The one with no associated holiday

When we left off, I was heading to Semuliki National Park. I headed to Semuliki National Park.

Semuliki is an extension of the "vast Itumi forest" of DR Congo. It's in extreme western Uganda, contiguous with the DRC border along the East African Rift Valley.

The drive there is absolutely gorgeous. I was in the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains, but if the road had been paved and if I hadn't been in a matatu with 23 others I might have thought I was in New Zealand.

Semuliki park itself is renowned for its diversity of flora and fauna. There are over 400 different bird species and 63 different mammals (including 9 different primates). And almost 400 different butterfly and moth species, most of which I bet I saw--they were _everywhere_. And I don't have numbers, but I know I saw oodles of lizards. Unfortunately, most of the park isn't really accessible to most visitors. Most of it is lush tropical forest--there are no roads or paths through it, and it's maybe not safe in the lowlands because of those darned Congolese rebels. So for the entirety of my visit I was within a mile or two of the east edge of the park.

There's a pretty big security presence in the park--only once did I walk between the main gate and the campsite (about 3km) without an escort. At one point several soldiers suddenly appeared in the campsite. Most had rifles but at least one had an RPG. They talked to one of the rangers and then disappeared back into the woods. I wanted to take a picture but really didn't want to ask them for permission (I wanted to keep my camera) so I did what I could on the sly. Then I altered the settings on my camera so there wouldn't be an audible click when I took pictures in the future...

I did see lots of different primates, especially colobus (black-and-white and red) and red-tailed monkeys. And baboons, though it might have just been one baboon that I saw several times. The monkeys hang out in the trees. And they're pretty shy, so they take off when they see me around. To travel, they take these flying leaps from tree to tree, grabbing hold of whatever leafy branch they happen to jump to, or the one below it if it's not sturdy enough. And these are big leaps, like over my head across the road, not just gingerly hops to the something a foot away.

The other thing the park has: hot springs. I took a nature walk with Bosco, who was born on 7/7/77. But we basically just walked to the springs. Did see lots more monkeys, lots of agama and monitor lizards, our baboon friend, and some birds. Didn't see any of the elephants, leopards, crocodiles or buffalo that are deeper into the park. I almost fell into boiling mud.

I left the park and headed back into Fort Portal for yet another night of transit. I stopped in Hoima the next day, and the day after that finally reached my final destination on my tour, Murchison Falls National Park. Murchison is Uganda's biggest park. It's bisected by the Nile and is named for the falls, where the Nile is squeezed through a channel about 20 feet wide. The water doesn't fall very far, but the resulting pressure creates what's said to be the most powerful natural water flow in the world.

My intention was to head first to Kaniyo Pabidi, close to the park entrance, where the forestry department offers the cheapest chimpanzee tracking in Uganda. I got to Masindi, the nearest town to the park, and hung out by the side of the road trying to catch a ride--it's about 35km to the park entrance from town, then another 8km to Pabidi. I thought I had a chance,
especially 'cause it was Friday afternoon so I figured people would be coming through on their way in for the weekend. But...nothing.

A motorcycle driver asked where I was going. I said "Too far. There's no way I can afford you." He insisted. I told him. I asked how much. He said "80,000 shillings." Almost $50. I laughed. "I might give you 10,000." "Okay." The other guys thought he was nuts, but he apparently wanted to drive the white man.

But when we got to the park gate they told me the campground at Pabidi was closed because there were a lot of lions there. And the huts had burned down and they hadn't built the new ones yet, so there was nowhere there to stay. My best option was to hang around and wait for a park vehicle that'd be coming through to take me to the campground by the main park headquarters at Paraa, about 80km away. So I did that. There's essentially no way to do the chimp tracking if you don't have your own transport. Rode the 80km in the back of a pickup, watching hundreds and hundreds of monkeys and antelopes scatter as we drove down the road.

I stayed at the campsite. Met some people who were there as part of a group tour--one was originally from Minneapolis and knows some people I know. The next morning I hung around the campsite and did some laundry. While the group tour people were on a nature drive--most of the animals are in the part of the park north of the river, while the campground is just south of it. The park has a huge number of leopards, lions, elephants and giraffes, but you can't really see them without going on a nature drive.

I did see an awesome spider (I think...it's called a velvet mite) all over after the rain. It looked like a raspberry with legs. (Even if you normally think spiders are icky or don't look at my pictures you should check these out...)

In the afternoon I went with the group on the boat trip up the river to the mouth of the falls. Just like on the other boat trips (Lake Mburo, Queen Elizabeth National Park) I saw lots of birds and animals during the 2-hour trip to the base of the falls. In this case, storks and geese and kingfishers and bee eaters and hippos and baboons and buffaloes and crocodiles.

I left the group when the boat dropped me off near the base of the falls so I could hike up to the top. Only about 40 minutes, but it was really hot out. Much sweating. I spent the night (alone) in a campsite near the top of the falls, much of the time huddled in the gazebo avoiding the big storm.

The falls: wow. It's pretty impressive. The total volume of water that passes through is tiny compared to something like Niagara Falls, but Niagara Falls is I think more than 20 feet wide. Well, I've heard--never actually seen it...

I went back to the falls in the morning when the tour group came through. And here's where I'm really an idiot: I'd left a bag at the main campsite so I wouldn't have to carry it with me up to the falls. So instead of being able to catch a ride to Masindi, or maybe even Kampala, at 9am on Sunday, I stayed around the top of the falls waiting for a way to get back to Paraa.

At 10:15 one of the rangers got a call that there was a morning boat trip. "What time does the boat get there?" "Oh, any time after, say, 10:30." So I hiked (quickly) back down the to the base of the path and waited for the boat. It came by about 15 minutes after I got there and picked me up. A small one this time, just one family, but they were nice enough to let me stay on instead of having to transfer to the really crowded big public boat. The ride back took about an hour. We did spot some elephants, but otherwise uneventful.

I got back to the campsite and grabbed my bag and ordered lunch. After lunch, maybe 1:30 or so, I headed over to the park HQ to wait for a ride. The HQ is right by the ferry, so any park vehicles or any others that are on game drives or such would have to pass through. But, yup, no ride. I waited until about 5, when a HUGE rainstorm came by. I moved inside and waited until about 6:30, by which point the rain had let up.

The park guy told me there'd be a park vehicle heading to town in the morning so I should try again at 9am. I headed back to the campsite, set up my tent and had some dinner.

In the morning I ate breakfast and went to the park office at 8am to be sure to catch whatever I could. The 9am truck left at about 10:30. We got about 20km out and...broke down. I dunno, something about a pickup truck carrying 23 people up some big hills... We all got out and they sent some students to find a water hole. When the truck cooled, the driver headed back to HQ while the rest of us hung out. A couple of us started walking towards town--a couple of miles ahead were the turnoffs to the top of the falls and one of the lodges, so we wanted to get on the other side of those to increase our likelihood of finding a ride as quickly as possible. The new park vehicle got there about three minutes after we'd stopped. On our way out we passed Pabidi, and what looked to me an awful lot like several tents in the campground...

The park guy let me off in Masindi and I headed to the taxi park at about 1:00. It was probably 3:00 by the time we left. We went about 25 miles (in two hours) to get to the main road. Then waited another 45 minutes or so for another taxi that was heading to Kampala. I got to Kampala at maybe 10pm, then had to get all the way across town to PABs' house. I arrived, probably 32 hours later than if I'd come down Sunday with the tour group.

So now I'm back in Kampala for a little bit, planning my swing east through eastern Uganda and Kenya and Tanzania and Rwanda and maybe even Burundi.

For now, pictures are up of Semuliki, Murchison, and my entire swing through the southwest.

Hasta,
sg