Africa Overland Part 2 – Uganda

After spending one night in the town of Eldoret in Kenya we made our first overland border crossing into Uganda, which was a smooth process for us thanks to the East African Tourist visas we obtained at the Nairobi airport on arrival. That visa type covers entrance into Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda for 90 days. Others in our group from other countries had eVisas purchased in advance for just Uganda and it took them several hours at the border for their visas to be processed, mostly due to technical difficulties with the computer. We spent the night in a hotel in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, for our first night in the country, then journeyed to Kalinizu National Forest in the morning. We made a pit stop in Mbarara for lunch and Rob and I shared a table at a local restaurant with a local man from Mbarara, who we had a pleasant conversation with. When we reached our campsite we saw it was adjacent to Kalinizu National Forest, and there were many baboons watching us as we setup our tent. In the early morning we set off on foot with a guide named Debbie to trek into the forest hoping to spot some of the chimpanzees that call Kalinizu National Forest home.

The forest was lush and green and it felt wonderful to be out in nature on foot. Debbie led us for about an hour and a half when she pointed to the tree canopy and there we saw an adult and a baby chimpanzee in the branches high above. We spent about an hour in that area and were able to observe six different chimpanzees playing, eating, and swinging high above us in the treetops.

They were up so high that binoculars came in handy. One thing that really surprised me was how loud and dramatic the chimpanzees’ calls are. They are some of the noisiest and most intelligent of wild animals. Chimpanzees are endangered but thankfully their numbers in this forest have increased over the last ten years to about 40 total. It was truly wonderful to see them living and thriving in such a beautiful natural setting.

After the morning trek we packed up camp and headed to Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park. There we took a guided boat safari through the Kazinga Channel lake area. As we cruised around the lake we saw many hippos, buffalo, beautiful birds, and lizards, and were treated to seeing a few large African Elephants that had walked down to the lake for a drink of water.

We also caught of glimpse of one Nile Crocodile, a rare site. We learned that hippos kill more people in Africa than any other mammal, even though they are herbivores, so it was a little unnerving to be so close to so many of the them in just a small boat.

Towards the end of our lake cruise we were thrilled to see a large herd of elephants walk down to the lake to drink and play in the water together. There were at least twenty of them of varying sizes and ages. Our small boat was able to get fairly close to the shore to have a good look at the magnificent herd. This was an amazing day in Uganda full of incredible experiences I will never forget.

Fun fact: one US dollar exchanges for about 3,700 Ugandan shillings. Rob enjoyed briefly being a millionaire after he took 1,000,000 Ugandan shillings out of the ATM machine (even though the actual value was less than $300 USD).