Africa Trip, Part 2: Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya

This is Part 2 of my Africa Trip blog. This entry covers our trip in Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya as well as our stops in Zürich, Windsor and Washington, D. C.

Day 12: March 23 (Friday)
Early breakfast and on the road by 7. Bypassed Kampala then out to the countryside. Passed by a lot of fruit stands and groves. Saw papyrus swamps. Stopped for a bathroom break in the bush. Passed through small towns (picture left). Passed many tea plantations. Starting to see the mountains in the distance. Entered Kibale NP. Stopped at The Gardens Restaurant for lunch. Not so keen on the meat, but the millet and sweet potato were good. On the dirt road in the park. Passed by a herd of longhorns. Arrived at the Kibale National Park Visitor Center. Going for hike. Our guide for the hike was Jerrod. We were out for about 3 hours. The first thing we learned was we should tuck our pant legs in our socks or boots. We learned this the hard way when some army ants climbed up our legs and bit us. Jerrod took us to a fig tree full of fruit, and sure enough there were chimps in it. They were pretty high up so we trekked on. We found a group of about 5 males on the ground. A few of them were grooming each other. Eventually they moved on so we followed. We could hear chimps all around. The males went to a fruit tree to have a snack. We watched them for a while then walked back out. We drove up to our lodge, Ndali Lodge, which is on a ridge between some lakes. We have our own little villa with no electricity. It's quite lovely. Dinner was a sit down meal in the dining room. We sat at a table with 3 couples. Two from Michigan and one from Florida. The Florida couple has traveled just about everywhere. The food was good: tomato soup, steak, potato, squash, Yorkshire pudding, and bananas flambé (yum). We'll have to turn in early to get an early start tomorrow. Check my gallery for more pictures of Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel, On the Road, Kibale and Ndali Lodge.

Game: Olive baboon, chimpanzee

Day 13: March 24 (Saturday)
Woke early. Nice breakfast. Packing in the dark. 3 hour drive to Queen Elizabeth National Park. Started seeing game from the main road. Turned off for game drive. Back on the main road. Didn't see any lions. Saw some vultures pecking at a skeleton and a lone hyena. Heading toward the Kazinga Channel for a boat trip. Just inside the gate we saw a big herd of elephants (picture left) with lots of calves. Found another herd. The bull challenged us a bit so we backed off. Stopped for lunch at Mweya Safari Lodge. The lunch was from Ndali. The chicken was the best yet. There's a nice view of the channel and Lake Edward. The lodge is situated high over the channel. We'll have a cruise on the channel soon. Great cruise, tons of wildlife. Also saw some fishermen heading out to Lake Edward. On the drive out of the park we saw a lioness and two cubs. Later we encountered a troupe of baboons all over the road. Heading to the Jacana Safari Lodge now. There were 2 colobus chasing each other through the trees. The lodge is nice. Individual cabins in the forest next to a crater lake. Our room overlooks the lake. We watched the sun set (picture right) and even saw a hippo close by. Dinner was nice: steak w/peppercorn sauce, potato, carrots, broccoli, and pumpkin soup. I had coffee after dinner by a great big fireplace. It's funny to have a fire so close to the equator. For more pictures, check the gallery for Queen Elizabeth, Lake Edward and Jacana.

Game: Ugandan kob, cape buffalo, waterbuck, warthog, vultures, hyena, elephants, fish eagle, pied kingfisher, hippo, cattle egret, oxpecker, grey heron, croc, gull billed tern, African skimmer, spoonbill, saddlebill stork, marabou stork, pelican, lion, baboon, black and white colobus monkey

Day 14: March 25 (Sunday)
Woke up at 6:30. Power is not on yet though it was supposed to be on at 6. No sign of the hippo. Nice breakfast overlooking the lake. I'm having some allergy problems today. Hopefully some antihistamine will clear it up. The generator finally came on during breakfast, but we're running a bit behind. Turns out we had to wait for our box lunches because of the power problem. It was nearly 9 by the time we were on our way. The road through the park is quite bad for some 20km. Passing 3 big trucks on the road. They have been stuck for days. Thank goodness for 4x4. Looking for tree climbing lions in Ishasha area. I'm beginning to think the talk of tree climbing lions is just to keep your mind off of the hot, bumpy ride. No luck with the lions. Stopped for lunch by a school in a small town. Children gathered around while we ate. It was a little strange. Paul says the children are used to NGOs visiting, so they all gather around. We are very close to Congo. Checked in at the Gorilla Resort (see picture). Mary and I have a double tent cabin. It's basically a huge canvas tent pitched under a wood roof. There's even a toilet and shower in the back. I think we're just going to relax for the afternoon. Maybe do some reading. For more pictures, check out the Gorilla Resort section of the Gallery.

Game: waterbuck, kob, baboon, topi, crested eagle

Day 15: March 26 (Monday)
Went to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park for a gorilla trek. We went to see the Mubare family of 10 individuals. The silverback is Ruhondeza, and there are two babies. We had to hike to the top of the hill which took about 2 hours. Then we had a short trip down to the next valley were we found the trackers. The gorillas were not far off the track, but they were in the bush. After about 30 minutes they moved out to the sun. Nearing the end of our hour, they started to move to the thick brush, so we headed back. We had lunch at the top of the hill then headed back down to the Visitors Center. We got a certificate for going on the hike. Relaxing at the lodge drinking a Bell Lager. I read a bit of Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey. They have a copy at the lodge. She did a lot of her research in the Virunga Range in Rwanda. We will be there in two days to experience another gorilla trek. We relaxed the rest of the day reading and enjoying the peace and quiet. Even the short rains were very tranquil. We had another nice dinner, read a bit more, then went to sleep. For more pictures of the trek, check out the Bwindi entry.

Day 16: March 27 (Tuesday)
Woke up at 6:30, packed up and had breakfast. I'm not looking forward to the 7 hour drive, 4 of which will be on bumpy dirt roads. We will cross into Rwanda today. The trip hasn't been too exciting. We passed through the Elephant/Duiker Project area. We saw a duiker but the elephant are apparently in the lowland swamps this time of year. The road is mostly a one lane dirt road. It is quite bumpy at times. The views have been quit nice. Green hills and mountains. Lots of tea and banana farms. Most of the children smile and wave, but a few hold their hands out and ask for stuff and one threw a rock. The truck stalled at one point but after a little fiddling under the hood, Paul was able to get it started. The truck is a 1985 Land Cruiser with 250k miles on it. I'm sure most of them have been hard miles. The road to Kisoro is slightly better. Well, at least it is wider. We stopped for a toilet break near Lake Bunyoni, but the only toilets were locked. We resorted to the bushes. Walking back from the bushes I encountered some stinging nettle with my foot. It's not very pleasant. We can see the Virunga Range now (see picture). Stopped for lunch along the road with a view of Mt. Mahavura. Now we continue on to Rwanda. In the area we are driving through there are more kids with there hands out then there are waving. At the border now. It took longer to get out of Uganda than it did to get into Rwanda, for us anyway. It took Paul longer on the Rwanda side. No visa needed to enter Rwanda but I guess we'll have to pay to get back into Uganda tomorrow. The road is much better in Rwanda, maybe because there don't seem to be any cars using them. We arrived at the Mountain Gorillas Nest (picture right). Our room is not as nice as some of the other lodges, but it's pretty good. We walked to the local market about 2km away. It was quite an event. Lots of kids followed us around saying "hello" and "how are you?" A group would follow us for a while then drop off. Shortly after a new group would form. The market was mostly vegetables and some clothing. With all the kids following us around we didn't stay long. Besides, it keeps threatening to rain again. There's not much to do until dinner. I guess we'll read some more. It did rain, so we did read. Dinner was ok. They had an extremely limited menu: ham and cheese sandwich or goat stew. After pressing them, we managed to get steak which wasn't too bad. We tried to get to sleep early for our early gorilla trek. More pictures on the Gorilla's Nest Resort page.

Day 17: March 28 ( Wednesday)
We got up at 6:30 and had an early breakfast. It rained more during the night so we knew to expect mud. It was still cloudy so we donned our rain gear. We got to the Volcanoes National Park headquarters and were assigned to Group 13. It has only one silverback but 22 total individuals. It's the second largest group in the park. The three of us were joined by 5 Brits for the trek. There was one other group going out today. After a briefing by our guide, Francis, we drove from the HQ to the starting point for Group 13. There we got some walking sticks and our armed guards. We started the trek by crossing some fields outside the park. After about 30 minutes we passed through the park wall which is there to keep the buffalo and elephants in the ark and out of the crops. From there the hiking was a bit steeper, but less than in Bwindi. However, the mud made the trek a little harder, plus we had to pass through some dense bamboo (picture right). It was actually pretty fun once I stopped worrying about getting muddy. It took about 45 minutes after the wall before we found the gorillas. When we arrived most of the gorillas were up in the bamboo eating. It's quite amazing such large animals are able to sit on these flimsy bamboo plants. I guess they find a dense stand and sit on the growth between multiple trees. Our guide and the trackers kept trying to find us better angle to view the gorillas. One would pop it's head up for a moment so we could see it, the duck back down and continue munching. After 30-40 minutes there was a lot of excitement as the big silverback came down to the ground. The other gorillas made quite a ruckus and some followed the chiefs lead. Most of my views of the silverback were from behind. He's a big boy weighing some 200kg. We did get some pretty good views of a sub adult (left), a juvenile and a mother with baby. The sub adult made some charging motions so we all backed off and it passed by. The juvenile also made some threatening moves but in the end seemed more playful than agitated. The juvenile and baby tussled a bit then the family wandered off. We caught up with them briefly to get some final family photos then our time was up. It started to rain on our hike out so it was even more muddy and slippery. It took about a hour to get back to the car. We drove back to HQ and received certificates. We cleaned up a little, ate our lunches the got on the road back to Uganda. Crossing the border was pretty easy. Just a couple of stamps and since we only have a couple more days we got a transit visa for only $15. It not raining in Uganda, too bad the road sucks. The scenery has been pretty nice, especially the views of the Virungas. We even saw a gray jacket monkey along the road. The drive along Lake Bunyoni is quite scenic. Too bad it is one of the worst roads yet. The ride is making me sore and has destroyed all my enthusiasm. Note to Uganda: if you want more tourism, pave a few roads! We got to the lodge. We had to take a small boat to a small island in Lake Bunyoni (right). On the island is a small lodge called Nature's Prime Island. It's a bit more rustic than the other lodges we've stayed at. It has pit toilets ensuite, but there's electricity (solar for limited lighting) and hot water (wood fire heated). It's a cute little place, but the island is so close to the shore that I can hear people all around. Dinner was pretty good. More pictures in Volcanoes and Nature's Prime Island on Gallery.

Day 18: March 29 (Thusday)
Woke up to the rain. Might not be able to tour the lake this morning. Had a nice breakfast. We did go on the boat tour, but it was quite overcast. The lake is very picturesque, but the light wasn't very good. We only saw a few birds from the water. I guess you need to walk around the islands to see more. It started to rain pretty hard on our way back. Luckily we were wearing our rain gear. After our tour we went back to the lodge to pack up, then took the boat back to the shore to meet up with Paul. This part of the road was not nearly as bad as yesterday, and after only 7km we reached the paved road in Kabale. We still have more than 400km to Kampala. Stopped for lunch at the Agip Motel in Mbarara. We had our packed lunches from Nature's Prime so we only bought drinks. Mary likes the Krest Bitter Lemon soda, but it's too bitter for me. It is like eating a lemon peel. Back on the road again for our long drive. A least the sun is out now. The sun is quite warm. It made me doze for a bit. We stopped at the equator for pictures and a GPS reading (right). I had to move about 30 feet to the south to get a true 0 reading, but that was about the error rate indicated. We're almost to Kampala, but there's a funny sound coming from the truck. The tires look ok, so we stopped at a service station to have a look. Looks like a problem with the differential. It doesn't sound like it will be fixed soon. Paul called to have another car come get us. It should be 30 minutes. The other car is here. The driver, Medi, will stay with the other car and wait for the mechanic. Paul will drive us to the hotel in the new car. The drive to the hotel was terrible. We were stuck behind a truck with really bad exhaust most of the way. When it finally turned off near Entebbe, another took its place. I was getting hungry and tired, especially of sitting in cars. We finally arrived at the Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel. Apparently Clinton and Bush have both been here, though only Clinton has a suite named for him. The place is pretty nice but the service was not impressive. Dinner was ok. I had an Indian style curry but it was a little bland. Check Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel on my Gallery for pictures of the hotel.

Day 19: March 30 (Friday)
Rain and thunder during the night. I hope it doesn't impact our trip to Ngamba Island. The breakfast buffet was pretty good. It was raining when we got to the dock. We had a 40 minute boat ride and it rained half the time. When we got to Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary we met our guide, Silva. He introduced us to the staff and explained the function of the preserve. The preserve is on a 100 acre island, 95% of which is set aside for the chimps. There are 3 enclosures for the 42 chimps on the island. One small enclosure houses the dominant males when the need to be separated from the main group. One is used for new or problem chimps. The third encompasses most of the island and is covered with forest habitat. All but one of the chimps came to the island as an orphan. The other one was born there much to the dismay of the staff. They use birth control implants to allow normal mating behaviors while controlling the population. Some how one implant was removed and a new chimp was conceived. The baby was named "Surprise." The chimps spend most of the day in the forest, coming back for feeding and sleeping. They can forage in the forest, but it is not big enough to support this population, so the staff supplements their nutrition with fruits and protein. At night they sleep in a big enclosure in hammocks so they will not destroy the forest by building nests every night. After a half hour talk on the plight of the chimpanzee and the conservation efforts in progress we went to see the 11am feeding. We saw most of the chimps near the edge of the main enclosure enjoying papaya and bananas and such. It was pretty cool seeing so many chimps, but sad to think they were all orphaned because of poachers and habitat destruction. Hopefully someday more land will be set aside and this group can be reintroduced to the wild. After our time with the chimps, we departed Ngamba by boat. We went back to the hotel for lunch and to pick up our luggage. Now we're heading to Kampala to look around before our evening flight. The city center is pretty busy. The hills are occupied by the rich businessmen, foreign dignitaries, churches, charities, and NGOs. Why charities like Amnesty International have offices on Kololo Road, one of the richest neighborhoods in Kampala, I'll never know. After our drive around Kampala (right) we headed to the airport in Entebbe. Virginia had access to the lounge so our wait was pretty comfortable. Next stop: Nairobi. The flight to Nairobi was short and uneventful. A driver picked us up at the airport an brought us to the Kenya Comfort Inn. It's not as nice as the other places we've stayed, but it's not as expensive either.

Day 20: March 31 (Saturday)
Slept pretty well. Had breakfast at the hotel. Waiting for our driver to arrive. It's going to be a long day. The driver, Peter, picked us up at the hotel. We went straight to Sheldrick's Elephant Orphanage. We were a little late so we only caught the end of the youngest calves (picture left). We did enjoy watching the juveniles feeding and playing. Next stop was the Giraffe Center. There's a big platform for viewing and feeding the giraffe. You give the giraffe some sort of pellets and supposedly they only eat until they're full. They seem to eat a lot though. Mary really enjoyed feeding them (right). Ok, I enjoyed it too. We went to Nairobi National Park to visit the animal orphanage there. Our guide Stephene showed us cheetah, serval, forest cat, black-backed jackal, crocodile, leopard, mongoose, patas monkey, vervet monkey, syke monkey, baboon, cape buffalo, ostrich, lions, Thompson's gazelle, duiker, bushbuck, and hyena. Most of the animals were orphans from parks around Nairobi. The leopard is only 5 months old. There are many black kites flying around. We even got to pet the cheetah (picture left). Our final stop was the Bomas of Kenya, a cultural center for the various tribes of Kenya. We caught the end of the dances including Maasai, Taita and acrobats. Visited traditional villages of Taita, Maasai, Mijikenda, Kuria, Luo, Kisii, Kalenjin, Kamba, Kikuyu, Meru, Embu. It would have been more interesting if there were people in the villages explaining life there. Maybe there were earlier in the day. Now were heading to dinner at The Carnivore. Dinner service started with hot towels followed by bread and mixed vegetable soup. The soup is pretty good. The veggies are puréed so it's hard to discern what's in there. A big, two level lazysusan is provided with an assortment of salads and dipping sauces. The green salad was a little bitter. The corn salad is nice with a bit of spice. The matooke (banana in spicy coconut milk) it better then Uganda. The meat was coming hot and heavy. Hard to keep up or even remember what's what.

• Chicken - pretty average but garlic sauce is good
• Pork sparerib - not well flavored just ok
• Osterich meatball - well seasoned good w/berry sauce
• Chicken wing with honey - bland
• Lamb chop - grilled nicely and I actually liked the mint sauce
• Pork sausage - tasty but could be from anywhere
• Turkey - moist but needs sauce
• Roast lamb - pretty good, especially the spiced outer layer
• Beef - fatty edges but very tender
• Pork - so juicy but could use a little flavor
• Crocodile - not bad but kind of fishy
• Pinapple pie with a scoop of ice cream - yum

After dinner we headed to the airport. Waiting in the lounge. The rest of the day will be finished here and on the plane. Check the Gallery for more pictures from Sheldrick's, Giraffe Center, Nairobi NP Orphanage and the Bomas of Kenya.

Day 21: April 1 (Sunday)
Arrived in Zurich. Went to the Swiss Air lounge to freshen up. Parted ways with Virginia. Gonna head to Zurich for a while. I hope it's not too cold. Took the train to town. It was nippy, but not too bad. Walked along the Limmat River (left), through Niederdorf, near the Zürichsee and up Bahnhofstrasse. The Zurich Marathon was in progress so a lot of the streets were closed to traffic. At the airport we bought a lot of chocolate and waited in the lounge. It's just a short flight to London. From Heathrow we took a bus to Windsor and checked in to the Macdonald Castle Hotel. We dropped off our bags and walked to Windsor Castle. It's pretty cool. We walked around the grounds (right), toured through the State Apartments, and viewed Queen Mary's Doll House. The State Apartments are quite lavish. Too bad you are not allowed to take pictures. The doll house area is a total zoo. It's pretty amazing to see all the detailed work if you can get close enough to see. It seems the Queen was even in residence based on the flag being flown. After the castle we walked around Windsor. It's a nice place but everything closed pretty early. Went back to the room and passed out. Check the Gallery for more pictures from Zürich and Windsor.

Day 22: April 2 (Monday)
Woke up early. Finally heading home. Took the bus to Heathrow. Checked in and waiting at the United lounge. Got bumped up to business class which made the transatlantic flight more bearable. After landing in Washington, DC we decided to visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Stephen F Udvar-Hazy Center. It is an annex of some of the bigger displays from the Air and Space Museum, and is a short bus ride from the airport. They have an SR-71, the space shuttle Enterprise (left) and the Enola Gay among other things. Headed back to the airport at closing time. The flight to SFO was pretty long. We both nodded on and off. We arrived on time, but our luggage did not. Apparently it was put on another flight. Hopefully the airline will deliver it tomorrow. It's past midnight now, but it’s good to be home. There are more pictures from the Air and Space Museum in the Gallery.

Epilogue
The airline did deliver our luggage the following night. We've been back home a couple weeks now. I've been reliving the trip over and over by going through all these pictures and telling various stories about the trip. It was a great experience. It's definitely worth it, though I would do things a little differently. I loved the entire Tanzania experience, though I would probably skip Lake Manyara and go to Tarangire instead. I enjoyed the chimpanzees and gorillas in Uganda and Rwanda, but we spent way too much time in the car traveling between places. It may have been better to start in Kigali, Rwanda and go to Volcanoes National Park from there, then fly to Entebbe and go to Ngamba Island. I enjoyed Kibale, Queen Elizabeth and Bwindi, but the drives are brutal.

We book the tour with Good Earth Tours & Safaris. They handled the Tanzania portion of our trip directly. We were extremely pleased with our driver, Abdul. I would highly recommend Good Earth and especially Abdul. The Uganda/Rwanda portion of the trip was handled by Travelust African Safaris. While our driver, Paul, was very kind, he just couldn't live up to the expectation set by Abdul. It is possible that the Uganda/Rwanda leg would have been more enjoyable with a better driver/guide.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this trip blog, and don't forget to check out all the related pictures in my Travel Gallery.