Uganda Unveiled !
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2010
1
18
23
Trip End
Ongoing
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
We stopped along the way in a small town called Kabale where we met some of the locals, and stocked up on some rations. Ugandans, unfortunately didn't seem as friendly as the Rwandans we had met, and none of them liked it when we pulled our cameras out.
It was late afternoon when we entered the National Park, and along the way we saw Elephants, Ugandan Kobs, waterbucks, several species of birds, and some hippo's in the distance. Queen Elizabeth Park spans close to 2000 square kilometres and was named after Queen Elizabeth II afer her visit here in 1954.
We arrived at our camp around 6pm, poured our belongings out of our packs and set ourselves up for the following 2 nights. This is a high risk malaria area, so we plastered ourselves with insect repellant, to coincide with the malaria tablets we'd been taking for the past month. It was a long day on the road, and we were tired so had an early night. Tomorrow, we go for our first game drive through the same park hoping to see more wildlife!
...........
We're on the road again at 630am...no idea how we're doing this! Last night we slept to the sounds of Hippo's grunting, and one of the guys in our group insisted he heard lions. We literally drive 500 metres from our campsite before we see a hippo waddling back to the lake, so we all unzipped our camera bags and starting snapping like crazy.
Moses drove us through the heart of the park. It's quite scenic, even when the wildlife aren't so near. Again Ugandan Kobs seem to dominate a lot of this area. We saw plenty of buffalo, and several species of bird. After an hour or so, we came across roughly 6 other vehicles parked on the side of the road, with all passengers peering through their windows (and from the top of their car roof) with binoculars. We didnt know what they were looking at. Francis (guide) got out and asked them. Apparently there was a small pride of lions sitting in the distance...jackpot!! It took a wee while before we could see them, but some of us were fortunate to have binoculars. None of us could take a decent photo of them...just too far away!
A short while later, we're looking into the eyes of wild Elephants. How incredible is this experience!?!? We were back on the prowl for more wildlife. We were driving along hoping to see more, when Francis screamed out to Moses to stop the truck. We didn't know what had happened, but sure enough Moses stopped, and backed up a little to a nearby tree. Literally 12 metres away was a leopard, sitting comfortably in the tree looking into our truck. Pooja was quick enough to take a photo, before it ran off. Apparently, the leopard was pregnant. Francis mentioned in all the years he had been guiding, he had only come across 1 other leopard in this park...we were really lucky!
More elephants, hippos, birdlife later, we headed back to camp, for a few lagers and rest.
The following day we're up early and on our way to the Kazinga Channel, which connects Lake Edward and Lake (forgot the name right now - Doh!) It's home to various wildlife, and a popular watering hole for many. We boarded a small vessel and were drifting along the tiny river looking at large groups of hippo's lounging around in the water. We again saw elephants, this time bathing themselves, along with crocodiles and buffalo. Pelicans are plentiful here as well. It was a fun journey!
It's one thing to see these wild beasts in a zoo, but a completely different experience to see them in their own backyard...this is truly the trip that keeps on giving!
'When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you've got plenty to watch'
- Anonymous
