Hello from Uganda! We’ve been here a couple of days now, and everything has been AMAZING!  We are currently in our Toyota Land Cruiser safari vehicle moving at warp speed towards Kibale National Park where we will go chimp trekking tomorrow (I can’t even!). It’s supposed to be a 6-7 hour drive, but Herbert seems determined to make it there much faster. We’ve slowed down to 80 kph, but most of the time we are at 90 kph. It’s fast, especially when we are passing motorbikes carrying lumber, or children with water jugs, or goats laying in the road.  Despite what I recently read, the roads in Uganda are excellent so far–not a single pothole anywhere. However, there are millions of rumble  strips that do not slow us down at all and quite a few speed bumps–mostly in towns; but also seemingly randomly in the middle of nowhere.

We spent the past 2 nights at a lodge in Murchison Falls National Park–the largest national park in Uganda–at close to 4,000 square kilometers.  It’s home to the most giraffes I’ve ever seen and 4 of the Big 5. Rhinos went extinct in Uganda in 1983, so the only rhinoceros are in the sanctuary we visited the first day. More on that later, maybe.

MFNP was once home to a very large population of elephants, but the same political unrest that wiped out the rhinoceros also led to massive ivory poaching. Now, there are about 4,000 elephants up from just “hundreds.” None of them have very large tusks because of that whole survival of the fittest/natural selection thing.  There are also zero zebras here, but I don’t know why.

Can you believe that it’s been 10 years since we’ve been on (an African) safari? Way too long! Especially since it’s one of my most favorite things ever. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to drive through the park with your head sticking out the roof, camera ready, and then boom! there it is–the elephant of your dreams munching on some leaves, or a buffalo wallowing in the mud, or my new favorite antelope–the Jacksons Hartebeast–hiding in the shade of a palm tree. It’s just magical, and it makes my heart so very happy. It’s addicting really–always hoping to get a better picture than the last one, which  coincidentally you already thought was the most amazing picture you ever took.

We left the lodge at 6:30 in the morning for a 3-4 hour game drive. They always start that early in the morning for the best animal sightings, and I happily set my alarm for that! Anyways, we were gone for nearly 5 hours. We saw elephants, hippopotamus, giraffes, warthogs, Ugandan kob, Jacksons Hartebeast, a fish eagle, the smallest antelope found in Uganda, buffalo, waterbok, and a lioness in a tree! Obviously, it was breathtakingly amazing.

It’s incredible how quickly your eyes grow accustomed to spotting animals, and its impossible not to call them out with an excited shout to your sister, even if it’s the 3,812th Ugandan kob that you have seen. The best way to describe this is the excited way you point out cows every time you see some, or the way your breath catches when you see a deer grazing while walking on the trail behind your house. Unlike the deer that you take a picture of every single time so that you can text a picture to your Uncle David, it’s impossible to stop and get a photo of every single antelope in the park.

However, no matter how good I think I am at spotting wildlife, I will never be able to spot a leopard in a tree like my guide. We were just cruising along when Herbert stopped all of a sudden and said there’s a leopard.  I’m like, WHERE? He points at a tree about 500 miles away and says he noticed the leg hanging from a branch. I have no idea how he saw it! Even with my camera zoomed all the way, it was still difficult to see. The cool thing is, we were the first to find it, so nobody else was there.  Rockstars! Of course, other vehicles soon followed. 

***extended multiple day pause***

It rained on us while we were driving, but luckily the rain stopped by the time we made it to Kibale.   We had an optional community tour which would have been miserable in the rain because we were walking all over the place.  Luckily, they had gum boots for us to wear (which are NOT comfortable–I could feel every rock I stepped on.) since it was muddy outside.  Normally, we avoid community visits  because they seem so fake and like no one wants to be there, but this one was fantastic. So glad we did it. 

So, this was a walk through a local community, with maybe 130 people if I am remembering correctly. We had our own personal guide, Stella, and her protégé, Ingrid. First stop was the local water pump– they can always get water out of the pump as it never runs dry. Evidently, the water comes from underground and can be used for cooking, cleaning, and drinking–I did not sample it.

Then came the basket weavers. They weave baskets with dried palm fronds, raffia, papyrus, and the list goes on. And, boy, let me tell you, this is not easy. They had me try and stich a basket. They use a store bought needle, which I have no idea how they get threaded, and stitch the fibers round and round in a circle. But, I couldn’t even manage to pull the needle through! My fingers kept sliding off the needle! That needle was going nowhere. There goes my shot at becoming a professional Ugandan Basket Weaver, which is probably just as well as it takes a week to make a trivet the size of a dinner plate, which only sells for $10. After a few minutes of that,  they got up and started singing traditional songs. Again, normally, people performing in cultural shows look like they are dead inside and just trying to be done as soon as possible, but these ladies were so happy and having the best time. Their joy was contagious. 

After that, we went to meet the coffee queen.  They grow coffee and bananas together here in this region.  We got to grind the coffee beans with a giant mortar and pestle. And then they were singing again! Coffee Queen, Coffee Queen, woo! We’ve seen plenty of coffee being ground and processed before, so normally, we’d skip this, too.

After that, it was time for the banana man who makes banana juice, banana beer, and banana gin.  He knows every single banana saying, and has them all on t-shirts.  Make Bananas Great Again. Let’s Go Bananas. Every Day is Banana Day. No Banana No Party. It’s BA:NA:NA o’clock. We may have been unable to control ourselves and bought banana t-shirts. But hey, they were green and purple. It was meant to be.

Anyways, he makes banana juice by hand. Absolutely fascinating process. First, he grabbed a bottle of water and scrubbed his hands with a scrub brush.  Then he popped open some baby bananas and tossed them in a bowl. He mashed the bananas with his hands and then threw some banana leaves in the mixture to act as a filter for the juice. It takes a lot of squeezing and washing to get any juice, and then you water it down with some bottled water. Once you have it all beat into a giant mass of goop and banana leaves, you make a funnel with a giant banana leaf (also rinsed off with bottled water), put the funnel in the now empty water bottle, and then wring out that mass of banana stuff like you are wringing water out of a wet towel. Violá banana juice. We drank it, and it was delicious. However, I don’t think I can repeat this juice making process at home because I don’t know where to get fresh banana leaves or anything other than disgusting Cavendish bananas. Banana beer made with fermented banana juice and sorghum is also delicious–it tastes a lot like cider. Banana gin 40% alcohol is not for me. Banana gin 60% alcohol is only palatable when mixed with banana juice.

The day is not over! We still had to go on the swamp tour! This starts out in an old garden full of trees and guava trees full of monkeys! Red tailed monkeys eating guava! Black and White Colubus monkeys eating some other kind of fruit. Red Colobus monkeys! There are actually 7 different primate species in the swamp area, but we only saw these three. My neck was getting sore looking up at the monkeys, but it was worth it! We were there during monkey dinner time, so we didn’t find any others.

Then we said, “Sure, we will walk through the swamp.” There’s a “boardwalk” that goes through it. It’s replaced every 2 years and is due for an upgrade at the end of the upcoming rainy season. This means that half the boards are broken or missing, and the other half are on their way to be broken or missing.  And I guess they ran out of boards because most of the remaining ones were just circular branches cut in half that are a little tricky to walk on wearing gum boots.  Our guide would not let us carry our own cameras or cell phones. She put them in her backpack for safe keeping, which was a great idea. Then, about 25% of the way, she grabbed my hand and helped me along the rest of the way. Thank goodness! It was slippery and treacherous.  Luckily, it was fairly short, or you may have never seen thetwinsontour again. If it weren’t monkey dinner time, we would have been able to see more different species of monkeys in the swamp. But, honestly, I don’t know how that would have worked, standing on a rickety boardwalk with missing planks, looking up into the trees, and trying not to slip or lose my balance.

And then we were done. The end!

Love,

thetwinsontour

PS–sorry we ran out of time to talk about the rhinoceros sanctuary or the waterfall at Murchison Falls. Maybe later. (Which generally means we won’t.)