Mweya and Ishasha Safaris

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Kampala - Thurs, Feb 2, 2006

We were greeted at 6:30 AM by our driver, Dominic, a cheerful and knowledgeable Ugandan. His skin is a warm, dark chocolate and his forehead has a ridge-like rounded protrusion, not enough to be ugly, just distinctive (We subsequently learned that he was once a truck mechanic and that his skull was crushed when a helper dropped one end of a drive shaft on his head. He was in the hospital more than six months and physical therapy for another year.) Dominic greets each of us with a soft hello and handshake, then loads up our backpacks onto the truck. Our vehicle is a ten-year old Toyota diesel van with viewing canopy that folds open as needed.

Traffic isn't too bad heading out of Kampala, but the roads are full of potholes. We shouldn’t complain to our government officials about our roads after seeing these ... in the nation's capitol no less. When we leave town the road gets a little better, at least for the first few hours or so. Much to my surprise Domenic is a careful and fairly thoughtful driver, so I'm not too freaked out.

Equation Café (not

today)
We hurried by the Equator Sign, since we were trying to get to the Lodge by 3 pm in order to take the boat around the lake to see animals...that is the point of this trip, animals...Just in time...hippos, elephants, BIRDS, lots of Birds, etc. so that we accomplished.

Fort Portal (Thursday)

About 12:00 we stop in Fort Portal for lunch. It Is a medium sized town and Domenic knows of a good restaurant. We order sandwiches to go, pleased to note that the menu promises them in "only 10 minutes". Thirty minutes later we are all getting antsy. Our sandwiches arrive about seven minutes later and we take off heading south. Actually, our vegetable sandwich is quite good: who knew that sautéed onions and spinach could taste so good.

The road to Queen Elizabeth Park started out in good shape but within a few kilometers we hit road construction, and weren't able to drive on the road. Instead there was a rutted path next to the road that we had to use. What a ride! It also disappeared periodically, so the driver had to figure out which way to go. I'm sure glad we weren't driving. It was slow going but Dominic tried his best to speed up whenever possible so that we could make the 3:00 PM game boat at Mweya Lodge.

Mweya Lodge (Thursday night)

We arrived at the Mweya lodge gate at about 3:00 pm but still had to drive a few km to the boat jetty. We got there just as the boat was ready to pull out, but they waited for us. It was great they did because the ride was the best way to see wildlife at that time of day. We saw herds of water buffalo and many clusters of six to eight hippo, all lounging in the water near the banks. There were also elephants all along the way, taking baths, eating the marsh grass, and some taking dust baths. We also saw waterbucks, gazelles, two monitor lizards and a baby crocodile.

Clearly, the BIRDERS on the boat knew more than we did…they had the BIGGEST and LONGEST telescopic lenses for their cameras…The birds were spectacular ... huge saddleback storks with black and white bodies and red feathers on their heads.. We also saw numbers of other large birds including pink-back pelicans, fish eagles, white pelicans, black wing stilts, Nile Ibis, and yellow bill storks. These were all intermingled with smaller birds including pipers, plovers, beautiful blue and white king fishers, black cranes, and more. Periodically, someone would pull out a bird guide to check on what they were actually seeing, and some were actually writing down their “counts.”

After the boat tour we made our way to Mweya Lodge and got our rooms ... a cute white bungalow with clean rooms, comfortable beds and good mosquito nets. After showers, the five of us sat on the patio overlooking the lake, threw down a few Bombay Gin and tonics, and got to know each other better. Dinner at the lodge was great and just the thing to cap off our great day.

The night was pretty hot and sticky with no breeze inside the mosquito nets, but we managed to sleep ok. I guess the ride and long day did us in. We arose at 5:30 am for a morning safari at 6:00. When we left it was still quite dim, the sun wasn’t yet above the horizon. It was worth while leaving that early though, for within ten minutes we spotted two hyena. One immediately fled for the bushes, but the other just laid down in a gully and kept a sharp eye on us. It was still too dim to take pictures though.

Next we came across a family of giant wild forest pigs which apparently are fairly rare. A boar came to confront our bus while the sows and piglets scurried off. Our guide was quite good. He would tell us a bit of information about each new species we saw. We learned for example that lions favorite meal is warthog, followed by Ugandan kob (a type of antelope). It turns out that the large water bucks are a meal of last resort because their flesh is quite acidic and doesn’t taste good to them. On the remainder of the ride we only saw one elephant, but tons of water buck and kobs.

We returned to our cabins to clean up then to the lodge for breakfast. On the way mongoose scurried along the paths. What a feast … a buffet breakfast of sausages, bacon, eggs, pancakes, pastries, cereal, fresh fruit, coffee, etc. We ate on the porch overlooking the lake. Our entertainment for the meal were an assortment of fearless olden weavers (little yellow-gold finches) hopping on chair backs scrabbling for handouts. Everyone was in a good mood watching the birdsand chatting about the morning safari.

Jacana Lodge Saturday, February 4, 2006

We arrived at the Jakana Lodge about 3:00 pm and were greeted by then manager with fruit juice, and by porters who took our luggage. We walked through the woods down a flagstone path about 1/4 mile to our cabin. Black and white Colobus monkeys scurried away in the treetops as we progressed. Oh, without a doubt, our best place yet! Only seven cabins in the whole compound, and we got the one farthest away from everyone. Our cabin was surrounded by trees and perched almost on top of the water.

We made reservations to have our dinner on a pontoon boat that evening, and then headed up the trail for a “guided nature walk.” We ALL wanted to stretch our legs after two days mostly in the vehicle. We did see some monkeys, and we did make it to the FRUIT BAT CAVE and we watched thousands of bats circling around. These bats keep the mosquito population down, so we appreciate them, but boy, it is easy to see why so many medieval people were afraid of them.

We even enjoyed walking so much, that we walked all the way back to the Lodge. After naps we cleaned up and got ready for dinner on the boat. It turns out that the boat was a small pontoon flat with a blue plastic tarp for cover. Only one table on the boat, set for five … just us. We had ordered our meals earlier, so all we had to do was sit down and enjoy the evening.

The driver took a few minutes to get the small ten or 15 hp motor started, and soon we were surrounded by a cloud of blue smoke and a loud put-put sound. We all prayed that he would just take us to the center of the lake then shut down the engine. Sure enough, that is just what he did. What an enjoyable meal of babbling conversation.

Saturday Morning Safari

Well, the safaris consist of driving around looking for animals. This reminds us of our venture looking for the white tigers in India eleven years ago. We allocated only three days for that, while others said, “we will stay here until we see a tiger” and they had been there for days and days and days. Actually, we DID see a far number of animals, and Bill was really good about recording each and every one!

One neat thing that we tried was to text message a Happy Birthday greeting to Bill’s son Brian who is holding down the fort in David City, NE. We think that we got the message through, but we are not sure!

Sunday 2-5-06

Sitting here at the lakefront cafe with Sarah and Marie. Nate and Andrew (Nat and Sarah's Marine friend) are out on a boat ride on Lake Mburo. We are sitting here reading, writing and listening to the hippos snort As they swim around. One of them even walked right in front of us munching his way along eating grass. Hippos are about 8 tons, so you can only imagine how much grass they have to eat to sustain themselves. We can look down at the lake to watch them surface, take a deep breathe, and then submerge themselves for LONG MINUTES at a time. Apparently, they are among the most dangerous animals in all of Africa, so everyone, including the natives, give them a wide berth. As large and heavy as they are, apparently, they can easily chase someone down and bite them in two!

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Photos

Bill & Marie in Safari Truck
Our first day out in Queen Elizabeth National Park

Hippo Walks Past Our Cafe
A huge hippo left the lake and began munching the lawn just outside the lakeside cafe where we were enjoying an Eagle beer.

Closeup of the huge hippo
This is the fellow that walked past our cafe

Boat Safari - Hippos & Buffalo
At Mweya Lodge we booked a lake safari. Saw herds of African Buffalo and families of Hippos just lounging in the water.

Mweya - Lots of Elephants
While on the boat safari we saw at least 25 elephants. This big guy was fairly close.

Villager Cleaning Bike
Hippos were everywhere, but this fellow was determined to clean his bike anyway.

Villager Fishing Boats
The overnment relocated all tribal people from the park except for 15 fishing villages that could not be relocated to a place where they could still make a living.

Tree Climbing Lions
In Ishasha we came across a family of tree climbing lions sleeping in a huge fig tree.

Comments

[Marlene]

Blog
Both of your blogs are wonderful; we used to feel so far away from you when you were gone! (By the way, you forgot to color in Portugal on the map of where you've been.) The pictures are splendid and Bill's narratives are great. THANKS -- Keep it up. Marlene