It was always going to be hard leaving KAVC to head out on a new adventure – and it was. We were lucky to have James once again navigate the Ugandan roads to Entebbe Airport to collect Brendan Maher and then drop us to the Sienna Beach hotel on the shore of Lake Victoria. It looks more like a sea than a lake and various parts of its shores are shared with Kenya and Tanzania.
When we booked our Safari it was hard to tell how much ground we would cover but let me tell you we have done hundreds of kms over the harsh African roads and every place was different and beautiful.
Our Saf-far-far-fari begins from Entebbe where our driver/guide Steven picked us up in the coolest 4wd with pop up lid and the adventure begins.
I could write for days about the amazement of each animal and the incredible backdrops of Murchison Falls National Park and Ishasha and the Kazinga Chanel in Queen Elizabeth National park but to spare the 3 volume novel I’ll break it down ….
Animal world
Let me start with the unlikely hero and my all time favourite Warthog. You may know him as Pumba but I fondly refer to this cutie as Wartdee (pronounced Wartdeeeeee!) Now some may say ‘ole Wartdee isn’t the most attractive of African animals but to me Wartdee is the definition of cute (ugly but interesting -isn’t that what they say?). A Picasso animal if you will.. Stitched together using characteristics and physical features from other creatures. Apart from short legs like a pig, trotting like a horse and having that gorgeous smashed up tusk face with floppy Mohawk hair do right down the spine, Wartdees also have very sophisticated communication system. When they sense people are a little close Head Wartdee swiftly raises its tail STRAIGHT UP like an antenna and trots away quickly with the family in tow (by descending age) only briefly stoping to look back at you and stare like a statue. The arial tail is an easy way for the family to follow Head Wartdee through the long grass (Like a Japanese tourist guide), and a quick alert to other Wartdees that people are about. In my head I’m sure the antenna tails are also transmitting Wartdee thoughts stuff like ‘Guys the tourist are back .. Hide’ or ‘Let’s Stand still and stare at them …they can’t see us when we do this.’ Always running away just made me love you more Wartdeeeeee ❤️
Our first up close and personal meeting was with the Rhinoceros and they are HUGE (think smart car with rhino head and butt). They move slowly and don’t see too well due to their eyes being on either side of their head so it’s difficult to believe they could be dangerous. Being so close to mum and baby was incredible and we were thankful for their bad eyesight or we would likely have been skewered humans on their horn. It was here we learnt that it doesn’t pay to be polite in a group of tourists with long lens cameras. I’ve mastered the slink to the front of the group with my trusty Samsung phone camera.. I feel no shame. Dani is also a good slinker to the front .. Brendan Maher remains polite with no good pics.
Ohhhhhhh the Elephants …this Mamma of the jungle rears her babies until 8 years – the elephant fam is tight,tight tight. An elephant in the wild is so awesome to watch – gently stomping through the jungle .. Blocking roads and making us late, feeding and protecting their babies.. I think we spent hours on and off watching these guys…
The Super models of the animal world definitely are the Impalas, Topies, Bush Bucks etc.. they are so pretty and different, elegant and lean. The way they stand, eat, prance, sit and even fight says ‘Look at me …I’m beautiful!’
The Giraffe! Another jungle beauty. We saw so many gaggles of giraffe gracefully walking across our path that it became a normal part of the landscape. There’s no scene more iconic in Africa than a silhouette of these beauties against the gorgeous African Plains eating from a tree.
The Buffalo I like to call Matador- the moustache head.
These guys like to stay together by the thousand and impressively side step to get out of the way – think dancing the grapevine with 4 legs.
Hippopotamus were the most huggable even though they are most dangerous. You may know that they stay in family pods usually in the water with just eyes and ears sticking out. What you may not know is they are friendly with crocs and use their short hairy tail to windscreen wipe their butt hole while pooping … That’s right during the poop. Needless to say any of their friends (including the croc) resting close by are splattered with fresh green hippo poop after an event like this. It’s a fun fact! Your welcome!
The Crocodiles hanging with the Hippos did look a little …well plastic.
I would have sworn they were until we watched one slink into the water. The creepy Croc is not a fav… Not at all.
There are Baboons on the roads every where. We weren’t sure they were happy to see us…you be the judge.
The elusive Leopard is so shy it’s unusual to get a glimpse of her in the wild. In fact it was some time before we knew we were even looking for a Leopard. We spent 3 hours looking for ‘da Leo-pad’ as the Africans say…. It was quite a shock when we spied the slinkiest looking Leo-pad resting in a tree.
The Lion show was the most hilarious experience. First 3 days we were asking Steve ‘Will we see a lion?’ The first was a spiritual experience.. she was hunting. Hiding in the grass only the keen eye if our experienced driver could spy her and it was exhilarating! She prowled away slowly and we felt lucky to have her stare at us like we were dinner.
The next day Steve declared that we will see a lion – it was guaranteed. An hour later we had were chauffeured into a remote corner of the park and VOILA! Lions feeding on the recent buffolo kill. After a
Another not so elusive creature we came across whist sa-far far fari-ing was the BMOC (big man on campus – can be either gender but we found it was mostly men). There is always at least one on each tourist group and they can be identified by behaviours such as high fives with people they don’t know, providing unsolicited advice and ‘interesting’ facts which are often wrong, an the occasional puffed chest with a click click wink and a finger point. BMOC’s can be found all through Africa. Observing these creatures gave us hours of entertainment particularly on the Nile cruise. Mr Dutch BMOC was the knower of all things hippos. Even more than Janet who has been a guide on the river since she could speak. Mr BMOC cracked jokes and was buying his tribe drinks until a storm came through when Mr BMOC was the first to pop his life jacket on and hide under the chair.
Steve, Crops galore and Congo
Now one thing you must know about our guide/driver Steve is that he is a very serious and professional guide with 20 years experience under his Belt I mean even thought loved bobbing along to look at this face …
There are a couple of things we have all learnt from Steve – what crops grow in Uganda and Rwanda and where Congo is. Not many minutes passed as we were driving with our heads out the windows, before Steve would hilariously, and abruptly, shout ‘Guys Rice!’ or ‘Guys Tea!’ Or any other ‘Guys Chip Potatoes!/ Sweet Potatoes!/Maize!/Cabbages!/Onions!/Mountain Beans!’. If it wasn’t crops it was all about Congo,
‘Guys.[points finger in the distance] This is Congo.’ or ‘Guys see this mountain ..this is in Congo.’ or ‘Guys Congo border is 12 km from here.’ Or ‘Guys that car? [points finger]. It is going to Congo.’ When we asked if we should go to Congo he quickly replied in a low tone ‘Noooooooo .. It is not safe – I shall never return to Congo.’ we got the feeling he didn’t like Congo but it didn’t stop him pointing it out to us a million times a day. We did joke that we would start counting the number of times Steve said Congo or some kind of crop and deduct a shilling from his tip for each time … We lost count so didn’t follow through And besides that poor Steve was in negative tip when we stopped counting.
Steve warmed to us as we did him. He is an excellent experienced driver. Our respect for him increased in the middle of Ishasha (southern part of the QE NP). On a remote dirt road in the jungle he fixed the 4WD steering shaft with a hammer and some rope – well ok maybe Dani was helping by hanging out the window and taking photos. The shaft had snapped and caused us to run right off the road into a ditch. Thanks to Steves experience we avoided a tree and possible serious injury. And then in a jiffy and a few bangs with the hammer we were on the road again.
We all really bonded in Rwanda where the roads were easier to drive on and Steve realised he was only 2 weeks older than me. He was very happy to tell me that for whatever reason. His favourite story to tell us over and over was when he had witnessed 2 people in Rwanda eat a whole cooked chicken ‘slooooooowwww’ he would say in his deep voice. We couldn’t tell if he was impressed or disgusted that this couple ate a whole chicken but we all laughed together anyway. Every meal started with the 4 of us laughing about who was going to order the whole chicken. Steve would just hold his head, look to the ground, and say ‘I can’t believe these people..I tell you.. They ate the whole chicken! Sloooooowwwww! You will see in Rwanda…I tell you!’
Packed lunches
Most days we were either on safari all day or moving onto the next stop so we would often be provided a packed lunch from the accommodation. These were the best and the worst. It was like our own little surprise food adventure every day! The quality ranged from high to low and we never know what we might get. The best was provided by Isunga Lodge – A fresh sandwich of chook, avo and lettuce, a boiled egg (with salt), gnuts (ground nuts – mini salted peanuts .. standard snack), crisp green apple and a delish square of cake. Now if that was the best you can imagine our delight when our food adventure lead us in to the opposite end of the spectrum – a Rolex (these are chapatis -under cooked in this case – with an omelette on top and rolled up). These we have had before and are delish but in this case they had been wrapped up in cling wrap when hot and then left in the sun all day to sweat. The stock standard sugar banana and gnuts were all that I consumed for lunch that day while Brendan Maher scoffed the lot and Dani made it half way.
Other Sa-far-far-fari things you should know.
– there are sausage trees… That’s right a sausage tree. elephants eat these sausages to get drunk!
– the African car massage… Not as good as it sounds after 6-12 hours 4 days in a row.
– the wee stops are fine for boys. Girls – go with a friend; take a scarf for privacy (now known as The wee scarf) and ask your guide to NEVER remind you of the dangerous elements snakes/baboons/other people BEFORE your wee. How we survived the numerous wee stops I just don’t know.
wherethefaqarwe 