Birthday safari – almost!

Tomorrow is my birthday and as a birthday treat I went on safari to Murchison Falls at the weekend. I arrived at Red Chilli Backpackers on Friday morning about 8.00am to pay for the trip. While waiting to leave, a big old dog shambled in and stood by my chair. I greeted him and patted his head. In response he attempted to offer his paw for shaking, but due to age or infirmity, it dropped on my leg. He tried again, unsuccessfully. So having left muddy paw prints on my clean trousers – he lumbered off to lie down in someone else’s way! There were 8 of us all together on the trip – 4 volunteers from Germany, the guy did something in computers at Mulago Hospital and the 3 girls were nurses; 2 sisters, who were on holiday; Dave who was in HR (say no more!) and me. Altogether the journey took 9 hours, but we stopped in Masindi for lunch and then at the top of Murchison Falls.

Once we entered the national park area there were baboons along the track and tsetse flies, so we needed to keep the windows closed. Tsetse flies no longer carry sleeping sickness (I’m not sure how they got rid of it – need to look it up), but if they bite it is still painful and may swell up.

There are actually 2 falls – Yoweri (named after the President!) and Murchison. An explorer called Baker discovered in 1864 that the Victoria Nile flows over the Falls and into Lake Albert. When it flows out of the Lake, it is known as the Albert Nile. Baker named the Falls after Murchison, an eminent member of the Royal Geographic Society.

A colossal amount of water falls 45m through a narrow gorge, about 6m wide. The spray formed rainbows in the sunlight – spectacular- and cooled us after our journey and walk to the top of the Falls.

We arrived at Red Chilli Rest Camp on the south bank of the Nile and immediately headed for the bar for a Nile beer (appropriately enough!) and to order supper. There was the most amazing electrical storm which lit up the sky for about an hour, then it was time for a cold shower and bed. I fell asleep to the sound of the resident wart hogs raiding the bins and the rain gently falling on the roof of the tent.

6.30am start on Saturday so ordered packed breakfast the night before to eat on the way. 5 minutes down the road we caught the Paraa ferry to the north bank of the Nile and then went on a game safari around the Nile Delta area for four and a half hours! The top of the minibus opened up so we could stand and see everything and what a lot there was to see! The whole landscape is immense and so beautiful with Lake Albert in the distance and beyond that, the blue mountains of DR Congo. We saw many different types of antelope – topi, kob, Jackson hartebeest; baboons; elephant in the long grass under a sausage tree; lots of giraffe – 26 in one group alone; buffalo and a lioness just lying o the track ahead of us. We inched closer and closer for photos and then reversed back so as not to disturb her!

Everything in Africa is big! The butterflies are striking colours and the dragonflies are everywhere! Some resemble bi-planes – their wings seem fixed and have dramatic black and white markings, but they never stay still long enough to see properly. Some of the birds are huge, easily spotted in a tall tree from a distance, especially the sea eagles, crested cranes, heron and hornbills. Some have very descriptive names – white-faced whistling duck and red-throated bee eater (which have dull green feathers) – it’s a twitchers’ paradise!

We returned to the Rest Camp during the hottest part of the day and had an early lunch – we were hungry after our early start! Back down the landing stage at 2.30pm for the Nile cruise! Having cleaned off the morning’s suncream and mossie repellent, not to mention the dust from the bush, and reapplied some more, it started to rain within minutes of getting on the boat!

Turer, a guy from Norway, and I struck lucky – they needed a couple of people to make up the numbers on another boat, which had families with children. The beauty of it was, there were only 4 of us who wanted to take photos, compared to the dozen or so on the original boat! Unbelievably, Turer was a Manchester City fan and regularly flew over from Norway with Ryanair to Liverpool to watch City’s home games!

Again we saw lots of birds and the guides we had with us on both trips really knew their stuff and pointed out everything of interest, cutting the engine of the boat so we could hear them and letting it drift nearer so we could take photos. Drifting near birds is one thing – drifting near schools of hippos is quite another! But wow it was amazing! They are big and appear lazy, but when disturbed can swim very fast, considering their size and can outrun a man on land! Generally only their ears are visible unless they want a better look at you and it’s a bit disconcerting – to say the least- when they suddenly disappear under the water. Visions of them surfacing under the boat flash before your eyes – but it’s all too exciting to think about that for long!

Further down stream we saw a couple of elephant feeding at the waters’ edge and lots of water buffalo. Elephant need 300-400kg of food and over 200litres of water each day. We got quite close to the buffalo as they are more afraid of us, than we need to be of them. In fact at one point the boat became beached and the guides needed to go ashore and push it clear; the buffalo ran off.

Luckily the rain didn’t last long, but the sun didn’t shine either, which made for a cool cruise. Unfortunately crocodiles like basking in the sun under their favourite tree – but not today. All we saw were a couple of juveniles playing the shadows; one minute you think you’ve seen a snout, the next there’s just a splash of water!

Onwards to the bottom of the Falls and believe it or not, out of the boat onto a rock in the middle of the swirling waters to take photos! Fantastic!!! Did you know Hemingway’s plane crashed near the base of the Falls and he had to wait 3 days to be rescued? No neither did I, but I’ve seen the spot with my own eyes!

As we’d had to have two shore stops for ‘short calls’ and we’d all asked lots of questions and taken lots of photos, we were far behind our friends’ boat, so Turer and I walked back to camp from the ferry, for – you’ve guessed it - a Nile beer and supper.

Woke early on Sunday and got up for a cup of tea and to watch the sunrise. After breakfast we drove 70km south of Masindi to the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and went rhino tracking through head-high grass and undergrowth before lunch! There are no indigenous rhino left in Uganda; the last one was seen in 1982. They were poached to extinction for their horns, which were used for sword handles, medicines and aphrodisiacs. In the Sanctuary, there are currently 6 White rhino; 4 from Kenya and 2 from Disney Animal Kingdom in Florida. Altho’ they are in a protected area, they are wild – it’s not like a zoo. They hope to introduce some more and also some Black rhino to set up a breeding programme and eventually release them in to the Game Park, where we had been the day before, provided they can be protected.

A little-known fact – White and Black rhinos are the same colour! They differ in size and feeding habits; the White are grazers, the Black browsers. Originally the White were known as ‘widj’, a Dutch word meaning ‘wide’, due to the fact they have a square mouth, but this got corrupted to ‘White’.

We saw all 6 of them and got really close for photos. Ugandans are very polite – even to rhinos. When Hassani started shuffling towards us, the ranger said, “Go back, Hassani! Please, Hassani, go back!” Hassani feigned disinterest, stopped shuffling and resumed grazing. Needless to say, we had all started shuffling backwards albeit very SLOWLY as we’d been told that rhino are short-sighted and only charge something that’s moving quickly!

A tropical downpour accompanied lunch - freshly-baked bread, egg, cheese, pineapple and coffee – delicious. Then it was back to Banda Inns for a hot shower and the biggest avocado you’ve ever seen for about 30p – it’s taken a week to ripen!

This has got to be one of the BEST weekends EVER!

Bought Smarties for the Nursery children as it’s my birthday – the first chocolate I’ve had since I’ve been here! And I’m sure I’ll have a glass of wine later!

Love to you all – remember you can comment on the blog (after all it is my birthday!). Thanks to Tracey and Sarah for their comments.