November 26th, 2023
From Fort Portal I caught a bus to a city called Kasese, only
about an hour and a half away. From
there I decided to hop on a boda boda for 25 kilometers to get to my
destination for the next couple of nights, a guesthouse called “The Elephant
Home”. I was greeted by Jason and Karen,
who seemed super friendly.
Jason gave me a briefing about the area and how they have
had challenges in the past with the animals from Queen Elizabeth National Park,
which is just across the highway from them.
Elephants would raid crops as the park is too big to try and put a fence
around the perimeter. Farmers were told by
the government officials to light fires at night to ward off the pachyderms but
then the elephants got used to that. Now
they burn pepper in the fires and that seems to help.
The area is quite poor, with farming on the hillsides of the
Rwenzori Mountain range being the main industry. So they have tried to reinvent themselves by
promoting community tourism, be it tours in the local villages or basket
weaving classes. I wish them well as they
are such nice people.
Since it is the low season, I was the only person staying at
the facility the first night. Jason made
my dinner while Karen served it. They
have no electricity so when they asked me if I wanted a drink, Jason had to
make a call to someone who would bring a few, relatively cold, beers from the
nearby bar a few kilometers away! They
did have a generator which they turned on for an hour or two so I was able to
charge my laptop, phone and power bank.
Water was also an issue. They
collected rainwater off the rooves of the buildings and had large storage tanks
that were sometimes manually filled up with jerry cans.
Heavy rain on my first afternoon at the Elephant Home:
Jason arranged for me to go on a boda boda tour in Queen
Elizabeth National Park. I didn’t feel
that I needed to do a safari per se, as I had already seen many animals in
Murchison Park. This still might give me
a chance to see a few more animals, but it was also going to take me to some
salt mining at a small lake and a local village, both of which are inside the
park. I also opted to go on a boat
cruise which Julius, my guide at Murchison Falls, said was worthwhile. However, it would be an expensive 2-hour
cruise as that would make me have to pay the $40 USD park entry fee along with
$25 USD for the cruise…but when in Rome…
My boda boda guide Robert picked me up. I was surprised that he, or the Elephant
Home, had a helmet for me, a nice one at that which also had a visor. It would be the first time I wore a helmet on
a motorcycle in this country. At first,
I was almost reluctant, as it is kinda nice to ride with your hair flowing in
the wind (not that my hair is that long at the moment), but I’m glad I wore it
as we did encounter some rain during the morning and it was definitely warmer
and kept me drier.
Just 4-5 kilometers south of the Elephant Home is the equator. This would be my second time in two years stopping at the equator on land, the other time being in Ecuador. They are in the process of replacing whatever monument they previously had there. It looked a bit like a war zone. They must have had some strong winds that pushed over half of the metal panels that had been propped up by wooden posts. Some of the panels were all twisted up. A guy on our side of the road spoke to Robert in the local language and then pulled up a sun faded sign that was lying flat on the ground. It felt like he was just “opening up” the equator for the day. We stood in front of the poster for a few pictures.
Reaching the equator on land, for my second time in two years.
Continuing on, we spotted an elephant about half a kilometre
away in the park. Even though he was far
away, it seemed like a good start to the day.
We turned onto a dirt road which took us into the park. On the left side of the road, there was a
cluster of a few buildings and I saw a sign for the park. At the entranceway stood a military man with
a machine gun. He seemed to take no
notice of us and I wondered how this worked, that we could just drive past
without having to check in or pay the park fee.
Baboons on the highway:
The plains of Queen Elizabeth Park:
The first elephant of the day:
We disturbed a bunch of weaver birds working on their nests:
Cruising into QE Park:
We passed some safari vehicles driving in the opposite
direction and there were a couple who were stopped by the side of the road. We slowed down to see if they had spotted
some wildlife, but couldn’t figure out what they were looking at. There were some buffalo here and there along
with duikers and bushbucks (a couple types of deer/antelope).
Some buffalo:
There was a wall of rain approaching from the south as we
turned off the main road and started to descend towards a lake, about a
kilometer in diameter. I asked Robert to
stop so that I could put on my raingear.
As we reached the shore of the lake, about 50 meters lower than the
plains of the park, the rain picked up.
Luckily, we found some reprieve under a small shelter by the shore. At this point, I hadn’t clued in that this is
where they pan for salt. There were
these squares formed by walls of sand, approximately 20 feet by 20 feet, but
none of them were exactly the same size.
Another motorbike came down the hill in the pouring rain
with two men riding it. The passenger
got off and came over to our shelter.
Turns out it was the “salt guide”, named Richard. He explained the process that they use to
obtain salt. I didn’t quite follow all
of his explanation, but it sounded like a lot of work. Each square was owned by someone, with 180
squares in total. These are typically
passed down the family from generation to generation. The workers walk from a village called
Kisenyi, about 2½ kilometres away, which was going to be our next
destination. Richard had a plastic bag
hiding under a mound covered by a tarp which contained small packets of salt
for sale. The granules were large and
had a pinkish hue. I’m sure it was good
salt, but I didn’t want to carry it around for the next two months, so I
declined his offer to buy some and gave him a tip instead.
Richard hopped on the motorcycle with us for a ride back to
his home near the village. Just after
dropping him off, we passed by about 50-60 villagers, all in their Sunday best,
walking along the road from the church.
Entering the village, it was a mud-fest.
The road was bad, but the trails between the ramshackle wooden huts were
even worse. But it seemed to be just
another day for the villagers, everyone going about their business. Of course, a mzungu (me, the white guy)
coming through on a boda boda caused a few of them to stop and stare, with a
few of them waving hi to me. It was definitely
a poor town, and strikingly ugly compared to the surrounding nature.
We stopped down at the “landing”, where the fishing boats
docked on the lake to unload their catch.
Some men were sorting their fish into baskets while others were
constructing new boats. A group of
hippos were in the water just behind some docked boats…you wouldn’t want to go
swimming here, that’s for sure. Not just
because of the hippos, but marshy, dirty water with garbage floating by the
shore.
It was time to work our way back to the highway on the same road
we had been on earlier. We were headed
back towards the rain that had passed us earlier but it was only a light
drizzle. We spotted a hippo in a small
pool of water and a solo elephant walking in the rain.
With less than a kilometre to go to reach the highways, a safari vehicle blasted past us, spraying us with mud. Not a lot, but enough to get my pants dirty, and annoy me. Really?!? You couldn’t have slowed down just a bit?
The plains of Queen Elizabeth park to the south:
Back on the highway, we headed about 10 kilometres south to
the Kazinga channel, that flows between Lake Edward and Lake George, and where
I would get on my boat cruise. The day
before, a guy named Sunday came to the Elephant Home and I paid him for the
boat trip and my park fees. We met up
with him and he showed me the boat that I would get on in an hour. For some reason I had visions of the boat
being similar to the one in Murchison Falls, a double deck boat that could seat
around 50 people, but this one was much smaller, probably good for 12. I questioned whether my $50 USD actually went
towards the park fee as there never was a ranger or anything making me think
that my presence here had to be paid for.
Oh well, it is what it is.
I also thought we’d be cruising upstream towards Lake Edward. Instead, the boat with just me, two young
guys from Colorado, our guide Kanzi and captain Moses, crossed the river. It’s funny, I’ve been on three boats in Uganda
and 2 out of 3 captains have been called Moses…I guess they know how to deal
with water, according to the Bible at least!
Reaching the other side, we slowly floated downstream while
checking out various animals and birds. The
first group of animals was a bit surprising.
Five buffalo were hanging out in the water, by a steep bank, and not one
that they could climb up on. Kanzi
explained that this was a “loser group”.
Older male buffalos who could no longer fight to win a mate, and older females
who can no longer produce offspring. This
was a safe place for them to hang out, away from any predators.
A little further down the river, 4-5 boats had stopped to
check out something. We pulled up and
saw the attractions…there was a Nile crocodile sleeping on the shore, some
hippos in the water and a couple of monitor lizards mating. The lizards were about 50 meters away, so it
was hard to see what exactly was going on but then one of the hippos started to
get out of the water, along with her 3-4 month old baby! That was super cool to watch them walk up the
bank and disappear into the foliage.
One hippo's big harem:
We crossed back to the other side of the river which was
less populated with wildlife as the banks were dense with foliage. Kanzi explained that the wind tends to blow
from north to south so the south shore tends to erode more, which makes it
easier for animals to enter and exit the water.
We did see an African Fish Eagle sitting proudly in a tree. They are similar to bald eagles, but the white
on their heads extends down their chest and they are smaller in size.
Although it was an expensive boat trip, I was glad I did it
as it as I saw my first Nile crocodile, monitor lizards mating and a baby hippo
and its momma walking on land. Most of
the time that you see hippos, they’re just submerged in the water, cooling off
as they have no other way to regulate their body heat.
The last elephant of the day:
I hopped back on the bike with Robert as we made our way
back to the Elephant Home. We decided to
stop at a local bar to have a beer. I
had seen a number of these “pubs” while sitting in a bus, a matatu or a boda
boda, but had never ventured into one.
It was a really basic place with a crappy pool table in the middle and a
little bar in one corner. There happened
to be a Premier League football match, Aston Villa vs Tottenham, who happened
to be fourth and fifth in the league, and only one point apart. I ordered us some beers, which were not
surprisingly warm (Ugandans don’t seem to care for cold beer) as we watched a riveting
first half of the game. There were a few
goals that went to a VAR decision (the Video Assistant Referee) which caused a
few of us to chirp about the decisions.
It was a good way for me to break the ice with the locals who must have
been wondering what this “mzungu” was doing in their local watering hole.
It was a good finish to a great day. Tomorrow I will head to Kabale, just a small city to the south, in order to break up my travel day to get to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where I will go Mountain Gorilla Trekking…one of the big highlights of this adventure in Africa.
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