uganda: journal

why uganda? if the images of sweeping plains and snow-capped mountains epitomise kenya and tanzania, then the one image i had of uganda was of lush, tropical vegetation and red dirt roads. neither of us knew much about uganda; some overlanders visit, some don't, depending on whether the primates are a big enough draw to warrant a 'detour' off the cape to cairo 'highway'. visiting either requires some backtracking or circling through rwanda to get back down into tanzania - a less travelled route. but we were keen to go - it promised a little of west africa (even though it's east), the ruwenzori massif (mountains of the moon) and provided a route through to rwanda where we wanted to track the mountain gorillas. there has been much media coverage recently of the atrocities happening in the north-east of the country and the fco warns against travel to this area, but when visting uganda you can see just how specific these activities are to just one part of this country.

 
braving the lions, qenp

jinja - 20th november

it wasn't long after the border that the good tarmac road started to become littered with the biggest, fiercest pot holes we've ever seen. a bad dirt road is one thing, but when smooth, fast bitumen suddenly gives way to wheel swallowing craters, it can get quite dangerous. we quickly realised these continuing obstructions were slowing us down to the extent that we'd do well to reach jinja by sunset, as planned. night driving in africa is never a good idea and we felt particularly uncomfortable about it in a new and unfamiliar country. we pressed on as fast as possible; swerving, using the wrong side of the road, putting two, or all, of the wheels in the dirt beside the tarmac, whatever it took to get through.

in front of us, huge clouds towered upwards. stormheads billowing large on the horizon caught the pinks and oranges of the setting sun. it was perhaps the most dramatic african sunset we'd seen, but there was no time for photos, only stolen glances between pot holes. at the road-edge, families emerged from their mud brick houses as the heat of the day eased, women wearing the most outrageous, but seemingly fashionable brightly patterned dresses with huge pointy shoulders, and children playing in the dirt. it gave the impression of happy families despite the apparent simplicity of their dwellings. we kept driving, passing through rice then banana plantations, it was totally tropical - so different from the landscape on the other side of the border.

we didn't make jinja by nightfall, and an hour later we were still dodging craters, bypassing roadworks, squinting through clouds of dust, overtaking the incessant stream of eighteen-wheeled trucks and narrowly missing the oncoming traffic.

it was a relief to reach jinja, and we were surprised by its quiet streets and leafy suburbs. the storm clouds hadn't yet broken and we decided to walk to the resaurant through the warm tropical night. it was a long time since we'd strolled anywhere, maybe not at all on this trip. it was refreshing.

 
kibale forest at dawn, from lake nybikere

jinja lies on the shore of lake victoria, at the point where the river nile (called the victoria nile at this stage) begins its journey northward and is, to some extent, considered to be its source. the river is mostly wide and meandering, but when constricted by rocks or islands it rears up into some big, fast, frothy grade 5 rapids. it's these rapids, and the traversing of them in blow-up rubber dingies (or rafts, as they like to call them), that are the main attraction at jinja. with this tentatively in mind, we headed upsteam to a rafting centre and campsite at bujagali falls.

the campsite turned out to have a stunning location, high on a forrested bank overlooking the river with the rushing water of bujagali falls audible in the background. we put off the decision about rafting for three days and just enjoyed the view and the company of other travellers. we sought advice about the rafting, having done it only once before (in venezuela), we were nervous about paddling into the biggest commercially navigable rapids. we'd heard the inevitable horror stories and many considered them to be more terrifying than their counterparts on the zambezi at victoria falls.

 
river nile, just before bujagali falls

the omnipresent roar from bujagali was a constant taunt; even in our tent, at night before we slept and in the morning as soon as we woke. by the forth day, claire was almost certain she didn't want to go, and i was nearly sure that i did. so, for the first time in almost six months, we spent the day apart. i, splashing and tumbling through six foot waves in a river powerful enough to punch its way through the sahara desert; claire, sitting anxiously on the bank, hoping for my safe return, sipping a "nile special" - the beer brewed at the "source" nearby.

the rafting, after all, wasn't quite as bad as the hype. some of the rapids were pretty terrifying though, more so paddling in than being inevitably spat - sometimes spluttering - out. between the rapids the current was fairly gentle and at one point i took the opportunity to leave the raft. i had soon drifted a good distance from the boat; floating down the centre of a fifty metre wide river was slightly unnerving. in the distance i could hear the hiss of some rapids. i could feel the pace of the water quicken, pulling me towards them. i bobbed through the small white waves and out the other side. spinning slowly in the eddies i marvelled that the river was on its way back where we'd travelled from, through khartoum and wadi halfa, aswan  and cairo; three months and so many miles ago. also i wondered about nile crocodiles.

kampala - 25th november

surviving both the rapids, the crocodiles and the red mud that stains everything we headed to kampala, the capital of uganda, a surprisingly small and modern city. as it was only lunchtime we decided against heading straight to the campsite and instead, crossed the railway tracks and headed south to entebbe where there is a 'wildlife education centre', home to a small collection of rescued animals and birds. the sanctuary was of interest as two of ugandas more elusive wildlife highlights; the chimpanzee and the shoebill can be found here - we wanted guaranteed sightings and the photos to go with it.

 
the prehistoric shoebill, entebbe

kampala itself promised two things - first, 'a shoprite', the east african equivalent to safeway, and second, cash machines. browsing the aisles we wondered at the prices, many of the products cost the equivalent, if not more than at home. still, it allowed us to stock up on a few essentials like sweet chilli sauce, camembert and toilet roll. back at the campsite we indulged in the free internet before enjoying a barbeque with joanne and mike from brighton, and babette from munich. we would be seeing them again in a couple of days at murchinson falls.

murchinson falls - 27th november

murchinson falls national park lies in the north west of uganda, depressingly, only a hundred or so miles from the sudanese border, a country we thought we'd left behind so many hundreds of miles back. at the falls themselves, the huge volume of the victoria nile is squeezed explosively through a narrow gorge, shortly before emptying into lake albert and subsequently the albert nile. the riverbanks are home to hippo, crocodile and buffalo; the surrounding plains to elephant, giraffe and antelope. this is the hottest part of the country and it was nice to escape the rainstorms experienced on the equator. we hadn't been expecting game viewing in uganda, and despite the persistent tetse fly that made it impossible to drive with the windows down, and the intense sunrays heating up the inside of the vehicle to near boiling we enjoyed the wildlife.

 
from the river, murchison falls 

in amongst all these absurdly victorian sounding landmarks, the refreshingly african "budongo forest" is home to some groups of chimpanzee. we stopped here on route to the falls, taking a guide to help us find the mischievous primates amongst the thick, dark, tropical undergrowth.

 
"sausage tree", murchison falls national park

we followed narrow trails through the tarzanesque jungle, moving quickly and treading as silently as our booted feet would allow. this was not so easy with biting ants running up the inside of claire's jeans. periodically, our guide would stop, listen and scan the forest canopy. we passed some leafy platforms the chimps nest in at night, then, after an hour or so the guide beckoned us into the bush. he pointed out a dark area between some leaves. it was the face of a chimp. only five or ten metres away, it was amazingly difficult to see through the foliage. edging forward we spotted some more, they moved silently along the forest floor whilst one acted as lookout from the branches. our guide told us it was a group of males, and at a signal from the leader the forest erupted into a cacophony of shrieks, screams and snapping branches as the group charged us.

the charge was brief but exciting. our hairy ancestral cousins retreated quickly when we stood our ground. the guide informed us that had we run, they would have attacked; but stand your ground and they will always back down. he hadn't mentioned that before. lucky we had been frozen to the spot.

we camped at 'red chilli'. whilst cooking chicken casserole and drinking vodka we were visited by three tame-ish warthogs who were intent on walking through our camp despite us being there. fueled by the vodka, claire picked up her chair in a flash of bravery and chased them off lion-tamer style. they couldn't have been too concerned as the next morning we found them sleeping in front of the tent. these weren't our only nocturnal visitors. during the night we were awoken by the same chomping, tearing sounds that we had heard at lake navaisha. peering from the tent, two hippos were clearly visible just below us in the light of the full moon.

 
hungry warthog, red chilli campsite

busingiro - 29th november

we left murchison falls via little travelled dirt roads, heading south bordering lake albert. we camped in a small wooded clearing at busingiro, which bordered the southern extension of the budongo forest, in which we'd tracked chimps a few days earlier.

rising at dawn, we decided to try our luck on another chimp track. our guide was a man of few words and we marched purposefully through the jungle, which was, if anything, denser than before. an hour or so later the guide stopped, pointing out a small dark shape moving silently through the undergrowth. but it wasn't a chimp. at first i couldn't make it out, then as we drew nearer we found ourselves advancing towards a small frightened young girl. the guide told us she had been missing for a week, and that the villages had been out searching for her but given up after three days.

she looked pitifully frail. her thin dress was tattered, ripped, and dirty. many children in rural uganda are similarly dishevelled. but as she stood there in the jungle, clutching a small banana leaf bag - containing mushrooms she'd been collecting for food - wide eyed with shock or relief or fear, she looked as much like a forest imp as you're ever likely to see.

at that point we aborted the trek, clambering back through the vines, creepers and fallen trees to return the girl to her family in the village. the journey back was troubling though. the "lost" girl didn't seem to have any trouble finding her way back. she didn't look relieved, in fact she looked scared. perhaps it was shock, exhaustion and malnutrition, but to me she didn't look like she wanted to be found. i didn't like to think what she might have run from that would warrant living in the forest for a week, but anyway the guide was taking her back and it certainly wasn't our decision to make.

fort portal - 30th november

 
rural children, western uganda 

fort portal rests in the foothills of the ruwenzoris, africa's highest mountain range and the divider between uganda and the congo. we were lucky, arriving late in the day the mountains were clear of the usual cloud that obscures their view and we were able to appreciate the massif. from where we were standing the mountains looked like gentle giants, not the jagged peaked monsters we were expecting. we made camp at atamabere caves campsite; a beautiful site in a stunning location.

 
hiking around the crater lakes, nr. fort portal 

unfortunately, our stay was tarnished by a young employee who despite his best efforts to look after us - by acting as a guide, chef, waiter - he managed to rub us up the wrong way. this he did by pulling up a chair whilst we sat sipping a well deserved beer, to tell us how underpaid he was, how his sponsor for his studies had died, his ambitions to be a tour guide but insuffient funds to start a business and how easy it must be to do it in england, but then it's not possible for him to get a visa blah, blah blah. now, we don't like to be rude and we listened patiently, but we weren't about to be his saviour and you got the impression that he tried this sob story on every unfortunate 'white' guest that arrived. what his charming nonagenarian employer who happened to be the brother of the current minister for tourism (who happened to be visiting) would have made of this i don't know.

the area was beautiful for walking, although as the land belonged to the old man, you had to pay for the privilege. the formation of the western rift has created numerous crater lakes and we spent the morning walking between three of these, admiring the cultivated slopes and long-horned cattle grazing on the so green grass beneath the ruwenzoris.

 
long-horn cattle, fort portal

bunyuruguru field of crater lakes - 2nd december

queen elizabeth national park - 4th december

 
volcanic crater, qenp

after all those lakes, it was safari time again. queen elizabeth np lies between lakes edward and george and we paid for a 3-day pass that would allow us to stay as many nights as we wished for no extra cost. most of the np seems to lie outside of the park gates including the game drive tracks that offer the greatest opportunity for seeing lions. turning off the main route through we headed along a dirt-track unsure of its destination. the scenery was beautiful, vast, bowl shaped craters dropped to either side of the ridge along which we drove. in some, water pooled into circular lakes, whilst the barely visible specs of acacia trees in others gave reference to their enormous scale.

the central focus of the park is the kazingi channel; a broad, meandering river linking the 20km gap between lakes albert and edward. on a peninsula jutting between channel and lake, mbeya lodge has prime position with commanding views over both. it was at this beautifully situated, luxury lodge that we decided to end our run of sixty'ish' consecutive nights of camping.

in the early mornings and late afternoons we would drive out from the lodge looking for game. buffaloes, waterbuck and forest hog presented themselves along with herds of elephant - always magnificent to watch. what we really hoped for though were lion. sightings were supposed to be commonplace, but we found them elusive.

 
sunrise at mweya point, qenp

one afternoon we took a launch, which puttered slowly up and down the channel, allowing us to view the wildlife along the riverbank. elephant came down to drink and buffaloes wallowed in the muddy shore, yellow-billed oxpeckers lining up along their spines. hippos submerged themselves as we approached, their prominent eyes and nostrils re-surfacing with snorts in our wake. as we reached the mouth of the channel, the wildlife spectacle became almost ridiculous; all the species of animal and bird we'd seen along the way were suddenly crowded onto one bank, and in staggering numbers. it was like the whole cast had come out for a final bow at the end of the play.

after two nights of fine food and sumptuous lodging, we were ready, with some regret, to leave the lodge. we remained in the park though, flipping our roof-top tent in one of the deserted clearings marked as campsites. the clearing was surrounded by green thorny bushes and tall cactus. this type of thick scrub stretches the length of the riverbank and forms one of the main game viewing circuits. we'd seen elephants there the day before and knew the dense bush also concealed buffalo, forest hog, hippo, leopard, hyena and possibly lion. we had no guide, guard or ranger and had never seen anyone else camping there, so it was with some trepidation that we got out of the land rover and began making camp.

 
taking a break, in front of the rwenzoris

being already quite late in the afternoon, our first priority was to make a fire and we cautiously searched the thorny bushes nearby. the hippos were grunting, barking and growling in the river below, the sounds echoing off the river banks and through the trees. a nearby growl sent claire running for the car. i thought it was a hippo in the river, but a second growl sent me running back too.

 
kaziki channel, qenp

it took a while for us to emerge again. coming from a country like england it's easy to dismiss noises in the bush, but our close encounter with the lions in the masai mara reminded us that in africa things are different; there really is danger lurking in the trees. there wasn't sufficient firewood nearby. so, feeling a little foolish, but at the same time wary, i ventured back along the path to where we'd seen some wood earlier.

rounding a large bush i was confronted with three tusky elepants. their presence was more overbearing than from the window of a land rover. i immediately retreated to where the undergrowth obscured them from view. not wanting to have to venture out for firewood again, i urgently wrenched a large log from where it lay entangled in the bush and retreated hastily as the elephants rounded the corner.

maramagambo forest, qenp - 6th december

the night was uneventful with no unexpected visitors. de-camping early we searched one more time for the elusive lions but to no avail. today we were heading to a lesser visited part of the park where we hoped to see the tree lions. it was a slow drive on a pot-holed dirt track, and after an hour we slowed down to pass a truck that had overturned, a common sight in africa. here we were approached by two policemen who asked where we were going. this is a regular question, most often asked frustratingly when travelling on a road that only goes to or from one place. we were advised that the bridge had come down and there was no way through, 'did no one tell  you?', well who was there to tell us. surely a notice at the turn-off would have been more appropriate - the bridge had been down for three days and not three hours. so we had to turn back disappointed. instead we made for maramagambo forest where we found another luxury lodge and settled in for an afternoon of relaxation. sadly, we couldn't justify another night in a lodge so as dusk fell we returned to the forest to camp, where horror movie sized spiders lurked in the toilets. in the morning we attempted one more time to see the chimps at  kyamburo gorge but it wasn't to be. on our most expensive chimp trek yet, they failed to show themselves. we did have a pleasant walk through the gorge though, and at least the guide was communicative and interesting.

 
not looking so cheeky, entebbe

lake bunyoni - 8th december

we decided to break the journey to the rwandan border with a stay at lake bunyoni. the land rover required some attention and we wanted to check the security situation before venturing into rwanda.

the drive south took us through some stunning scenery as we snaked our way through the extended foothills of the rwenzories. the steep sided hills were flanked with smooth rounded gullies, presumably the result of errosion from large volumes of water. in the valleys between, dense papyrus groves stretch like spikey green lakes between the rippling contours.

lake bunyoni itself lies at the heart of this dramatic landscape. hemmed in by the angular volcanic hills, a myriad of bays give its scribbled shoreline fractal like complexity. otters bob and dive in its mercury smooth waters, whilst dugout canoes are paddled slowly between the shores. from the banks kingfishers dive back and forth and excited colonies of weaver birds hang from their intricate nests.

 
from the top, lake bunyoni 

on arrival at this idyllic scene, we were greeted with the news that no-one was going to queen elizabeth np, as there was an anthrax outbreak and all the animals were dying - "herds of buffalow wiped out; dead hippos floating down the river". strange, we were there that morning, and all the previous week. we didn't see any dead animals. besides, anthrax - that notorious chemical weapon? a remote ugandan national park would surely make a slightly eccentric target for international terrorists.

it turns out anthrax is naturally occurring in most countries in the world, but occasionally the toxicity levels rise to the point where it can effect the wildlife. from what we could gather from the internet, this happened in the park around six months ago, but for whatever reason word had just gotten through, and was causing itinerary panic amongst the overland truck community.

this was a timely reminder for us - being just about to seek advice about rwanda - that travel warnings in africa can often be late, to the point of irrelevance. it seems that amongst travellers, safety advice takes, to some extent, the form of gossip that is passed on 2nd, 3rd or more probably 20th hand. the problem is, once you hear a warning, it's difficult to ignore. during our inquiries, we did hear a warning about the rwandan border, but as far as i could ascertain, it concerned the town that we were already in (to the informant's surprise). so all in all, we just decided to go into rwanda and see what it was like.

 
kaziki channel, queen elizabeth national park

uganda: accomodation

uganda: other info

entry checks: another country requiring a visa - this time it cost $30. on top of this we had to pay road tax of £24 and £7 for car insurance which seemed to be mandatory but the amount arbitary. visa had to be paid for in dollars only. don't believe the moneychangers who say they want payment in local currency - they just want your dollars. it can take 3 days to pass through customs if you don't have a carnet.

costs: we camped where we could. most places charge 5000 ugandan shillings per person (just over £3 for 2). the national parks charge $15 a day (decreasing for each additional day you stay); 3 days and over costs $50 and then you can stay as many nights as you wish for no extra cost. the only drawback is that most of the parks charge a one-off fee of $40 for taking a car in. thieving b*******. main meals cost between £2 and £3; and diesel is just under a $ a litre.

money: best to sort all your money out in the capital. there are atms in kampala and jinja but they only accept visa and not cash cards. you can change local currency into dollars which is good news if you are planning on seeing the gorillas which is dollar only payment.

must sees: stunning scenery around the bunyuruguru crater lakes and kibale forest; chimp tracking; the ruwenzoris; the vast craters in the north-western section of the queen elizabeth national park; a boat trip along the kazinga channel in the late afternoon to see abundant hippo, buffalo and waterbirds; long horned cattle being herded along the side of the road. and do the rafting at jinja.