It’s Sunday, the end of week one as I sit to write this, I’m at an eco-community lodge on the shore of Lake Mutanda in Uganda, we are surrounded by 8 volcanoes, 2 of which are still active. It’s a glorious spot . Only 7 days have passed since I arrived in Kenya but so much has happened it feels like much longer. I had zero expectations coming into this tour, there was so much going on at home in the lead up to my departure and I was so consumed with the planning that I didn’t spend much time contemplating what might lay ahead. A lack of expectation stood me in good stead as I have been blown away multiple times this week, and there’s still so much more to go.
Nairobi
Months of planning and the day finally arrived for me to depart for the first stint of my six-month sabbatical. First stop Nairobi where I met up with the tour group that I’ll be spending the next 27 days with for the route through Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The flight was uneventful and after a long queue in immigration, another one at baggage collection and a final way getting through customs I emerged on the other side to track down my taxi driver. It was nearly midnight by the time we made it into Nairobi but the time did not perturb my driver from showing me the CBD before taking me to my hotel, at that hour all I saw were ladies of the night and a 24 hour supermarket, not really worth the overly generous tip I gave him but that’s the way of it when you first arrive somewhere new!
I met my room/tent mate for the next three weeks and we instantly hit off, an Aussie native, like me she is travelling for an extended period of time. We went on a walking tour on Nairobi which to be honest wasn’t the best and I gained more insight from the one-on-one conversations I had with our guides over their preprepared narratives. From the moment I arrived in Nairobi the first topic conversation is the current president and the discontent towards him. Young people protested last year over a rise in taxes, storming the parliament building which led to serious violence including allegedly live bullets being shot at crowds. Politics are complicated throughout the different African countries I am visiting, with such colonial history and continued interference from outside forces there’s a lot to unpack and understand.
Central Nairobi is chaotic and loud, brightly coloured matutus (the local minibuses) congest the streets and taxi drivers seem to drive at one another while pedestrians weave through the traffic. I look forward to returning and exploring a bit more of Nairboi as I only saw a snapshot of the centre before we headed back to the hotel to meet the rest of our group. There are 15 total in the group, mixture of ages and nationalities. I’m sure a few will crop up in tales along the way, so I won’t introduce them all now but they seem like a pretty solid bunch.
Nakuru National Park
Day 1 on ‘The Beast’, our converted overland truck, she certainly draws a lot of attention. Our first stop is Lake Nakuru National Park, a five-hour drive from Nairobi (there are a lot of long drives on this leg). The park is 86 square km with 64sq km taken up by the lake itself, pelicans in formation patrol back and forth along the shoreline, flamingos on their stick legs stand watch whilst cormorants perch on logs. Nothing could really prepare us for the abundance of wildlife we were going to see, within minutes of entering the park we saw buffalo and zebra in the distance but Rita (our all-knowledgeable guide) assured us it wouldn’t be long before we were treated to closer shots and she wasn’t wrong. Ten mins along the single track that hugs the lakeside we came across a lioness with three adolescent cubs lounging in the mid-afternoon sun. Non plussed by The Beast, they lounged on the roadside grooming themselves letting us snap away. Hard to imagine them as the immense predators they are when they are that chilled. One of the big five down what else could top that, a family of white rhino perhaps? Munching their way along the shore were mum, dad and baby, then in the background we spotted a hippo out of the water. Clearly a fan of the limelight, he positioned himself right behind our rhino scene, standing proud and then showing off his immense jaw and teeth with a giant yawn before padding back into to the cool of the lake.
As we continued through the park there were majestic giraffe, blue ball monkeys (clue is in the name), the McDonalds of safari the bushbuck. It was an incredible 3+ hours of sighting animals, and it was then time to head to camp.
Most of this leg is in tents and after a short demonstration the tent was up and we were eating around the camp fire. We were warned that animals might wander through the camp at night but it was the next morning when I had my first close encounter with the wildlife. Large numbers of baboon started to appear at breakfast time, as I was checking my surroundings to avoid one appearing at my shoulder I locked eyes with one and within seconds he started to run at me full pelt, no chance I was taking on a baboon and so I launched my plate of eggs at him and legged it! Much to the hilarity of the rest of the group.
We had a second game drive through Nakuru that morning with more sighting of giraffe with their wee ugly pals the pumbas (warthogs) who are ridiculous looking and so funny to watch, they have a memory of 1 minute. We sighted another lioness and watched for a while as she chilled in the shade of a trade, but the absolute highlight had to be sighting two black rhino under a tree roughly 100 metres away. Although we didn’t get close to them, none the less it was very special to see them, there were another two in the far distance and its reassuring to know this rare species is doing well in the park. As we exited the park we watched a martial eagle with its prey, a large lizard. He was cautious at first but soon started to tear into the lizard, the sound was slightly gut turning.
Queen Elizabeth National Park
The jump in narrative here belies the distance covered and time spent in The Beast but I’ll come back separately to the travel and sights along the way. For brevity though, it was three days from leaving Nakuru to arriving in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda and some long days of travel. The park is named after a visit from Queen Elizabeth in 1954, interestingly the Royal Family benefit from a levy from the park for the use of the royal name and, according to our guide, from some giant elephant tusks that are on display in a local hotel. The park covers an area of 160sq km and is experiencing a period of conflict between man and beast, as the boundaries of local farms encroach ever further into animal territory. Elephants need huge amounts of space to roam in and they can hardly be blamed for wandering into a farmer’s land and enjoying a cabbage or two! We were taking a boat cruise down the Kazinga channel, 32km wide it links the Lake Edward and Lake George and is fed by the Rwenzori mountains. We descended into our boat onto chairs that were not attached to the boat, it felt stable enough and not entirely safety free as we did all have a life jacket. Our guide was Louisa, a force of a woman who took pride in being an unmarried single mother who refused to rely on any man!
It didn’t take long to start spotting our animal hotlist. The first critter ticked off the list was a Nile crocodile, the only type to be found in Uganda and a protected species, resting in the reeds. Startled by the sound of the boat engine, he slinked into the water and we went in search of the other big hitters of the channel. There was an abundance of African Savannah elephants along the riverbank, lots of youngsters too. It’s estimated there are 3000 elephants in the park, including some that have migrated from the Congo in search of more space and peace from the conflict there, we were only 30km from the Congo and informed that if you venture too far down the channel without a good excuse for being there then the marine guards will shoot to kill! There are reportedly 8m refugees in Uganda at the moment, seeking refuge from conflicts across the region include Sudan and DRC.
The elephants eat between 150-300 kilos of food a day, including soil for the minerals and 100 gallons of water, the trunk taking up to 5ltrs at a time. Our guide also pointed out a tusk-less elephant, a recessive gene defect found in only 3% of elephants globally. There were hippos everywhere too, roughly 2500 in the park. They are an incestuous bunch with sons mating with mothers if they are successful in challenging the dominant male in their school. Something that researchers are still investigating to understand. Mothers can choose to protect their male offspring away from the school although they and the baby can still be subject to attacks. Sadly, we saw one baby male hippo on the riverbank not looking his best but still alive. Mothers can be known to abandon the males if they get tired of the relentless attacks. Ever wondered why a hippo looks so sweaty when it’s out of water? It produces its own sunscreen for those times it ventures out of the water during the day, but mostly they can be found resting in the water often in the same locations as the elephants.
There are 600 bird species in the park and 94 different mammals. Thanks to our knowledgeable guide we learnt to identify a number of new birds including warrior heron, black winged stilt, sandpiper, sea eagles, hammerhawks and the little egrets. After a hot couple of hours on the river we headed to our campsite, first order of business after pitching our tents was to jump into the cold pool and then order a gin and tonic. A glorious end to an excellent couple of days of animal spotting.
If you’re interested in my travels then weekly long form blogs will be posted here, but please also follow @katsworldwander for more regular updates.
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