First Wedding Anniversary: Lake Bunyonyi (5th - 7th February 2010)

We spent a couple of days at Lake Bunyonyi to celebrate our first wedding anniversary last month - can't believe it's been a year since we were celebrating with all that snow outside. We stayed on Byoona Amagara island, so had to get a boat over. Peter, our taxi driver insisted on coming in the boat with us, but he was terrified because he can't swim.

We'd booked to stay in one of the Geodomes on the island, which are really unusual - it felt a bit like being in an upside down wicker basket! The dome is completely open at the front, and you get an amazing view of the lake from your bed.    

                                    

Our Geodome

Fantastic View of the Lake from our Private Terrace at the Geodome

We always enjoy going to Lake Bunyonyi, it's very tranquil there - the perfect place to relax. It's really nice to be able swim in the lake as, unlike most other Ugandan lakes, it is free of Bilharzia (some nasty disease you wouldn't want to catch!).

There's nothing better than watching the sun go down over the lake after a hard day of relaxation, and drinking a nice cold bottle of Ugandan beer (Club for me, and Nile Special for Jason).

Beautiful Sunset and Wonderful Beer!

Travels with Chris and Pete: 27th December 2009 - 8th January 2010

Our friends Peter and Christine came out to see us on the day my parents left, and we started another little tour of Uganda with them. They arrived pretty late in the evening, so didn’t get to see any of Uganda until the following morning, when it was absolutely bucketing down with rain.

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Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe, in the rain!

The first stop on our trip was a town called Jinja, which is where the source of the Nile is. We stayed at a lovely place called Nile Porch, and had tents with a fantastic view of the river. It was great to relax on the veranda (complete with hammock!) and watch the sun set over the Nile.

We went down to the source of the Nile, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was nothing like I had imagined! We went on a short boat trip which was pretty nice although the guide didn’t speak much English (it was just as well that we had taken our driver Herbert along with us!).

We discussed going white-water rafting the next day, but Chris and I didn’t really fancy it, so we decided to go on a quad-bike ride around Jinja instead. It was fantastic, as we drove around the local villages, by fields, and eventually down to Bujagali Falls (which is probably not as impressive as it was before they built the dam). All the kids we drove past were so excited to see us, jumping up and down and waving. I think the adults we drove past in the villages thought we were a bit mad, especially me and Chris, and just seemed to be laughing at us – but it was all great fun.

View from our accommodation at Nile Porch

Sunset over the Nile

Quad Biking!

Bujagali Falls

After Jinja we had to go through Kampala to change vehicles, as we needed a big 4x4 rather than the Green Machine, and then we started the long long journey up to Murchison Falls, which took about 8 or 9 hours.

We were staying at a place called Sambiya River Lodge, which is over the other side of the river to where you do game drives, so we had a very early (5:30 am) start the next morning. We had to get a car ferry over the river, and then we began our first proper safari with Pete and Chris.

Ferry across the River

Murchison Falls is a HUGE national park, with an area or 1,340 sq miles (3,480 sq km), and during the course of our morning game drive we covered over 150 km. The landscape is completely different to Queen Elizabeth National Park - more like proper savanna, and you could see for miles. Murchison Falls is the only place in Uganda where you can see giraffes, and we were lucky enough to see quite a few of them. It was amazing to see them, and they do look quite strange with such long necks! We paid for a UWA ranger, called George, to come on the drive with us, as the park is so big and he has more of an idea of where to find the animals. We'd all been hoping we would see some lions, and we weren't disappointed. - we found two lionesses sitting in the grass relaxing: they looked so cute that you couldn't imagine them being heartless predators.

Amazing view of the Savanna (courtesy of Pete)

The Lionesses

Giraffe

The following day, we went on a boat trip along the river, and up to the Falls. We saw lots of hippos, elephants and massive crocodiles. We had booked a guide to take us on a walk up to the top of the falls, which was a brilliant idea. The falls don't look that impressive from the boat, as you can't get very close, but when you walk up to the top, you can appreciate just how amazing they are. I didn't realise there were actually two waterfalls (Murchison Falls and Freedom Falls) - we would never have seen Freedom Falls if we hadn't done the walk.

Huge Crocodile

Baboon and its Baby

Murchison Falls

Tired but Happy after our walk

View of the Falls from the Boat

After our stay in Murchison Falls, we moved on and went to Fort Portal. We stayed in a place called the Rwenzori View Guesthouse, not far from the town, run by a Dutch-English couple. The accommodation was great value for money, and the food was excellent. Fort Portal is in an area full of crater lakes, and Herbert suggested we have a trip to lake Nkuruba, which is apparently Bilharzia-free (meaning you can swim in it without getting some horrendous diease!). We stopped of at a place on the way, known as the 'Top of The World' which has 360 degree views of the area - pretty breathtaking.

Lake Nkuruba was beautiful and has lots of Colobus monkeys in the trees surrounding it. We had a swim, then went to the restaurant to introduce Chris and Pete to local Ugandan cuisine. We had posho (made from maize flour), matooke (steamed green bananas), irish potatoes (ordinary potatoes), chapattis, beans, beef stew, guacamole - we were so full afterwards! The place is run as a community project, and we were treated to a show by a local dance troupe, which was really impressive. The funny thing was that the girls were all dressed in traditional clothing, except for a Liverpool Football Club scarf tied aroud their waists!

View from the Top of the World

One of the Crater Lakes

The Dance Group at Lake Nkuruba

We drove from Fort Portal to Queen Elizabeth National Park. We had decided to stay at a new place called Bush Lodge, just outside the park, but overlooking the Kazinga Channel. Most of the accommodation in the national parks is ridiculously expensive, but Bush Lodge is very reasonable. You have a luxury furnished tent with a toilet inside, and a funky outside shower area. You really feel as if you are in the bush, especially as the hippos and warthogs keep you awake all night being noisy.

Our Tent at Bush Lodge

The Showers

We went on an early morning game drive, which wasn't that exciting - maybe we'd been too spoilt in Murchison Falls. We also went on the boat trip on the Kazinga Channel (which we did with my parents), and it was just as good the second time around. On our way back to Bush lodge, we saw a rather excited (!) bull elephant crossing the road.

We drove through a fishing village, and were surprised to see an elephant there.  Apparently her name is Maria, and she's a wild elephant - she just doesn't like hanging around with a herd.  She wanders between the fishing villages, and gets nice treats like bananas (and coca-cola) given to her by the villagers. It was a strange thing to see - a semi-tame wild elephant - but nobody is forcing her to live like that, it's her own choice. All the villagers seemed genuinely happy and excited that she was there, and nobody was exploiting her, which is good I suppose.

Maria, the Wandering Elephant

We had booked to do chimpanzee tracking in Kyambura Gorge on our last day in Queen Elizabeth Park. It's a spectacular landscape, and we were lucky to see chimps within two minutes of starting our walk. Unfortunately, we didn't get any decent pictures, but we spent about an hour watching them. The chimps here seemed more badly behaved than the ones in Kibale Forest, as they were throwing things at us from the trees! We then went for a walk through the gorge, although our guide was the most unenthusiastic UWA ranger we'd ever met, so it wasn't perhaps as good an experience as it could have been.

Kyambura Gorge

After the tracking, we made our way back to Mbarara, where we spent a couple of days before Chris and Pete headed back to Liverpool. We were really sad to see them go, as we'd had such a wonderful time travelling around the country with them, and would miss their company.

Peter, Jason, Herbert, Christine and Anna with the 'Herb-Mobile'

Fort Portal and Kibale Forest: 23rd - 27th December 2009

The next part of our trip took us to Fort Portal, a town near the Rwenzori Mountains, a couple of hours drive from Queen Elizabeth National Park. We were staying in a place called Ndali Lodge, which is actually built on the rim of an extict volcano. The crater is now filled with water, and is called Lake Nyinambuga.

Ndali Lodge is run by a very nice Englishman and his fiancee, and it felt like being in an old English country house. The rooms are individual thatched cottages with en-suite, and we were very impressed. The food was fantastic, and the staff were so warm and friendly. It was really nice to be somewhere so relaxing, as all the game drives etc had taken it out of us a bit.  On Christmas morning we woke to find that Father Christmas had visited us - there was a big basket full of fruit, chocolates, handcrafts and even some of the very nice Ndali Vanilla Pods (which apparently sell for a fortune in Waitrose). It is the little, thoughful things like this that made our stay at Ndali Lodge so special.

The Sitting Room at Ndali Lodge

Ndali Vanilla pods growing

Lake Nyinambuga

We left Ndali Lodge after lunch on Christmas Day - unfortunately we missed proper Christmas dinner there, as it was going to be served in the evening, which Jason was a bit sad about. Mind you, he couldn't complain too much, as my parents had brought us lots of christmas goodies like mince pies, chocolate Santas and even some chocolate coins.

Our next stop was Primate Lodge, which is right in the middle of Kibale Forest. We had permits to do Chimp Tracking on Boxing Day, which we were all very excited about. Primate Lodge was the most expensive place we stayed in, although it was nowhere near the best. The Luxury tents are fantastic, although the cottages (where Jason and I spent the first night) leave a lot to be desired. The manager was very keen to listen to our comments though, and even gave us a free bottle of wine as an apology, which went down very well indeed (well, what was left of it after my Mum 'accidentally'(?) threw a glass all over Jason!).

It felt good to be staying in the middle of a forest with monkeys (and possibly chimps) in the trees overhead. My parents left some christmas cake wrapped up on their balcony when we went for dinner, and when they came back, something had been eating it. We assumed it was a bush-baby, as the wrapping had been carefully opened, and surely a mouse would have just bitten its way through the plastic.

Luxury Tent at Primate Lodge

Multi-Coloured Lizard / Gecko

The Restaurant at Primate Lodge

The next day was Chimp Day, when we would be going Chimp Tracking in Kibale Forest. We went down to the park headquarters, only a couple of minutes walk from Primate Lodge, where we met our guide. Luckily, we managed to get a guide for the four of us, whereas some of the other people had groups of six or seven people.  We started walking through the forest, straight through the undergrowth, not on any paths. Our guide heard some chimps in the distance, so we started heading towards the sound. We saw a chimp sitting on the floor, but he moved away pretty quickly. Then we came to an area where there were a few chimps in the trees overhead, and we stayed there watching them for a while - it was an amazing experience. The chimps are habituated, and are used to groups of people being in the forest watching them, but they are by no means 'tame'. We watched them feeding from the fruits in the trees, it was fantastic to see them so close up. It was really hard to get any decent photos, but both Jason and my Dad got some pretty good video footage. We spent about an hour tracking them, and then we had to head out of the forest before it got dark.  It wasn't an easy walk, as it was very rough terrain, but it was well worth it, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to visit Uganda. 

Chimp on a Branch in Kibale Forest

Chimp in Kibale Forest

The next day, we left Kibale and drove back to Entebbe with my parents. We'd had a wonderful holiday, and were sad to say goodbye.

However, the next part of trip was just about to begin, as our friends Peter and Christine were coming out to see us!

Ishasha and Queen Elizabeth National Park: 20th - 23rd December 2009

We travelled from Lake Bunyoni to Queen Elizabeth National Park via the outskirts of Bwindi Inpenetrable Forest (home of the mountain gorillas). We were very excited about going on 'proper' safari and maybe seeing things like tree-climbing lions, elephants, leopards etc.

Pretty soon after we entered the Ishasha sector of QE National Park, we came to a tree which had two lionesses sitting in it, shading themselves from the sun. They looked so peaceful, even cuddly and friendly, although when our driver Herbert got out of the vehicle, one of them got up and started walking along the branch, having a look at her potential lunch. Luckily, Herbert made it back into the vehicle before she had a chance to get too close!

Sleeping peacefully in the tree

Hmmm....What's for Lunch?!!

What you looking at?

We stayed at Ishasha Wilderness Camp, which was beautiful and had uber-efficient staff - the tents had bush showers in them, which the staff would fill with hot water on demand, to your exact temperature specification. It was the first really luxurious place that Jason and I had stayed in for a while, completely different to our flat in Mbarara.

The following morning we set out on a game-drive (thankfully not too early!). We saw lots of elephants, buffalo and antelopes.

Elephant eating the leaves from an Acacia tree

After all that, Jason said he really wanted to see a male lion (which is apparently quite a rare occurrence). We were driving along and Dad told Herbert to stop because he thought he saw a lion in a bush right next to the road - we were laughing at him, saying it was probably just a rock or something. Herbert thought he meant a bush somewhere in the distance, and got out of the vehicle with his binoculars (which he didn't need because the lion was less than 5 metres away!). Luckily the male lion was a scaredy-cat and he ran away into the distance. We got some brilliant pictures and video footage of the lion, and it made Herbert's day that he'd got so close!

Scaredy-cat lion

After the game drive we drove to a place called Katara Lodge, which is just outside the national park. It's a stunning setting for a hotel, on the escarpment overlooking the rift valley. The accommodation is in thatched cottages, each with a private balcony. The cottage is a timber frame with tent-material over it, so you can open the front of your cottage and get amazing view of the savanna below. Each cottage has a private balcony, and the management are planning to put wheels onto the four-poster beds so that you can sleep out under the stars on the balcony.

One of the cottages at Katara Lodge

In the evening we ventured up to the restaurant area for dinner, and saw a spectacular sunset.

Sunset from Katara Lodge

We had a lazy morning the following day, and left for the Mweya Peninsula after lunch, where we had booked to go on a boat trip along the Kazinga Channel.  On our way there, we saw a herd of elephants crossing the road in front of our vehicle - all very exciting.

Elephants Crossing

View of a fishing village on the Kazinga Channel

The boat trip from Mweya was probably the most touristy thing Jason and I had ever done in Uganda - the boat was packed, and in some ways it felt like we were on a boat trip on Lake Windermere or something. However once we set off, the boat trip was fantastic. We saw elephants drinking from the channel, hippos and buffalos cooling themselves down in the water, crocodiles, monitor lizards, and loads of birds. The boat is manned by Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) staff, and they give a commentary about all the wildlife you see from the boat - they are so knowledgeable, and it amazes me how they can spot tiny animals and birds from so far away.

Elephants and Buffalos in the Kazinga Channel

Fishermen heading out to Lake Edward

After the boat-trip, we headed to Mweya Safari Lodge, where we stayed for one night. It is on the Mweya Peninsula, and has beautiful views. Some of the animals even come into the hotel grounds - there was a waterbuck grazing outside our room, and we also saw some mongooses (or mongeese?!). Mweya Lodge has fantastic facilities, and we really can't fault the place - except for the fact that it feels a bit corporate, and you could be anywhere in the world. Having said that, the service was excellent, and the food was delicious - especially the desserts!

View of the Mweya Peninsula