The Crater Lakes of Fort Portal

November 23^rd, 2023

It was about a four-hour bus ride from Masindi to Fort Portal.  I learned another Ugandan public transport lesson.  The bus had a bench of 3 seats, the aisle and then 2 seats on each row.  Since I had my small backpacks with me, I opted to sit on the 2-seat side, figuring I’d less likely have someone sit beside me.  While we waited to leave the bus station, I was frying in the sun.  Realizing that we were heading south, and it was the morning, I figured I’d be in the sun for most of the journey.  I considered changing sides and while I contemplated, a young woman took the seat across from me and blocked my exit until only the last row was available.  It still seemed good to me as I was now comfortably in the shade.  Well, I would find out that it wasn’t the best place to sit.

 

I should have remembered from when I was a kid riding the school bus.  You always wanted to sit near the back as that is where you would bounce the most if the bus hit a bump.  This is no longer your strategy when you are 52 years old…and this country has some serious speedbumps.  We weren’t even out of Masindi, and I had already been airborne, with my butt flying a few inches off of the seat.  Some bumps were pretty jarring.  Luckily, I noticed a pattern.  When we approached an area where traffic was required to slow down, we’d first hit 2 small bumps, close together, followed by a set of 4, and then the big hump that was making me fly off the seat.  So thankfully I could prepare for the “flight”.

 

As we approached the small city of Fort Portal, named after a young man Sir Gerald Portal who was a diplomat from England in the late 1800s, the landscape definitely changed, for the better.  There were small, lush hills, tea plantations and nicer looking houses in general.  I had heard that a lot of the better off folks who live in Kampala like to escape on weekends to the more relaxing and beautiful area of Fort Portal.

 

I had found a place online called the Kalitusi Nature Resort and it looked like a nice place to chill for a few days as my past week had been quite packed with wallet draining, yet fun activities.  The place didn’t disappoint.  Probably a few acres in size, even though it was on the outskirts of the city, it felt like you were out in the country.  I was greeted by a friendly woman named Immy and she checked me in.  My dorm room had six beds on two levels in a hut with steeply slanted roofs.  That night’s dinner, cottage pie, was the best meal I’d had in Uganda, and they even made their own chili sauces on site with ingredients grown in their garden!

The garden view at Kalitusi:

The lounge area:

After a chill day, I told Immy that I should probably see some of the area, so she called a guy named Apple who came to the resort.  For 70,000 shillings, he was going to take me for a three-hour tour on his motorcycle. 

 

I ate some lunch and then we headed off on his bike.  The roads were a bit rough leaving town, then we were on a paved road before diverting off onto some super rough roads, if you could even call them roads.  One of them really wasn’t a road, it was a large slab of broken rock that went up a bit of a hill.  As we bounced our way along, it was similar to my quadbiking adventure near Jinja where every little kid I saw would smile and yell out “Hello” or “How are you?”.  I couldn’t help but wave and/or answer back.

About twenty minutes into the journey, we arrived beside the first crater lake I would see and there was a hill that rose about 100 meters that we would walk up to get a view of a few other lakes.  The trail was a no-nonsense trail, it just went straight up the 25-30 degree incline.  The panoramic vista from the top was stunning.  We could see a few more crater lakes, with the one just to the north of the hill we climbed a stark different colour to the one we first saw.  The first one was a dark blue whereas the other one was a medium green, obviously affected by some kind of algae.  Off to the west was the Rwenzori Mountain range and a dark grey storm front was approaching it from the northeast and heavily dumping rain.  In the opposite direction we could see Fort Portal.  I could see the appeal of this area, the countryside was lovely.

A view of the first crater lake, and that's the hill we will climb.

Heading up.

Looking back at that first lake.

Apple attempted to explain how the crater lakes had been formed, and I believe he was mostly right, but some of the time it was hard to understand his English.  They are the results of violent volcanic activity on an extinct volcano or a volcanic fissure.  When the pressure from the subsurface molten rock (magma or lava) is too much, it blows off the surface of the extinct volcano.  Instead of forming a volcanic cone, the lava with ashes blows further away from the vent and forms a large basin and the surrounding area is built up by the rock debris.  This is how the hill we climbed was formed.

The Rwenzori mountain range, mostly hidden by a storm front.

It was cool to watch the front moving along and changing.

Apple mentioned that we were going to be heading towards the area that was just getting dumped on by rain.  So we hung out a little longer until it started to dissipate, then headed down the hill and got back on the bike.

Starting to head back down.

It was a nice ride towards the mountains.  We passed through a roadside market that was quite busy.  Back at the resort, Apple kept talking about some crazy road that we were going to take and then I finally understood what he meant.  The road meandered along the mountainside to the north, towards some plains below.

We cruised about 4-5 kilometers down the road, stopping here and there for photos.  It was strange that all of the young kids were no longer smiling and yelling hi, but now it was “Money, money, money”.  I preferred the former.

Apple admiring the view.

Due to the rain, there were a few mud and rock slides that some crews were cleaning up.  None of the slides were currently blocking the road but on our way back up the road, we witnessed a small slide that didn’t quite make it to the road.  Kinda cool to watch.

You can see the small strip of black dirt where the slide occurred.

On the return trip to Fort Portal, I mentioned to Apple that I wanted to stop at a few places I had seen on the way there.  One was a cool looking house that was made from dried out bamboo arranged in some interesting angles, and the other one was a medical clinic.  Painted on the wall outside the clinic I saw “Ultrasound Scan”, “In and Out Patients” but then I thought I read “Female Circumcision”.  I know that this practice used to be done in this country, but I hoped it wasn’t anymore.

Apple seemed a bit surprised to hear it too, although again, occasionally things were lost in translation between us.  I saw the clinic and told him to stop.  He had gone about 50 meters passed it and it was on the other side of the road, but I got off the bike and walked back to investigate further.  Apple did a u-turn and drove up close to it, so I crossed the road to join him. 

The medical centre...

It did look like “Female Circumcision” but then we noticed a hole in the pony wall.  There was also a bit of a gap between the FE and MALE part of the word.  Apple figured it out before I did…it wasn’t “FEMALE CIRCUMCISION”, it was “SAFE MALE CIRCUMSION” but the SA was now missing.  Whew…

From a different angle...it was a bit more obvious.

A cool looking house on the way back:

Apple brought be to a few ATMs (the first one didn’t like my bank card), and then returned me to the resort, about 3½ hours after we began.  I bought him a drink and we chatted a bit with Immy.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon and see the lovely area around Fort Portal.

Chimpanzee Champs

November 20^th, 2023 

I was up again at 5:30 am, for the second night in a row.  The trouble with last night was that there was live music about 70 meters from my room at Murchison’s Backpackers, which is kind of affiliated with a hotel/lodge next door.  The band stopped around 11:00 pm but then they blared some canned music until 11:45.  What to do?!?

 

Julius was going to Kampala today, so he sent another guy, Edward, to pick me up.  He was not driving the safari-mobile, but an ordinary car.  I wondered how it was going to fair on some of the roads we had taken the day before as they got a bit gnarly closer to the forest and I got my answer.  We picked up Joseph and seemed to be going a different, longer route than yesterday.  We passed by the big sugar factory that was a fair way from the forest.  There were a lot of workers milling about, getting ready to start their day.  The factory was by far the biggest employer in the area.  Edward then took the better maintained dirt roads used by the tractors hauling sugar cane from the fields to the factory…made sense. 

The early morning view on our drive to the forest:

Once again, after arriving at the forest, we started a walk of the perimeter to listen for any chimp calls.  Nothing.  Into the forest we went.  It started to feel like a repeat of yesterday, but the temperature was definitely cooler as it was an overcast day that was threatening to rain, which it did.  This made me wonder if we were going to have any luck at all as Joseph had mentioned earlier that in rain, the chimps tend to stay in their nests and wrap their arms around themselves to try and keep as dry as possible.

Walking the perimeter.  On the left is a sugar cane field that had been harvested.

 Into the jungle we go:

We exited the forest to walk along the perimeter.  I had donned my rain jacket and popped open my little umbrella to try and keep as dry as possible.  Then we heard it…a few chimp calls!  There could be hope yet.  We started back into the forest, along a narrow path, brushing against the wet leaves of the encroaching bushes.  Joseph told me that I should put my umbrella away before we reached the chimpanzees as it could spook them.

Walking through the wet forest:

A puddle spanned the width of the trail and was about 10 feet long, and at least 3 inches deep.  I’m travelling light in Africa, so I only have one pair of waterproof hiking shoes (shoes being the keyword there, not boots) and some flip flops.  I knew that this would be a bit of a risk but carrying around a second pair of shoes is heavy and bulky.  I tried to step on pieces of wood, or rocks to stay out of the water as best as possible.  I escaped the first puddle relatively unscathed but then there was a bigger, deeper one.  It looked like there was no alternative…a couple of soakers in exchange for seeing some chimpanzees seemed like a deal I was going to have to begrudgingly accept.

Still searching:

After wading through the puddles, we continued along the path for longer than I expected.  Where were the damn chimps?  They hadn’t made another sound since the first grunts we had heard.  We walked for about another half hour.  I figured we were on a wild goose chase again but then finally Joseph whispered “chimp” and pointed upwards.  About 100’ up a tree, there was a solitary male chimpanzee feeding on figs.  Sweet, we finally found one!

Hard to spot, but he's just a bit to the left of the center of the pic.

My first chimpanzee in the wild.

Not satisfied with this, Joseph insisted that we carry on and try to find more of the group.  There were supposed to be around 31 chimps in this forest so let’s see where the other 30 are.  We stayed mainly on decent trails, and he led me to one of the other feeding trees that we had passed a few times the day before, with no luck.  

We got entertained by some black and white colubuses jumping around, tree to tree.

A colubus on the move.

A crazy big spider, tough to see in the pic, but the web was probably 2 feet in diameter and the spider was 6 inches at least...I'm glad we don't have these in Canada.

This is one of the many sugar cane fields around.

Tough to tell the perspective of how big and dense they are, until you try and spot my guide Joseph in there! (just off to the right)

Sucking on a sugar cane...

Finally, we had luck today.  There were three chimpanzees, once again, pretty high up in the tree.  There were two females and a juvenile.  Super awesome.  One of the females started a repetitive call, it was a warning signal to others…she had spotted us.  After a few minutes though, she stopped, and they didn’t pay much attention to us.

Try and spot the chimps.

After I’d had my fill, we carried on, I assumed on our way back to the car as we had already spent over three hours in the forest.  We passed by a tree with many vines with leaves running around it and Joseph stopped.  “Squirrels” he said.  Three or four little animals scurried up the vines from eye level to about 10-12 feet above the ground…I was quite certain that they weren’t squirrels.  They sported big round eyes and proportionally big ears too.  I had seen this animal before, but not in the wild, instead on an Alice in Chains video for the song called Angry Chair.  I later looked up on my phone and they are called Galagos, but are also known as Bush Babies, which is what Joseph called them.

It was tough to get a photo of these little guys, this video was the best that I did.

By the size of their eyes and ears, it was obvious that they are nocturnal, so we were lucky to find them active after 10 am.  They seemed very curious, looking down between the leaves at us.  Joseph seemed more excited than me to have spotted them.  He said that he hadn’t seen them in this forest before, and he was quite happy with this development.  It seemed like a fitting bonus for him, and me, after the 5 or so hours we had hiked around over the two sessions, looking for the chimps.

There’s another African animal off my list, and one that wasn’t even on my list!  Thanks for your efforts and persistence, in the end it paid off.

A beautifully blue dragonfly, probably my favorite insect:

Centipede City:

I appreciate Joseph's persistence to not give up.  Between the two days, we hiked at least 5 hours to see all of these animals and insects...I did not leave disappointed.  Thanks Joseph!

Next stop, Fort Portal, which is supposed to be a lovely area with crater lakes.

Safari in Murchison and Chimpanzee Chumps

November 19^th, 2023

We woke up at 5:30 am in order to be on the road by 6.  Sunrise is always around 6:30 in Uganda as we are very close to the equator, so it doesn’t change much throughout the year.  It looked like it was going to be a nice day for an early morning safari.

 

Along the paved road our first encounter with wildlife was a herd of buffalos (also known as bubalina, and not to be confused with bison in North America).  They are one of the “Big 5” animals in Africa and do have some cool, curly horns.  Okay, a good start, but they are probably the least interesting of the Big 5 (the others are: rhinos, elephants, leopards, and lions). 

Where buffalos roam:

Julius turned down the same dirt road we were on the evening before.  David and I stood up to peer out of the popped-up roof.  Next, we saw a group of bushbucks, a type of antelope.

The safari amped up a bit as a herd of elephants were near the road, walking in the opposite direction, and they crossed the road behind us.  In the early morning light, that was stunning.

Early morning elephants:

Some more buffalo...one of the Big Five:

Here's a nice waterbuck:

Then a real treat…a female lion just off of the side of the road…my first lion in the wild!  She didn’t seem to care about us at all as we snapped some photos.

A slight repeat from yesterday, we saw another leopard lazily hanging out in a tree.

Rush hour on the safari:

Giraffes were having breakfast, munching on leaves from some small trees and bushes.  I thought it was funny that they have their long legs and necks to reach high vegetation but this morning they were having to bend down to get their food.

Giraffes are crazy looking animals.

We noticed some vehicles stopped ahead and wondered what it was…a male and female lion!  Awesome.  We pulled over and observed them for some time.  They were a good hundred meters from the road, but they got up and started walking closer…and closer.  David had lent me his binoculars, so I had a good view of them.

Well hello...

Almost looks like a two bodied lion...just a little foreshadowing...

Someone's on the prowl.

The female proceeded to lie down and then…what?!?  The male mounted her.  We’re going to have some action!

But Lion King my butt...he lasted all of 10 seconds, letting out a bit of a small grunt as he finished!  A few years ago, I saw a llama at Machu Pichu and a giant tortoise on the Galapagos Islands who lasted way longer than this while mating!!!

Continuing on, we eventually reached the Victoria Nile, as far as we could go.  Across the river was a lush green mountain range of the Democratic Republic of Congo.  The DRC is currently having some political unrest with many rebel groups vying for power…so as inviting as the landscape looked, it’s not an area that many tourists are currently visiting.

Backtracking along the same road, we saw the same lion couple.  They looked quite relaxed, like maybe hey had a cigarette while we were at the river.  They crossed the road and lied down to relax so we got to pass close by to them once again.

David commented that the last thing he wanted to see was another leopard, but one that was moving and not just lounging in a tree.  Well, he got his wish!  A small vehicle was stopped ahead, by a few big trees and there wasn’t just one, but two leopards.  We were lucky enough to watch one descend and then jump out of the tree as the other one switched from one comfy branch to another.  Super cool.

A leopard getting comfort in a tree...he's also one of the Big Five.

You might be able to see his leg hanging down, he was actually full straddling the branch.

Interesting that their patches try to camouflage them, but giraffes just kinda naturally stick out, at least in this terrain.

Giraffes, giraffes and more giraffes.

And all this action was before 9 am!  What a way to start the day.  We had to be out of the park by 11 am, or we would have to pay $40 USD each for another 24 hours.  On the drive back we saw more baboons but then were treated to a new monkey to me and David, the black and white colobuses on the paved road.  Most of them seemed to be licking something that was on the tarmac.  They are interesting looking things.  Their white long white fur seemed to hang off of their shoulders and back like they were wearing a funky 70s jacket.

For some reason, the closest one had a nice piece of wood in his mouth that was knocked out and stolen by another baboon.

They looked like skunk monkeys to me.

Arriving back in Masindi, Julius asked us whether we wanted to try and see chimpanzees.  The most popular place to see chimps is in the Kibale National Park, a few hundred kilometres south from here.  It had been on my itinerary but while staying at Murchison Backpackers, Doreen had mentioned that there were also chimps in the Budongo Forest, which was on the fringe of the Murchison Falls Park and that it cost half the price to see them there ($100 vs $200).  Well Julius proposed an even better offer, $50 to see them in a small forest, which used to be connected to Budongo, but sugar cane fields had cut it off.  This would be David’s only chance to see chimps as he had to take a bus in the late afternoon back to Kampala before getting an overnight bus to Kabale, en route to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest where he was going to see the mountain gorillas.  Both of us had purchased our gorilla permits in Kampala when we first met but I was going there 8 days later.  I would have preferred to go the following day as I was doing all of my planned activities in a very short time span, and I wasn’t sure what I would do to entertain myself in the upcoming days.

 

We decided to go for it, and we picked up a local guy named Joseph.  He was a short, smiley man who knew this forest like the back of his hand.  He was dressed in green pants, a camouflaged jacket and rubber boots.  Julius parked by the forest and at first, we walked along some of the perimeter, with Joseph listening for any chimp sounds.

An ant superhighway by the edge of the forest:

Just before heading into the forest:

He didn’t hear anything, so we took a trail into the forest.  I didn’t clue in until later, but there are only a handful of “feeding trees”, like a type of fig tree, where the likelihood of finding a chimpanzee would be higher.  For the first half an hour or so, I was wildly scanning the trees and the lower foliage, trying to spot one.  Eventually, I just kept an eye on the trail.  Sometimes we were on a decent trail, others an animal trail and occasionally we were just bushwhacking.

On the hunt for chimpanzees:

Starting to get a big thick in the woods...

Super dense and lush.

Well hello Mr. Baboon.

That's one big tree.

This continued on for a couple of hours and eventually David called it, stating that he needed to head to the bus station to catch his bus.  We had put up a valiant effort.  The odds were against us as it was the middle of the afternoon and Joseph mentioned that the chimps changed their “program” everyday, so unless you caught them in the morning when they were waking up from their tree nests and heading to a feeding tree, or in the evening when they would call out to each other to meet up and build their nests, it was a bit of a crap shoot.  Oh well, I thought, I can go to the main section of Budongo Forest and try again there…it will just cost some more money.

The end of an awesome 30 hours...Thanks Julius!!!

Back in the vehicle, Julius mentioned that David would get his money back and that I could try again the next morning for free!  That was kind of Joseph to do that.

 

Even with our strike out with the chimps, what a day!  I have now seen all of the Big 5 in the wild…and as my close friend Naomi texted me, I’ll never want to go to a zoo again…and she is right.