Blogs from Western Region, Uganda, Africa - page 24

An explosive piece of investigative journalism by Hussein Bogere & Simon Musasizi about a huge scandal in Uganda's tourism sector has been published in The Observer yesterday, 30th March 2011. In brief, the article is about a probe committee instituted by the minister of Tourism, Trade and Industry Maj Gen Kahinda Otafiire, which discovered several discrepancies in the amount of money used in the construction of a community lodge in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park - Cloud Lodge in Nkuringo. The probe also discovered that there is massive exploitation of the community that is supposed to benefit from the lodge, rampant illegal gorilla tracking and forgery of tracking permits and receipts, which drain the wildlife industry of hundreds of millions of shillings monthly. For more on the probe, log onto the web site below adn read ... read more

Janaury and February are the dry months in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Its currently hot with no sign of rain. Fruit trees have begun fruiting deep in the forest and this has pushed the gorillas further inside. Currently, the Rushegura gorilla group are located behind the Buhoma Park Headquarters, slightly up the hill. Mubare gorilla group is close to Rubona Primary School and the Habinyanja gorilla group are back in "the neck" area of the park. Each is a good trek with visitors returning back from their walk around 14h00. Bitukura gorilla group, located in the Ruhija section of the park is still split into two groups. As soon as I get news of their locations and the possible reason for their split, I will post this informatoin. For the birders, the African Green Broadbill ... read more

We assembled early Wednesday morning at a friend’s house with mimosas before the eight of us piled into the tour guide’s safari truck. We drove several hours before coming to the border crossing with Uganda and continued on a short cut to the outskirts of Queen Elizabeth Park. We stayed at the Katara Lodge, which had several thatched roof cabins. The top half of the walls were made of screens and canvas, so you could roll them down and have an open air view of the valley below. One of the beds had wheelbarrow wheels, so we pushed it out onto the balcony one night and slept under the stars. On Thursday, our solar power was not operating, so we got dressed with one flashlight and a cell phone before starting out on our early morning ... read more

There was no need to put on the cult classic CD from the 90’s. The relaxing vibrations were all there to see and hear. The birds chirping followed by silence, a gentle rustling of the leaves. Blue sky ahead - Lush cultivated green hills surround me – Below is a greyish blue lake. I am in an opened air hut that I have paid $15 a night for. Seclusion could be no better. Behind me dark clouds hover over, letting off warning sounds. The breeze picks up and the leaves start creating urgency. The light tapping of rain hits my hut. But I am cocooned under the covers of my bed, sheltered and gradually drifting off to sleep with the sounds of nature reverberating around my day. At last I have found a place in Africa ... read more

Kasese Queen Elisabeth National Parc lies in the south of Uganda. It is surrounded by plantages with banana's, coffee, papaya, mango, vanille, cacao, avocado, sorghum, cassave and papyrus. Inside the parc Kazinga channel connects Lake George with Lake Edward. It is full of life. We see buffalo's, wathogs (pumba in the Walt Disney movie "King of the Lions"), hippo's, nile crocodiles, Uganda kob (a kind of antilope) and a lot of birds like kingfishers, hamerkop, saddlebilled stork, spurwinged plover, blackheaded heron and the great white pelican. It is a big spectacle, specially when the kingfishers steal the fishes the cormorants just catched, while African fish eagles and lap faced vultures overview the show. Later we see our first elephants. It is around the beautiful crater lakes at a height of about 3000 meter and exactly on ... read more