We said goodbye to our two friends in Nairobi (layover from Zanzibar), and made it to Uganda! soon as we arrived, our driver shared with us why Uganda is referred to as, “The Pearl of Africa,” and by the end of our trip, we completely understood. The land itself is beautiful and diverse, ranging from rolling hills, to farm fields, mountain ranges, to flowing water in rivers and beautiful scenic lakes. The wildlife was incredible (you’ll read more about this below), and the people we met were warm and welcoming, willing to share their culture and stories with us.
So, buckle up (pun intended). Our third blog entry is a bit longer, covering the highlights of our 17-day road trip through this stunning country. I will highlight some of the key events/activities we did along the way.
We arrived at our first hotel, ViaVia in Entebbe. This was the starting point to our road trip, and we spent the day exploring the local area, and planning for our road trip (and watching the monkeys swing from trees and run by our room).
We organized our road trip through a company called Road Trip Africa, which gives the option of renting your own car, and the option of opting to have a guide/driver for the trip. We rented a Toyota Hilux, and chose to hire a guide/driver as we were unsure about the route, road conditions, and wanted to both be able to enjoy the safaris & game drives. There were both pros and cons to having hired a driver. The pros? Freedom to enjoy the views and wildlife without worrying about driving; the downside? A bit less flexibility with timing and personalities.
Lake Mburo
Our road trip officially started at Lake Mburo, where we camped right on the lake’s edge, surrounded by grazing warthogs and hippos grunting nearby. In the first evening, one hippo came so close to our fire & car/tent we had to take shelter in our car briefly. By nightfall, hippos wandered around the tents! The next day we did a walking safari. We started the walk in the swamp area trying to spot the famous Showbill bird (no luck but keep reading). We then went to another area of the park and spotted buffalo, zebra and walked through the giraffes—including a newborn still trailing its umbilical cord.
Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
We arrived in Rashaga, in preparation for our Gorilla trekking experience. We spent the night in Rashaga at the Rashaga Gorilla lodge. To get to the gorilla tracking orientation, we took a side road off the mountain main road, which led us through twisty turny roads, with sheer cliffs & drops (our guide/driver Joshua really kept the speed up on these tight corners). Down the cliffs, and around, we were surrounded by vegetation, plants and people doing manual labour such as farming, brick making, quarrying and logging. We attempted a community walk, however, it was so rainy we had to turn back. We were privileged to see a local show of singing and dancing by a group of ladies at our hotel in the evening.
We woke up at Rushaga Gorilla Lodge and drove the 5 minutes to the meeting point for orientation. We were assigned the Mucunfuzi family (15 gorillas including a 5 day old baby). We drove to the trail head, hiked approximately 2 hours with a guide and 2 rangers and found the trackers who walked us through a bush to find the gorilla family. They were in a hidden bush area and all came out within 10 minutes of our arrival, they were social, playful and quite jovial. There was a 5 day old baby in mom’s protective arms, which was adorable. Overall, this was an amazing experience, and we highly recommended doing this once if you plan to visit Uganda!
Mount Sabinyo
Thinking about this hike now makes my feet and hands sweaty; it was not for the faint of heart. We were escorted by a guide and 2 armed rangers, due to the potential of interactions with aggressive water buffalo and mountain elephants. We began the trek, which was a gradual incline through vegetation, bamboo forests, over man-made walkways, and wet swamp area, which flattened for a short while. We made it to the base of Sabinyo after approximately 3km, our guide referred to this point as, “the warm up,” of the hike (we were already sweating).
It was absolutely a warm up because the rest of the hike was strenuous, steep, and filled with ladders, dewy and wet terrain and heights (I have a gentle fear of heights). On the incline up, we had some great views before the clouds snuck in, however, we had moments throughout where the sun tried to peak through with brief glimpses of the scenery beyond.
There were 30+ wooden ladders added onto the trail for both ascending + descending, we took the same route. Mount Sabinyo has three peaks, and to get to each peak, the stairs got steeper (did not think this was possible) and more treacherous. Had it been raining, this experience could have been very dangerous. It took us 4 hours to summit. The incline was very steep, we were climbing rickety ladders, some decaying and if you mis-stepped or fell, you would fall down the entire cliff of the mountain.
The final peak was something else entirely. It was probably 10 minutes straight up a constructed ladder, with some rungs missing, some with rotting wood). We made it to the top and stood in 3 countries at once (Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo). This was very neat! We ate lunch in the DR of Congo, then it was time to head back down the mountain. The descent also took us approximately 4 hours, and was difficult at times finding footing on the ladders, slippery mud, rocks, and much of the walking paths for the three peaks was approximately 2 meters wide. It was a test of endurance, but an incredible experience to look back on now, and we are thankful that we did it!
Queen Elizabeth National Park
We spent two nights camping in Queen Elizabeth National Park. Our morning game drive was very quiet, we were greeted in the park by elephants, and had some other wildlife sightings including one leopard, lots of warthogs, elephants, zebra, and a few others. In the afternoon, we did the Kazinga channel boat safari, and this was amazing! We were in a small boat, putting beside floating hippos, bathing elephants, crocodiles, and an abundance of birds, including the King Fischer bird (3 different species).
We ended the day camping at the Engiri Game Lodge. When we arrived back to camp, an elephant was stomping its way through camp!We listened to wildlife bristle in the bushes, elephants call from the trees directly beside the tents, and animals claw and rustle throughout the night.
Chimpanzee Tracking & Kibale
We then went to the Kibale National Park for a Chimp tracking hike/activity. We went to the visitors centre, got a quick briefing, and drove with our guide and 2 additional armed rangers (again for protection in case of interactions with water buffalo or elephants) to the trail and started our trek. We were bush whacking from the beginning, and walked though the forest while the guide radioed with the trackers guiding us to the potential location of the chimpanzees. The chimps were moving continuously, so we had to change direction a few times. When we found them, they were on the ground moving quickly. When we found them again, they were climbing the trees and high in the trees eating and moving around.
Slowly, they made their way down and we got to witness the chimpanzees interacting in their natural world, and it was quite amazing. After one hour with the chimps, we started our walk back and did a total of 8km. The forest floor was muddy and we were pushing through twigs, vines, branches and leaves the entire time (not many thorns). This was another lovely adventure!
After chimpanzee tracking, we also did a community hike – we met with a local guide who led us through a shortened version of what usually is a 3 hour swamp hike. We did the 40 minute swamp hike as we finished our chimp trek later in the day and wanted to do the local banana gin and coffee tasting. We exited the swamp trail, into what we found out were coffee trees. We found a man surrounded by crops, ready to give us a demonstration of his banana gin making, (and a tasting). He used his hands to mix and mash banana with grasses, which created a very sweet tasting water. We drank the banana juice. We also sampled his banana beer, and single & double distilled banana gin.
We continued our walk and stopped at a home, where we were given a coffee production demonstration which were picked directly from her backyard. She pounded the coffee beans out of their shells, sifted the beans, and then roasted them on a fire. After, the coffee beans were pounded into the ground coffee. We sampled the coffee and her locally grown peanuts (which we purchased, and then were later stolen by 2 sneaky baboons who jumped in our car and left with them).
Murchison Falls
We started our time in Murchison Falls with a night safari drive (very cool). We picked up a ranger, and then drove to the park entrance. We sat out the car windows and held the roof rafters with flashlights hoping to spot some wildlife (with the goal of spotting nocturnal animals), and we were able to spot: a crocodile with its mouth open beside a small pond, giraffes, mongoose, so many antelope, buffalo, and a 6 foot long python slithering across the road. It was a neat experience to do a night drive, looking for the sparkle of animal eyes in the distance.
We also did a morning game safari drive, where we seen a tree climbing lion, and several giraffes, zebra, elephant, and others.
In the afternoon, we took a boat safari ride on the Nile River to see the base of Murchison Falls. Along the way, we passed by several hippos, crocodiles, Goliath Herron, African fish eagles, so many African darter birds which looked like snakes in the water with their thin necks, giant kingfisher birds, and a whole group of red throated bee eaters on a wall with their nests, it was beautiful.
Rhino Tracking in Ziwa Rhino and Wildlife Ranch
Mat’s favourite animal is the rhino, and if you want to see him all giddy, take him to see rhinos!
🌙 Night safari
We began our time here at Ziwa with a night safari walk (yes, walking around at night with one ranger, and one flashlight to share between Mat and I in rhino-land, leopard land, and lots of other creatures land). 8pm finally rolled around and we were off, starting from the camp area, through the grass, we seen water buck, antelope, warthogs, and then we made it to the road, where we spotted some zebras in a neighbouring field. Our guide had us stop and watch fireflies in the open field, which lite the night sky so beautifully (the field was actually one of the most breathtaking sights I have seen and was such a calm and serene moment). We walked through the forest, thick branches, deep grasses at times, through brush. We did not see many animals inside the forest, but heard bush buck (sounds like a dog bark). And then we heard the purr of a leopard twice in a row but didn’t see it (wow very cool though). We made it back to camp and went to bed early to prepare for tomorrow’s adventure!
☀️ Sunrise Shoebill Walk
We signed up for a morning Shoebill walk which we ended up having the same guide for (Simon Paul) he was amazing. The night before we had us “speak to nature” by staying silent for a few minutes, lights off, in the dark, just listening to nature and the bugs on the trail. We started our drive to the swamp area where Simon felt the Shoebills would be. On the way, we seen a ranger at the gate where we had to exit to get to the swamp area. We were told to shut off the car engine and pull over as there was a rhino sleeping (I guess the rhinos do not like the cars and will charge). We waited approximately 20-30 minutes for the rhino to wake up, he arose, went on his way, and then we continued on to the Shoebill trek. When we got to the swampy area off the trail we drove, through bushes and grassy areas until we made it to an area where we parked the car and started our hike. We seen 2 Shoebills on our walk! The first was further away, and the second flew to a tree top and modelled for us to get some great shots! I often wonder how many snakes we passed by in the swamp or on these thick grassy hikes (and then quickly move on so as not to think about it).
🦏 Rhino Tracking
We got matched with ranger Simon for our third adventure together (we were pumped, he is so great). On our walk, we spotted 10 rhinos in total! First, a solo rhino, next a small group, and finally another group which had a 1 month old baby (horn not grown yet). Another amazing experience!
⛺️ In our campsite, we had a fenced off area to keep the rhinos out (the warthogs made their way in to eat the grasses). We also, had an escort walking us to the campsite after dark because of the potential of “rhino sightings,” which we were hopeful for, but didn’t see any on our first night. As soon as 8:30pm rolled around, we finally got our evening visitors! We spotted a rhino walking into the campsite and quickly noticed 2 other rhinos directly beside our tent on the other side of the fence (1 slept there for a couple of hours). Throughout the next few hours, we seen other rhinos come and walk beside the fence or take a quick rest, and continue on their way. We sat around the fire and watched the shadows of rhinos; with a couple and their son whom were also camping.
Kampala City
Kampala is a hustling and bustling city! The boda bodas (motorbikes) outnumber cars and are the quickest way to get around. Traffic is wild! We did a city tour, which is offered as a guided tour but we opted to make our own itinerary. In our final day in Kampala, we found a mall, went to the movie theatres, watched the “Red One,” and relaxed for our flight tomorrow.
Roam With Us 