Kibale Forest to Murchison Falls National Park

  Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda
Sunday, June 15, 2008

Kibale Forest to Murchison Falls National Park (Nile Safari Camp)

Sunday June 15th, 2008. Kibale Forest to Murchison Falls National Park
We headed out of Kibale at about 8am and were expecting the drive to Nile Safari Camp just on the edge of Murchison Falls NP to take about 8-9 hours. We were ready for another long day in the saddle - pity it ended up longer than we expected again.
On the way out of Kibale Forest we spotted tonnes of baboons and then as we came around a corner we spotted three chimps as they darted off into to the forest. The cool thing about this spotting was that these chimps were not part of the troupes that are tracked by the tourists so we spotted some truly wild chimps.
I kept an eye on things on the GPS and had to check and re-check the time at 10am. In 3hrs we had travelled just over 90kms and we had about 300km left to go...a quick calculation said we had another 12hour day in the car ahead of us :( The road was really dusty and for the most part it was not too bad but every few hundred metres there would be a hole so while 905 of the road was good, all th ebad bits were spaced perfectly so that you could never get a decent flow. None of this was made any easier by the lunatic taxis that ply the dirt roads as fast as they possibly can. I couldn't tell you how many of these went by us at about 80km and hour while we were sitting on 30-40kmh and close enough for me to smell the BO on the driver. It makes for some interesting driving but I wouldn't get in a local taxi for transport between towns if you paid me.
Travelling Tip: DO NOT GET IN THE LOCAL TAXIS TO GET AROUND THE COUNTRY. They are unmarked, they can be small-medium sedans or small vans which have been altered to carry 14 people. I assume they are a cheap form of transport but they are incredibly reckless and every day or so you will see a van on the side of the road that has rolled. The risk for me is too high to even consider it and I have travelled with some idiot drivers through Asia. These guys are up there with the best (read: worst)
A couple of things I noticed on this day's drive was that you don't actually see many people with gray hair and the music taste of the barbers was quite a surprise. I am sure there are two reasons for this: many people cut their hair bald and many people have been hit with HIV/AIDS. It hit me when we went through one town and I saw three of four old people in quick succession and realised I had hardly seen any for the entire trip. As for the music, I heard it once before in Kihihi but heard it a couple more times along our travels...the local barbers love blaring loud raggamuffin/dance hall music from speakers standing outside their little kiosks. It sounds like one of the side streets at Nottinghill Carnival and you have to double take to make sure that's what you're hearing. Some of it is local music and some is straight from Jamaica. Really cool....
Most of the day is a bit of a blur until we got to the top of the hill that runs down into the Nile Valley (Rift Valley again I think). Suddenly the world opens up in front of you and you can see for miles. This is Murchison Falls National Park to the right and the private land to the left. Locals live on the park boundary but apparently the big carnivores are not on this side of the river. If you were not a local I reckon it would be impossible to tell which areas of the countryside are safe to walk around and which ones are not. They all look the same to this layman.
One last thing that was quite amusing was a local football (soccer) contest with the red vs the yellow teams. It looked like it was pretty organised and there was a decent crowd although this was a road side football pitch. The funny bit was that all the red team had Ronaldo on the back of their shirts and all of their yellow team had Ronaldinho on the back of their shirts. Brilliant.

Another hour or so along the valley floor and we arrived at Nile Safari Camp. This is another tented camp but this time it is on the shores of the Victoria Nile. The Camp is perched about 50m above the river. The river runs east to west so the sun rises upstream and sets downstream. We arrive just before dusk so we get the sunset....what a view!