and not worth it if you’re not too hungry. Now that they were all lying down, chances were that they’d be sleeping for the rest of the day, so we moved on to the actual park.

Being daytime at the park, there were other tourists and Glyn spotted one in flip flops and socks. This is never right, no matter where in the world you are from.

We drove around the park for 3-4 hours and saw waterbuck, kops, buffalo and warthog, including baby warthogs trotting after their mum. They were incredibly cute. Unfortunately there were no more elephants or lions, I would like to get closer to some. We did see a lot of vultures in the ground and swooping overhead, that was impressive.

We ended at a salt pan lake, where there was a toilet and souvenir stands. I bought a carved lion and leopard. Glyn bought a carved gorilla with a baby and two masks.

Next was a tour of the salt pans within the wildlife park and we were joined by another group from Mambo Gorilla Safaris. Zedius said their guide was new and could get lost without him. The tourists were three ladies from Uganda, self-described ‘local tourists’.

Talking of getting lost, Zedius said it’s not a problem in Uganda, unless you go too far north and end up in Sudan. Apparently you’ll find very dangerous criminals or they will find you, and it won’t end well. It reminded me of a conversation we’d had last night, where he told us that if you are being attacked by bad people and call the police, the first thing they will ask is, “how many guns do they have?” If it is too many, you’re on your own!

There were women and men working ant the salt pans and an older guy gave us a tour. He explained how he gathered the salt and that there were two types, one for human consumption and the other for animals. He said that the black mud was magma and great for your skin, it was sold as face masks. He lifted his trouser leg to show his ‘baby soft skin’ and the women hooted with laughter. One lady asked, where can I buy this face mask so that I can get a face like yours?! More laughter ensued. Unless the guy is 100 years old, I really don’t think that the magma was doing him that many favours.

The salt forms in this area due to it being an old volcano and some underground springs, and it smelt of sulphur. I didn’t completely understand all that he was saying, but he said they did have to wear long socks because the dried salt was sharp. He also was explaining that there were places that the female workers couldn’t work due to some gases rising up and negatively effecting their private parts. One of the Ugandan ladies asked why didn’t they were panties? The guy either didn’t hear or ignored this but the women laughed. There’s another area where the male workers needed to wear condoms to protect against the elements. I really don’t know why.

In the extreme distance were flamingos that migrate from other African countries. They don’t stay long as the area isn’t big enough to support them. We did walk a little closer but they were so far away that they were specks to the human eye.

One of the Ugandan ladies was asking how much they earned from the salt and the guy really didn’t want to tell her. When a number was eventually given, she wasn’t impressed. I guess there are more lucrative ways to earn a living in Uganda. He did explain that 100 families own the salt pans and that they pass down ownership through the generations. The ladies were still not impressed! I’m with them, it looked like hot and dirty work,

After this it was time to head back for lunch. It is beautiful here, but I am disappointed that we’ve not gotten closer to lions and elephants, as it is possible for this to happen. Zedius didn’t seem to understand this. I thought we were trying again tomorrow afternoon as it is in our itinerary, but it is cancelled due to us going last night. I’m annoyed as I’d far rather have gone tomorrow in the light instead of driving in the dark as we did last night. Zedius suggested we rest tomorrow afternoon instead, but that’s not our thing. We’ve been saving hard for a year to do this, I will rest at home. It didn’t help that he’d stopped on the way back to check that the exhaust hadn’t fallen off, (it hadn’t) but he’s had car trouble since we started.

But I did get to see more of the neighbours’ cats!

After an hour it was time to go on a water safari. Zedius drove us there and there was an uncomfortable silence to start with, so I asked if anything was sorted for tomorrow afternoon. “Oh yes”, he said “you’re doing a game drive”. Why didn’t he lead with this? Anyway, all’s well that ends well. It turns out that he’d been following our old itinerary instead of the updated one that Didan had sent after upselling to us upon our arrival. All was good again.

Now I wasn’t expecting much for this boat safari because I don’t think I’ve ever been in one where you actually saw any wildlife other than a few birds. This one was on the Kazinga channel that connects Lake George and Lake Edward at Katanguru and is a 20 mile long freshwater channel, 900 metres wide and 8 metres deep in the middle. The boat could hold 16 tourists but there was only us and an Italian couple who were fun. There were life jackets, but no one mentioned them and they got left on the floor. Refreshingly there was no safety briefing too.

My first question was is it to dangerous to swim in the lake because of the snakes, crocodiles and hippos? The answer: yes it is.

My second question was, why was there a naked man swimming in the lake? We’d just seen him get out upon our arrival. The answer: because some people don’t listen. It’s reassuring to know that stupidly knows no manmade boundaries.

We’d barely started when we came upon buffalo in the water, baboons at the shore and hippos. OMG there were endless amounts of hippos! Mostly you can see nostrils, eyes and ears. They spend the daylight hours submerged and can hold their breath for around four minutes. So in the water, they can sneak up upon you. They can traverse the lake by walking across the lakebed, floating to the top when air is required.

And then we saw a crocodile, just chilling. Further down another croc on the shore was being attacked by a bird protecting its eggs. I’m not really into birds, but the colourful ones here were worth photographing. Regularly stationed intermittently within trees were striking sea eagles, looking for fish. After a while, I stopped photographing them, until we spied one particularly low down. I took aim and then it flew off. To my utter surprise I got a bird in flight shot and I think it’s in focus! It’s one thing I’ve never succeeded at, bird in flight photos, so that has topped my day.

We also got to see a baby crocodile and baby warthogs. The boat shot off to the other side of the lake as elephants had been spotted. Our guide assured us that hippos were so common in the lake, I need not worry about missing them, but elephants at the waters edge is worth speeding across the lake. And yes, we got a whole family, including a juvenile and a baby getting told off. They quickly set off back up the slope inland. Our guide said this was because it was clouding over and the elephants know that rain makes the slopes too slippery for them to climb, so they needed to set off before it was too dangerous.

Some rain did come but the boat was covered. We suggested returning to the other side of the lake where the weather was better. We joked with the Italians that the other side was European weather and the rainy side was the UK.

I think we were out for a couple of hours. We saw a lot more wildlife, many crocodiles, plus a monitor lizard. We also saw Zedius on a hill waving at us! Upon our arrival, he told us he’d had the exhaust fixed but the mechanic said the starter motor was unfixable. He had parked facing uphill on the steep slope to the boat house and once again had trouble starting. I felt for him as the vehicle belongs to Mambo Gorilla Safaris, and I don’t think they are sending another. He kept rolling backwards to jump start the motor and we were merely centimetres from rolling into the boathouse when it finally revved up. I told him he certainly knows how to add more excitement to the journey. I’m sure everyone watching was expecting a collision!

We got back to the lodge around 4.30 pm and there was time for us to relax. Zedius said he was getting the jeep cleaned, but maybe he needs to relax too. I tried a bit of macro photography but couldn’t find many insects around our lodge. A shy tabby cat came miaowing at me, it had no problem darting in and out of the electric fence that surrounds us in the hope of keeping out predators!

At 7pm we walked back to the reception area for dinner and saw a lot of local lads playing football in the inbetween area. A lovely sunset soaked the sky in orange and the birds were making a huge racket about it being the end of the day. After dinner, a member of staff walked us back with a torch. The football had ended and the lads were replaced by a snoozing herd of waterbuck. There was even an elephant, we just saw its backside as it cut around a hedge. Who knows, it may only be metres from me now!

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