Queen Elizabeth National Park - Part 2

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Well we had another exciting, yet disappointing weekend at Queen Elizabeth National Park. We left Mbarara around 6 am on Saturday morning to head to the park, as we did not want to spend two nights there and have to pay for two days of park passes. Brendan, Laura’s friend, drove us in his vehicle. It was nice not to be the one driving the vehicle for once. You could say that it is a little bit stressful driving in Uganda. There are really no such things as traffic laws and you basically have to weave in and out of vehicles and boda bodas to make it anywhere, but I am the most experienced driver out of us three goat girls, so I am usually behind the wheel.



On our way to the park we picked up another classmate of Sarah and I’s, Suzanne. She is doing a One Health program this summer, which consists of a one week course at Mbarara University and then a four week rotation at a rural health clinic. Once those five weeks are over she will be joining us on the goat project. The students in the program can volunteer anywhere health related once their mandatory rotations are done, but they must be in Uganda for a total of 90 days. Suzanne will not be coming back to Canada until August 20^th, which is four days before school starts again! I get home on August 14^th, so I’m glad that I will have at least ten days in Alberta before I head back to Sask for third year.



After we picked up Suzanne at the Riugazi health clinic we stopped for some Rolex, as everyone was getting a little hangry and they are our favorite local snack. Rolex is a chapatti with basically a cheese-less omelet rolled inside it. Ugandan people do not like cheese, which is probably due to the fact that the majority of the population do not have a fridge. Cheese would not be edible for very long in the African heat. When we got to the park gates, we realized that we had to back track about a half an hour to the main park office to buy our passes. After the delay, we got to Dr. Siefert’s at about 10 am, which was actually the time he wanted us to arrive, so it worked out well. We ordered some sandwiches to go from the park resto and then headed out.



Apparently, there was a wounded elephant in the park that we needed to find and most likely euthanize. Dr. Siefert says that a number of the elephants in the park have been suffering from large perianal ulcers, cause unknown. In this particular elephant, the ulcer was so bad that one of hind legs was severely infected and full of pus, making it very difficult for the animal to walk. Siefert wanted to dart the animal and assess the ulcer to see if it was treatable, and if not, then the animal would need to be euthanized to end its suffering. We were super stoked when we found out that we would get to see and touch an anesthetized elephant and possibly see an elephant euthanasia (not as stoked for this part, but still). All of us, Dr. Siefert and a few rangers hopped into the back of a truck and headed to the edge of the forest where the elephant was last seen. Two rangers headed into the trees to try and get a location on the elephant, so that Dr. Siefert could then go in to dart it. We waited about half an hour, learning all about the dart gun and the anesthetic drugs until the rangers came back. They said they had found the elephant!



Dr. Siefert headed into the forest, dart gun strapped across his back, with a couple of rangers accompanying him. He said he would call us on the phone as soon as the animal was darted so that we could rush into the forest and join them. It was much too dangerous for us to be there while he darted the elephant, so we had to wait out at the truck. We waited….and waited….and waited. About two hours had gone by and we hadn’t heard any word from Dr. Siefert. We decided to get into the truck and drive along the edge of the river to look for the elephant….no luck. We went back to the supplies and waited some more….still nothing. We were starting to really wonder what was going on. Had they found the elephant? Had something gone wrong?



Our questions were answered about a half an hour later when the empty handed hunters came trudging out of the forest. Apparently the rangers had spotted the wrong elephant, but didn’t realize it at the time because the elephant was laying down when they first saw it. When they realized that they were tracking the wrong elephant they tried to find the correct one, but were unsuccessful. Bummer. We were all so excited, but I guess this kind of thing just happens sometimes. At least we would get to dart a lion tomorrow morning.



We headed back to the area of the hotel, but on the way we stopped along the edge of the lake to watch some hippos chillaxin’. Dr. Siefert told us not to get too close to the water, as crocodiles could come rushing out at us without any warning. We were enjoying the view and snapping some pictures when a car pulled up. There was a driver and 16 school kids in the vehicle! They wanted to take a picture with us in front of the lake. It is really strange being in a place where you are the minority, but yet treated like royalty. I have never experienced anything like it before. After the pictures they all piled back into their car and took off. We went back to the hotel and decided to treat Dr. Siefert to supper at the fancy lodge. The food was delicious, the best we have had for a while. After stuffing ourselves full we said goodnight to Siefert and headed back to the rooms.



Our rooms were kind of a motel style, with bathrooms in a separate building behind the rooms. I really needed to pee before bed, so I headed towards the bathrooms. It was pitch black out, so I was wearing my headlamp. I was just past the edge of the building when I heard a noise that stopped me in my tracks…the growl of a large cat! I didn’t stick around to find the source of the growl, but ran back to the room instead. I told Lena what happened and we peered out of the back window to look for animals. My knees were shaking uncontrollably at this point. We were shining my headlamp out of the window, when the light illuminated a pair of eyes. On a small building in the trees, a little bit behind the bathrooms, there was a pair of eyes staring at us! They eyes didn’t move for a while and then whatever animal they belonged to, climbed down from the roof and went further into the trees, out of view.



At this point, we were pretty certain that the animal I had heard and the eyes we had seen belonged to a leopard! Dr. Siefert had mentioned before that there was one who hung around in the area and would often show up at his house. After this point I was too freaked out to walk to the bathroom, so Brendan drove his truck from the front of our room to the bathroom building, just so I could pee. I went to bed shortly after that, as we were getting up early to track the lions. There was a female that needed a radio collar, so we were going to look for her.



Sunday morning we met Dr. Siefert at the ranger office at 6:30 am. He was loading all of the gear into his truck, including the dart gun and radio collars. He also mentioned that the leopard was at his house again last night, so it probably was a leopard that growled at me yesterday! Crazy! Since I didn’t get a chance last time, I was the first to ride on the roof with James. James is Dr. Siefert’s assistant and he does the tracking with the radio collars. He holds a contraption that looks like a lightning rod and points it in every direction to try and pick up a signal. Each radio collar projects a signal at a different frequency, so James can use this to determine which lion he is picking up a signal from. I was asking him questions about how everything worked and about the lion we were tracking today. He said that the lion we were looking for did not have a collar, nor did any of the other lions in her group……basically, this meant we were looking for a needle in a haystack. The chances of coming across the lion we needed, especially when we had no signal to follow, was virtually zero. Although this meant that once again we wouldn’t be darting a lion, I didn’t want to kill the other girl’s hopes, so I didn’t say anything to them.



The first thing that we came across on the game drive was a hyena! He was pretty far away and was running fast, so we didn’t get a great look at him, but it was still cool. We zig zagged back and forth through the kob mating grounds for a while, hoping to find the lions, but no luck. We decided to head to a different area and then James picked up a signal. It wasn’t the lion we were looking for, but rather a male lion named Papa. Papa had been spotted two days ago with a female lion, so they were probably mating. Apparently, female lions are in estrus for 5 – 7 days and the pair spend this entire time together, mating every half an hour!! We saw the lions from a distance, but were able to pull the truck up right beside them. They were both lying flat out, huffing and puffing. They seemed exhausted, but it’s not surprising, since their mating habits are so intense. Dr. Siefert figured that the lions had been together for about four days and were at the peak of their mating cycle. We watched them for about ten minutes, until the action began.



Papa sat up like something was going to happen, and then the female stood up. She started to walk back in forth in front of Papa, almost like she was egging him on. Papa then stood up and started following the female. It’s weird to say that the lions were flirting, but they definitely were. I imagined Elton John singing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” in the background. The female would walk forward, flicking her tail in the air and papa would follow her. She was such a tease. This went on for a minute or so until the female finally stopped walking and Papa climbed on top of her. Next, the female started screeching like she was undergoing something extremely painful….then it was over. Seriously?! That was it?! Talk about a one pump chump. It was seriously the shortest mating ever. Sitting on top of the vehicle roof in Africa, watching two lions bang and all I could think was “THIS IS AWESOME!”.



As soon as it was finished, both lions lied back down, the female rolling on her back to “show her appreciation” to the male. She definitely didn’t sound like she had enjoyed it, it sounded like when domestic cats mate, except at lion volume. Then the lions just laid on their sides and fell asleep. We watched for a while, hoping to see another lion humping in action. Nothing was happening, but in the distance we could hear a kob giving off a danger call. Dr. Siefert said that the kobs make this sound to warn other kobs that there is danger in the area, such as a lion or hyena. We followed the shrill screech and sure enough, James picked up a signal of another lion. This one was a female, but her signal was coming from within a thicket. As we were driving up to the thicket we could see a cub walking through the grass in front of us. He entered the thicket that the female was in and we knew that they wouldn’t show themselves again, so we continued driving. We came across a hippo and Dr. Siefert tried to drive as close to him as possible, so we all managed to get some good pictures before he ran off. We passed by the pair of mating lions once again, but now they were distracted by a herd of cape buffalo, so their love affair was on pause. Apparently, the buffalo can run down the lions and even kill them sometimes, so I can understand the lions’ concern. We decided to head to another area and drive around randomly again to look for the female in question. Surprise, surprise, we didn’t find anything. It was afternoon by this time, so we decided to call it quits and head back to Mbarara. We thanked Dr. Siefert for all of his time, knowledge and showing us some really cool stuff, even though we didn’t ever get to see him dart anything. Like how many people I know can actually say that they have seen lions having sex?! Probably not many.



When we dropped Suzanne off at the health clinic in Riugazi she gave us a quick little tour of the place. Even describing the place will not quite capture what it was like, let’s just say it is very different than a clinic at home. There were multiple buildings serving different purposes, such as pediatrics, maternity ward, vaccination clinic, etc. There were a lot of people sitting outside of the buildings on the grass, almost like they were camping out. Suzanne said that the floors of the buildings were usually mopped once a day, but it was with dirty water, so it probably wasn’t doing much good. There was an isolation ward where people with tuberculosis would go, but yet the doors were wide open and people were free to walk in and out. The “public” latrines were absolutely revolting, I would rather go outside in the open than use them. The maternity ward was probably the most shocking part of the clinic. It kind of looked like it was out of a horror movie, the ones where people are strapped to a chair and tortured.



Women come to clinic close to the time they are due, bringing their own blankets with them. There were two birthing chairs in the maternity ward. When the women would start to go into labor they would set their blanket up on the chair themselves and climb into the chairs without any assistance. Suzanne said the women won’t even make one peep while giving birth, or squeeze her hand. Once they are done pushing another fricking human being out of their body, the women will get out of the chair unassisted, pack up their blanket and move to the maternity ward because somebody else probably needs the chair. African women make us Canadian women look like huge wimps.



After the clinic tour we said goodbye to Suzanne and did the final trek to Mbarara. Even though we literally just got back from a trip, we have to repack our bags because tomorrow we head to Entebbe to start our safari! We are doing our safari with the owner of Green Valley Guest House, Frank. We will be going to Tanzania to visit the Serengeti and a couple of other parks! After our safari we head to Zanzibar for a few days on the beach! I can’t wait, I think it will be great! I’m really hoping that we get to see a leopard or a cheetah, fingers crossed!

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Photos

A curious herd of Cape buffalo

Dr. Siefert posing with all of his gear.

A picture with the muzungus. I feel like a celebrity.

A pretty view from the lodge

If you look really hard you can see a hyena in the distance.

More elephants!
The one on the right was missing its tail.

Bath Time
Papa grooming himself

A hippo with a buffalo photobombing in the background