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Published: January 31st 2014
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Thursday 19th December Kalinzu Forest Reserve is located in Bushenyi District in western Uganda - a Natural Forest beaming with Chimps, Primates, butterflies and rare birds. Today we travelled to our accomodation on the edge of Queen Elizabeth Park and on the way, in the morning, we stopped at Kalinzu Forest reserve to trek for chimpanzies. Groups are set to a maximum of 6 so we split into two groups of 5 and off we set with our guide and her machette, our rain coats, long pants and high socks. We trekked for about an hour and a half through gorgeous rain forest, over streams and logs, before we came to a family of about 5 or 6 chimps. You are alowed to stay and watch them for an hour before you have to leave; we watched them swing from tree to tree and go about their usual morning business - it was amazing 😊
Our camp for the next two nights was a place called Hippo Camp, located on the edge of Queen Elizabeth National Park. This camp was beautiful, some people in the group camped but we chose to upgrade to a
luxurious cabin (thanks to Daves sisters generosity). The main reason we chose to upgrade was because the hippos literally pass through the camp at night! One morning there were elephants on the other side of the campsite, just feet away from the tents, and we could here the hippos at night! Luckily we were tucked up in our cabin 😊
Hippo Camp is built on a hill overlooking an extraordinary landscape of crater lakes which were created by volcanic activities, here you could see a massive flock of flamingões and watch the sunset at night.
Queen Elizabeth National Park has 95 mammal species and 606 bird species, it occupies an estimated 1,978 square quilometres, the area of the park extends from Lake George in the northeast to Lake Edward in the southwest, and includes the Kazinga Channel that connects the two lakes. This afternoon we set off almost as soon as we got to Hippo Camp for an afternoon Cruise in Queen Elizabeth Park; we cruised down the Kazinga Channel where we saw an abudance of wildlife. We saw most by the main water hole, there were a number of elephants, hippos (mothers and
their babies), buffalos, crocodiles, eagles, flamingões, stalks, gazelles, a lion and many more. This evening, we ate dinner by camp fire, drank beer by candlelight and played cards... a standard evening in África!
Friday 20th December: Up at 6.30am for breakfast at 7am, scrammbled eggs and toast 😊 we then set off for an early morning game drive in Queen Elizabeth Park. We saw very little wildlife on this game drive, even so it was great to be out. The funny thing is, the day before - just driving to the game park - we had seen giraffe, elephants and zebras.
This afternoon we had some free time (which is rare), our tour guide George urged us to take a walk down into the local village, his words were ´they dont get many visitors and they will literally welcome you with open arms´- so thats exactly what we did. On the way down into the village we passed by local houses where the children came running out to us, waving frantically and everyone wanted to hold your hand. Some of the kids put on a little show, showing these back flips that they
could do. The children followed us into town, we ran with them whilst holding thier hands as requested, Dave carried a few around with his mighty muscles... it was great - one of the best memories. Before we headed back to camp we had a cold drink and short game of pool with our group and some local villagers in a very very local bar!
Saturday 21st December Today was a transfer day - A LOT of driving, as we are now on our way to Kisoro for the gorilla trek, we stayed in a place called Kabale and camped at a beautiful campsite called Lake Bunyoni Overlanders Resort, set high in the mountains and overlooking Bunyoni Lake, which is apparently the deepest lake in the world. We set up tent, ate our dinner and swiftly headed to the bar for more beer and pool.
22nd, 23rd and 24th December - Kisoro, Uganda. We arrived in Kisoro after travelling over the mountains from Kabale, a beautiful drive with very steep ascents and descents.
These very memorable 3 days were spent in Kisoro - which is famous for its Gorilla
Trekking and the work of Diane Fossey. From here you can trek to her grave and the very mountains where she did here work.
On the 23rd we unexpectedly took place in a local marathon; the town was holding a charity marathon for the local hospital and its maternaty wing, saving money to prevent unneccesary deaths of mothers. It was a 25km run, with the option to only run 12.5km or do a 5km walk - obviously Dave and I and a few others just chose the walk! We arrived bright and breezey as requested and paid our 10USD to enter and received our free t-shirt and baseball cap. África is general caos at the best of times so im sure you can imagine what it was like on the morning of a local marathon! We lined up with everyone else in the street with the sun beating down on us, spectators, pick-up trucks and armed police lined the street ready for the start. A couple of the guys ran the 12.5 but most of us walked, we got some great photos and it was generally an amazing experience!
CHRISTMAS EVE & the much awaited Gorilla Trek...
We left this morning, before sunrise and travelled the long jounrey along an unsurfaced and bumpy road to the spectacular Impenetrable Forest to trek for the mountain gorillas in the wild.
The Impenetrable forest is blanketed by one of the most diverse rainforests and protects an estimated 320 mountain gorillas – roughly half of the world’s population.
We trekked in a group of 8 people, which is the maximum and at one time; each group of people will trek a different group of gorilas, all of which are habituated groups. You can trek from anything to an hour and a half to 8 hours to see them!
Off we set with our guide, our two armed guards and the trackers were already off ahead tracking the gorillas for us. It was an epic hike up the mountain to the entrance of the rainforest in the blazing heat and once we got to the entrance we had to put on our long sleaved tops in order to stop the bugs getting us!
After hiking for about an hour and a half we came across our
group of gorillas which included a silver back, 2 or 3 young males, and 2 or 3 females with their babies. Altogether there were about 10 to 12 gorilas. Viewing the mountain gorillas in there natural habitate was amazing and the highlight was getting within about 10ft of the silver back.
Christmas Eve dinner was spent at a local lodge overlooking a beautiful lake. Our guide George had set the table for all 22 of us with christmas crackers and candles. For dinner we had fresh pig (which George butchered only hours before - with vídeo evidence to prove it!), potatoes, rice, beans and baked banana all washed down with a beer and Georges punch!! Following dinner we sat around the camp fire and played secret santa, with an Áfrican Twist.
Christmas Day... Most of Christmas Day was spent travelling through Rwanda to Kigali where we spent the night. During the day we visited the Genocide museum which was a sad but interesting experience.
We left Rwanda on Boxing Day and headed for Tanzânia...
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