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Published: September 17th 2006
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Murchison Falls
View of the falls approaching via boat along the river Nile. Murchison Falls
19-21 August 2006 After a week conducting fieldwork in the West Nile I took my first bus in Uganda and treated myself to a tourist weekend at Murchison Falls- home to countless giraffes, hippopotamuses, antelopes, warthogs, elephants and some lions and leopards, which are not easy to find. My bus departed Arua Town at 6:30am and it took about six hours to travel to a bridge where I waited for a friend and driver from Kampala to meet me and pick me up.
The bus ride in itself was an experience, if you’ve ever travelled via bus in a third world country the experience is similar most everywhere, just different quality buses, smells and sights. I stayed awake along the ride so I could see more of the countryside, as it was my first real trip far outside Kampala. As a child I had an image of Africa’s dry gold plains with prides of lions and elephants roaming, an image created by national geographic specials and Hollywood movies. I have not been to this Africa yet, Uganda is green, fertile and lush. Driving south towards Murchison the scenery slowly changed, the trees grew shorter and
were spaced gradually further apart. Eventually the rich green grass grew taller and changed to a yellow green colour with golden tips. It actually started to resemble the Africa many people may picture in their minds’ eye. I could almost imagine a lioness crouching in the grass waiting to pounce on a lone antelope or buffalo. I tried to take some pictures as the bus meandered along the mud, rutted out road so you can see what is looked like rather than depend on my description.
Along the way the bus stopped to drop off and pick up passengers. At each stop mobs of women and young children rushed the bus from all sides raising their goods above their heads and up towards your window. They are hawking a variety of snacks from pre-packaged biscuits, fried bread, grilled maize,
chapatti (African flatbread), ground nuts and bananas, I opted for the fried bread, kind of like a donut- kind of. The least appetizing choice is the fried goat on a stick on which the oil glistens in the sun. I have always been one to try about anything while on the road and have eaten everything from blood sausage to
Murchison Falls
This is a picture of the falls, you can see how narrow the chute through which the water passes through is. Also you can see where there used to a bridge (you can see the concrete block to the right) but it was washed away by the force of the river when the water level rose. udder to alligator and even donkey. But I’ve reached a point when I am through eating completely unappetizing foods for the cultural experience, goat falls into this category, although popular and on most every Ugandan menu I have not tried it and don’t plan on it either.
Once we arrived at my bridge I jumped off to await my ride, sitting down on the roadside with my book I waited, an hour, but they finally arrived and we were off to the park. Margarita, mzungu interning with me, drove up with Steven in Katrina’s SUV and picked me up. You need a car to access most national parks in Uganda as the public transport will get you close but not inside, for example after they retrieved me on the roadside we drove two hours before arriving at camp.
(Sidenote: Katrina works at UPHOLD and she offered us the use of her car and driver, Steven for the weekend so Margarita and I could see Murchison, which was super generous of her. Steven was great and it was his first time at Murchison too and he really enjoyed himself) The drive into the park was exciting as we passed
Ugandan countryside
This is what the countryside looked like outside my bus driving south to Murchison. If you look closely you can see large seed pods hanging down from the tree. baboons along the way. Once we arrived we were too late to do a game drive that evening, so we settled into our tents at the Red Chilli Camp and drove to see the falls. They were very powerful, and although you know you are not going to fall in, since you cannot even get that close, it still a little frightening to stand so near knowing what would happen in the unlikely even you did slip. We started at the top and hiked down to get a view from below, spending about an hour or so in total exploring and taking pictures. Once back at camp we had dinner together, talked to some tourists and went to bed early.
Sunday morning we drove through the park entrance and rode the small ferry across the Nile before picking up a ranger for our game drive. In total it lasted about three and a half hours. We saw many types of antelopes, different species to be exact of varying sizes and appearance but all resembling antelopes. There were herds of water buffalo and many warthogs too. My absolute favourite were the giraffes, we saw three separate herds as we drove.
Buffalo
The national park looks like this and you can see a hard of buffalo in the distance. They were amazing, very elegant with their necks moving up and down ever so slightly as they walk. We also did get to see a few elephants, in one case we turned a corner to be only five metres from an adult elephant, our ranger seemed taken aback and instructed Steven to stop the car so as not to disturb or provoke it, I got the feeling it might not have been advisable to be so close. Although there are lions and leopards in Murchison we did not encounter any that morning, but the giraffes and elephants were enough to satisfy me. It is so different to see animals outside of a zoo, almost as if I you never really see them until you see them in the
wild as if the zoo doesn’t count.
After we boarded a boat for tour of the Nile moving towards the falls and back. The boat was pretty small with two levels; we sweated it out on the top since we did not have reservations for the seats below. It did not feel like the most reliable vessel especially with the captain continuously reminding everyone to balance the weight so we would
Dusk on the Nile
This was taken while hiking around the falls right before sunset. not tip. This proved to be too difficult for most people though, since all the hippopotamuses and crocodiles were on one side of the Nile so everyone was clamouring to get to that side of the boat to take pictures. The hippopotamuses were plentiful but we mostly saw the tops of their heads and eyes poking out, but every so often one or two would stand to move around and we could see them in their entirety. At one point there were about five or six crocodiles floating near a group of hippos, I can only guess that one of the crocs moved two close because the two largest hippos jumped up and charged the crocs, who quickly retreated and returned to their lazy floating (see picture).
Sunday was a long day after which we rested at camp to prepare for chimp trekking the following morning before driving back to Kampala. Finding the chimps proved to be quite difficult though as we got lost and drove in circles for over four house before finally locating Padidi Forest and the chimp trekking expedition. I was ready to throw the towel in after three hours but Margarita was determined and in
Sunrise on the Nile
The sun was rising as we waited for the ferry to take us across the river for our game drive. the end I am glad we stuck it out. Although we arrived late our guide was persistent and walked us around for an hour until we located some.
We could hear them screeching and banging on the trees long before we actually saw them. They were amazing, huge with black faces. Pictures of chimps that I have seen they have white faces, but I learned that chimps like humans could be black or white. They stayed pretty high in the trees and if you moved too close or made too much noise they took off. A few came down onto the ground but the forest was so thick that you could barely make them out through the trees and brush. I tried taking some pictures, only a few of which even remotely came out clear, you really needed a powerful zoom lens because they were so high up, you had to strain you neck to see them. But they were amazing and worth the strain and hike to find them.
My first African safari was a success and I hope that I will be able to enjoy another before I leave, enjoy the pictures.
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