ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER COUNTRY

It is now over 3 weeks we have been on the road and we are already in our fourth Country. After leaving the mountains in Rwanda we crossed over into the mountains of Uganda and headed for our first stop at Lake Bunyoni. A beautiful lake set high in the mountains in the south west of the country. Jan and I had been here before, way back in 2006 on my first proper visit to Africa. OK I had been to Tangiers in Morocco back in the late 1970s but that doesn’t really count. In 2006 we were on an “Overlanding” tour and enjoyed a night at Lake Bunyoni. This time we relaxed and spent 3 nights here, walking and canoeing on the lake. It was a really pleasant time just relaxing with a pitch right beside the waters edge. The camp, Bunyoni Overlanders, also had a very nice restaurant that we used a couple of times.

A few places to choose from here

Market by the lake

By your genuine watches and get dinner at same time

Pied Kingfisher outside our tent

Our home by the lake

Lazing in the front of the canoe

Lake Bunyoni set high in the mountains

The skill never leaves you

After Lake Bunyoni it was a short in distance but long in time trip up higher still to the tiny village of Buhoma in Bwindi Ipenetrable Forest and home to approximately half the world’s total population (800 or so) of Mountain Gorilla. Again we stopped in Buhoma at the community camp where we had stopped in 2006. Here we had 2 whole days and the first was a walk around the local community seeing a Traditional Healer, A village with the local Batwa people. These used to be called “pygmies” as they are naturally shorter. The Batwa introduced to forest crafts and even showed us how they bury the dead in the forest. It finished with the usual dancing and drumming. The walk also took in the Tea, coffee and banana plantations where we were shown how they make Banana Juice, Wine and even Waragi, a Ugandan banana gin. We then went onto the local primary school where we were given a tour and were very surprised to see very little difference between this school and the ones we had left in Zambia.

Even the Primates need to shop somewhere

The Gorillas do come down to the village occasionally

Picking tea in the rain

Discussing the finer points of tea

Brickmaking

A "Pygmy" showing life in the forest

Dancing

Early morning and Jan on the Banana Wine

Mike is on the Banana Gin though

The Traditional Healer brought out all his potions but was still unable to help Jan

The school in Buhoma was almost the same as those we left in Zambia

Tea Plantations in the hills

Cultivated terraces

A local church

The next morning it was an early start for the meeting at Park Headquarters, just a few hundred metres from our camp. The morning was fine after the rains we had seen in Buhoma the two previous afternoons. We are assigned to a group, Buhoma has three habituated families of gorillas and it is 8 people to a group. Most of us asked for porters to carry bags and off we went, an armed guard front and rear, some trackers and porters plus 8 guests. After about 30 minutes walking along the valley we turned of left up the side of the mountain in the thick forest. Although Jan and I were the oldest in our group we still kept up the pace and soon everyone was sweating buckets. The porters pushed and pulled to get everyone up the slippery and muddy hillside. After around an hour of uphill walking we made the top and were told that the early trackers had located our group of gorillas, the Mubari family, and they were not far away. We walked for approx. 15 minutes until we were told to put everything down and just get our cameras ready. The porters stay with bags and sticks and we were asked to move on and suddenly we were with the group. The silverback was the first we saw sitting just down a steep slope and we were allowed to climb down to him. He was sitting with a female with a very young baby. These then moved up the hill to join the main group with us following. This was a lot better as it was now fairly flat and a few paths around. The Silverback came over with a baby of about a year old and showed him off to us. Although we were supposed to stay 7 metres from the gorillas, no one had told the silverback and his family of this as he came over and sat amongst us just a metre away. I had to back away as I had a camera with a 100-400 lens and was too close really. The group were so laid back and did not worry about us humans at all. The youngsters played and boxed and occasionally came over, stood on the silverback and showed off to us with chest beats and sticks. You are allowed 60 mins only with the gorillas and these 60 mins went so fast. Sadly we left them at the top of the hill and slid down back to camp. A most amazing and memorable day with loads photos to go through.

Meeting with our guide

Porters helping keep cool on the trek

Our Camp in Buhoma

After Bwindi we moved onto Queen Elizabeth National Park and we had a night in the southern sector. This area is famous for tree climbing lions but sadly a major fire has burnt large areas of this part of the park and it is very black. Everything had moved so after a night we moved north to Mweya Peninsular and a camp we stopped at on our previous trip, eleven years ago. The camp was very run down and not the best we had been to but we stayed. The park itself is good with large numbers of buffalo, Ugandan Kob and a few elephants but we could not find any predators at all. We heard lion at night along with Hyena but not sighting the next day at all. We did manage a boat trip on the Kazinga Channel that flows between Lake Edward and Lake George though. The area is also famous for the “Explosion Craters” that dot the landscape. These are the remains of volcanic explosions from many 1000s of years ago.

The scenery in QENP

Our camp although run down had wildlife in it

Sunset over Mweya

Delivery "scooters" at a market

A Busy market

A Crater lake

Enjoying the boat on the Kazingha Channel

Maribou Stork

Hippos by our camp

Maribou stork

Topi

Herds of Buffalo

Elephant walking down to drink

We have now moved on from the park and at the time of writing this we are on our way to Kampala, the capital and then to a few days in Jinja on the river Nile. More updates as we can

Please enjoy the Gorilla photos, they need no captions