Three weeks since we blogged... it feels more like three months! We were in Kampala when we last updated, where we'd traveled to from North Kigezi to meet our four week East Africa tour. Kampala seemed (from our limited exploring) to be a big, dusty, noisy, busy African city – I'm sure whatever picture that conjures in your mind isn't far wrong :-)
We met our tour group (only three others!), and on our first night went out to an African comedy club, which was an insightful time. Half the punch lines were delivered in the local language, after several minutes of the build up in English, so it didn't all sink in, but it seems it's still quite appropriate to pay out people without then countering the negative humor by paying out yourself or other targets. Political correctness still has a way to go in Uganda!!
The following morning we collected another two travellers (making 5 Aussies, 1 American and 1 Dane) and headed south (back down to the area we'd just come from) and drove all day to Lake Bunyoni, our base for the next 4 nights. The lake very beautiful, the deepest in Uganda (over 6000 feet apparently!), with many small islands scattered around it. The camp's set right on the shore of the lake, with great views from out our tent door. We spent a good few relaxing days there, interspersed with a few activities, such as visiting a pygmy village on the other side of the lake and an orphanage/school with heaps of little preschool aged kids that danced and sang for us :-)
The highlight of our time there (and real purpose of the visit) was trekking to a family of Mountain Gorillas in the Bwindi National Park, part of the Impenetrable Forrest. We left very early and drove for a few hours, met our guide and hiked for only 20 or so minutes before we met the guides who had proceed us and tracked the gorillas from wherever they'd been seen the previous day. The family we met had 12 members, 11 of which we saw, which was a fantastic result. We had an hour with them, observing as they tramped around us, they often encroached on the 7m maximum distance we were supposed to keep from them – not that we minded! There was a mix of silverbacks, adult females, black backs, juveniles, and infants. They are so gentle and majestic, quite amazing to watch. Expensive but an unforgettable experience!
We then had another long drive back to Kampala and on to Jinja at the source of the White Nile just near Lake Victoria. Here we declined the crazy grade 5+ white water rafting, but enjoyed a few days relaxing. Then we crossed the boarder into Kenya for a night near Endorat, on our way to Lake Baringo. Lake Baringo is a fresh water lake in the Rift Valley, with lots of hippos and crocodiles. We took a small boat tour out and saw lots of both – hippos were pretty exciting :-) The camping area is right the edge of the lake, so our night was interrupted by loud hippos grazing all around us; a little daunting when you see how big and powerful they are!
The next day we went to Nakuru, where we collected some more people (now bolstering our numbers to 11 including a Chinese, two Italian girls and another Dane) and went to Kembu Camp just outside the town. The camp's owned by a 6th generation white Keyan, who has his own adult kids, which is pretty impressive given Kenya's history. They were a lovely family, Kaya showed us some tiny little chameleons that live in their hedges.
From Kembu we did a day trip to Lake Nakuru for our first Safari game drive, and wow, what a first impression! A note on the side; as I'm writing this, a tiny little hedgehog (guinea pig size) came scuttling up and sniffed my bare feet, they're so cute!! Although the day didn't start the best with a flat tyre as we drove the park gate, we were thankful half an hour later when not 2 minutes into the park we saw 2 female lions and 4 or so little cubs, eating half a zebra. Welcome to Africa huh!
Nakuru is famous for its millions of pink flamingos, which we saw in abundance. Over the course of the day we also saw black and white rhino, hundreds of baboons, vervet and columbus monkeys, gazelle, impala, zebra, water buffalo, water buck, many different birds (Kenya has the world record for the number of species of birds spotted in 24 hours; close to 300), giraffe, hyena and warthog. It's a fairly small park, so each corner we turned around seemed to have another group of animals waiting for us to lap up their uniqueness. The day was topped off by being tipped off about a group of 4 adult and juvenile lions sitting in a tree. Amazing, unforgettable memories, it like living in the Lion King, with quintessential pictures burned into our minds. So pleasing!
Next to Lake Naivasha, after picking up another American girl briefly joining us. The ever changing composition and of our tour group is quite a different experience to our overland trip in South America. Our driver Henry is a character not quite as professional as Nick and Tracy our Oasis crew! He's Kenya and lots of fun, but often we feel like things are left unexplained, and we're much more responsible for our activities rather than being led as such. No major complaints, just different. Again we've had a great bunch of people traveling with us, and have spent many hours sharing stories, life experiences, laughter and red wine together.
This lake (Naivasha) has more hippos (which you can observe after dusk while sitting on the deck of the bar), and is surrounded by various - (the hedgehog's back) - national parks and other interesting attractions. On the full day we had there, Nik and I went with Amie (one of our compatriot travelers) and hired bicycles and cycled through Hells Gate National Park. There aren't “dangerous” animals here, which meant we could make our own way through by bike, a 35ish km round trip. More zebra, giraffe, antelope, gazelle, warthogs. Hells gate also has interesting landscape, with big rocky cliffs and towers. We hired a guide and went on a gorge walk for an hour, down through limestone gullies and waterfalls, with hot springs (hot enough to cook an egg) and great views. The cycle out of the park yielded less wildlife than on the way in, instead we were greeted with more hills and geothermal power plants belching stinking odors, but all in all a great day.
Onwards to the Masai Mara, which was a fairly long painful day of “African massage” from terrible Kenyan roads. Compared to the parks we'd already visited, the Masai is quite different – much more sparse with a lower concentration of animals. It's exactly how we imagined the African savannah, proving it's not just a Hollywood creation, it's a real place! We drove for 4 hours through the park, then camped just outside and began the following day driving again from sunrise to mid afternoon. Here we added Silver Jackal, elephants, ostriches, a solitary cheetah, wilder-beast, many birds including guinea fowl, bustards, secretary birds and hornbills to the list of animals we've seen. Also plenty of game, giraffes, monkeys and more things we'd seen in other places. One highlight was a little nursery of lion cubs – about 9 of them sitting under some bushes with no adults in sight. I'm sure they were nearby, but they were happy not revealing themselves to us. Our Masai trip ended on a more unfortunate note; getting bogged for three hours. Much digging and jacking was done before we eventually all piled out and pushed the truck enough for it to get out. Not so fun at the time, but a great memories I'm sure; Sitting on top of the truck on “lion patrol”; boiling the kettle for cups of tea; the girls doing their best find some sort of cover in the middle of a grassy savannah for a wee :-)
Then back to Lake Naivasha for another two nights, this time more relaxing. The second night was the first of the world cup, so we had a great time packed into the bar watching South Africa draw valiantly against Mexico. The place fairly erupted when SA scored :-) We've subsequently been watching lots of soccer whenever we're not occupied with something else and are near a TV. We've become: pro any African team; embarrassed Aussies after the Socceroos' poor performance and conduct in their 1st game (although I thought Germany were supurb if that's any consolation to us); proud of our Tasman Sea neighbours; even supporters of the Azzuri in deference to our new friends the Italian fellow travellers :-P It's loads of fun being surrounded by the atmosphere. Just now as I'm blogging I'm watching the Uruguay v Bafana Bafana game (the SA keeper was just red carded!), in a nearly empty bar with 2 Tanzanian guys who are dressed in semi traditional Masai attire.
Back to our travels though; last Saturday we left Naivasha and headed south a few hours to Nairobi, where we changed trucks and drivers (now with English Drew who's younger than I!) dropped of 3 of our number and collected another 10: Irish, Canadians, Brits, Chinese & Swiss – we're now a very multicultural group with complicated soccer allegiances! We arrived in time to go to a rugby union match, Kenya playing Zimbabwe. It was a pretty small affair - I think I've been to bigger events in Armidale – but good fun and whilst not fantastic rugby Kenya came back from behind and beat the Rhodesians towards the end so the home crowd was pleased.
On Monday we drove another long day, from Nairobi to Arusha in Tanzania where we are now. The main reason for the tour stopping here for 4 nights is to go on a 3 day trip to the Serengetti and Ngorongoro Crater, but as it's pricey (US$430 ea) and we've already done a decent amount of game drives and seen so much, the core group that started in Uganda decided to opt for a smaller one day drive just in Ngorongoro for a quarter of the price. So that was yesterday's adventure. We were hanging out to see a man lion, and within 15 minutes of being on the crater floor Ngorongoro obliged us with 2 males with their glorious manes. Again we saw lots of animals we'd seen in other parks (rhinos, elephants, hippos, game) but the highlight of this park for us were the lions. Over the course of the day we probably saw a dozen, including some extremely close and some stalking game (alas, no blood :-P). We searched in vain for a leopard, but had to make do with two cheetahs. With over 2 hours driving each way and an early start, we were pretty exhausted by the days end, but another good day, sampling what the “8th wonder of the world” has to offer. No one park is like another, and although we saw many of the same animals and things at all of the parks, each place has it specialties and special experiences. Sometimes the coolest times are like what happened on the way back from Ngorongoro where I was jolted out of a dozing state by the car braking – out the window on the side of the road were a dozen giraffes and some zebra. Outside the park, just like we might see kangaroos in Australia. You don't often forget you're in Africa when you're here!
Today we tripped into Arusha town (we're camping at Snake Park, 20km out of town) and seemed to spend most of the day attending to our affairs. Good internet is still very hard to come by, making everything we try to do just that little bit harder. We think we've managed to finally dupe South African Airways into changing our flight to Johannesburg for us (after they said they can't because of a blackout on changes during the world cup), which means we'll be on Zanzibar for longer. That's where we head to next, we can't wait for a real bed after 4 weeks of straight camping!
There are/will be loads of new photo albums up on Danika's Facebook page, I must point out a special thank you to Jeanne Newman for the loan of a couple of her lenses off and on during some of our game drives, after my all purpose 18-200 decided to completely stop working. I really appreciated it, thanks!
Shalom,
Alex
Lake Bunyoni- Uganda
Gorilla... We were about 2 metres away from this one!
Drinking Nile on the Nile!
Crocodile on Lake Baringo
Flamingos on Lake Nakuru
Rhino at Lake Nakuru
Alex Amie and our guide at the gorge in Hells Gate NP
Women selling their wares outside Masaimara
Classic African landscape in the Masaimara
Lions at Ngorongoro
Ngorongoro Crater from the top
A hedgehog!
