Uganda - Rwanda Travelogue

In February of 2008 Hjalli and I travelled with Afríka - Ævintýraferðir (an Icelandic travel agent) to Uganda and Rwanda with the main focus of visiting mountain gorillas in the Virunga volcanos that straddle the border between Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The journey started out in Entebbe Uganda where we visited an animal sanctuary which cares for wild animals that have been injured or cannot in other ways fend for themselves and rehabilitates them. Whenever possible they are introduced back to the wild.

This is a shoebill, voted the #1 ugliest creature on Earth by the Animal Planet's Beastly Countdown. Even if you may have a pet ugliest creature, we can all agree that it isn't pretty. It's a also huge, on average around 1.2 meters high with wingspan around 2.3 meters.

Uganda is a beautiful country. Even if we were there at the end of a dry season it is still very green. Crossing the equator the seasons are very similar. It has many lakes and hosts the source of the Nile which flows through the country and keeps it green. As you move south-west the landscape becomes hilly and tumbles along beautifully.

In west-Uganda there are two lakes, Edward and George from British Kings, being a part of the British Commonwealth. They separate Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo. There you can find the Queen Elisabeth II National Park.

The two lakes are joint by a canal and there we found this wonderful wildlife.

Birds we were expecting. Hippos, yes. Here elephants, buffalos, hippos and birds all come to drink and bathe and don't seem to mind each others' company.

The hippo - even if it doesn't look it - is the most dangerous animal in the whole of Africa. No animal reportedly kills more humans per year. And yet it is a herbivore.

It lies in water all day to control the heat and leaves at night to graze. It is then they are aggressive. In the dark they are practically invisible and if a human inadvertently passes between the hippo and his water they attack.

Never underestimate a nasty temperament and a neurotic disposition.

And this is a serious pair of teeth!

In Queen Elisabeth Park there is a magical place called Mweya Lodge. Depicted above are my two favorite spots: The dining room and the swimming pool. These pictures are for all of you who thought travelling to Africa was about lowering your standards. And for us to remember because we're going back. Only the lure of gorillas managed to get MD out of the pool.

We took two morning safaris from Mweya. The sunrise is stunning in East Africa.

This is whole area is very volcanically active, hot springs, craters. Feels like home. Here on the left there is a soda lake which the locals are harvesting for salt. February is dry season in Uganda and so the water level is very low.

Kyambura Gorge (right) hosts a number of primates. We dove in to see if the chimpanzees were in. Unfortunately they weren't. But we met a few of our more distant cousins, baboons and colobus monkeys.

Note also the forrest in the gorge (by the river) that disappears at the brim.

We met this heard of elephants twice, coming from the lake and going towards it. Only about 5 minutes drive from Mweya.

Big tusks have disappeared from Uganda due to over-hunting but these carried theirs with pride.

What we're so happily pointing at is the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Below you can see a picture of the river separating Congo and Uganda where until recently a tree made a makeshift bridge. For the natives a river like this is a real hurdle. Not only because of the hippos and crocodiles that swim in it but because of their inability to swim. This bridge was used for border crossing until (as you can see) it was cut down.

Congo is turbulant and we came across very recent refugee camps, that had been closed down only 2 months before.

In Ishasha an unusual behavior has developed with the lions; They climb trees. This does away with the good old advice that if you're running away from a lion, just climb a tree. We met this guy as he was trying to decide whether he was actually feeling a wee bit peckish and if he should do something about it. This is his tree (below), you can see him to the far right.

The biggest difference between a Tanzanian/Kenyan and an Ugandan safari is the number of mzungus. If a lion were lying in a tree by the road in a park in Tanzania you could expect 20-30 vehicles swarming around the tree. The biggest challenge there is to get a good photo of the animal without a tourist in it.

Here we met no one for hours. So to our surprise these two guys suddenly appeared on their scooter. As we were driving away from the lion they drove past. Idly giving the lion a glance as they passed under his branch.

Note there is nothing out here for miles around. What they do if they run out of gas/scooter breaks down is anybody's guess...

These fine feline fellows were lying beside the road only about a 150 m away. I guess they weren't feeling peckish. At least we didn't see the scooter.

At the end of the dry season is seems to be customary to burn away the dead grass to help the new vegetation grow when the rain comes. This is even done inside the national parks. As this is done regularly the fire seems to be easily controllable and we drove through the area.

At Savanna Resort Hotel we met this amateur theater group that performed traditional songs and dance for us. Beautiful African music! It is important to understand that before the Europeans arrived nothing had been written in sub-Saharan Africa, all was relayed between generations through stories and song.

Now this theater group wants to take up this tradition and travel the area, telling people new stories that are important. Stories of AIDS, of hygiene, of the importance of education. I hope they will.

The border of Uganda, Rwanda and DRCongo is a volcanic zone on the west bank of the western great rift valley of eastern-Africa. This makes for beautiful landscape and explains why Rwanda is commonly called "Pays the mille collines" (Land of thousand hills).

Because of the volcanic soil these countries are very fertile and even if what we see in the photos is from 1500 to 5000 meters above sea level, almost every square centimeter is grown and 90% of those are cultivated.

Even though the southern part of Uganda has many lakes and does not seem to lack water the lesson is though important: In this part of the world, water is the most valuable resource.

We drove south, towards the gorillas and before we knew it we were in Rwanda. We didn't know what to expect and we were thrilled to find that Rwanda is a terrific country. Infamous for its 1994 genocide, Rwanda is a land of plenty. But how can you recover of an atrocity like that?

They are reconstructing (with help from outside) their infrastructure and while we were there two important people pledged to help build the economy: George Bush and Tony Blair.

But we were there for the gorillas. As we read on a road sign: Given peace, the gorillas will give us money.

The gorillas are a major part of Rwandan tourism. 56 tourists line up each day to visit 7 gorilla families, each tourist paying $500 for the privilege. That makes up for 20.000 tourists a year, out of a total of about 40.000 tourists that visit Rwanda per year (2007 numbers).

We set out on a visit to a family of 17 gorillas, the Amahoro group. We were in luck because they had moved right to the edge of the forest and we caught our first glimpse from the potato fields.

This group has 2 silverbacks, 4 females, a few juveniles and some kids, the youngest 1 month old.

This is the groups main silverback, Ubumwe. A silverback can reach 1.8 meter, standing tall. They are around 125 kg and need to eat around 25 kg of vegetation per day.

The gorillas are, despite of bad PR, peaceful creatures and we were often within a few meters from them as they moved about their habitat.




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