January 15, 2015 Journey to the Serengeti. First stop - Dunia Camp, Seronora

As we get ready to leave Ndali Lodge (pronounced En- dali) for the flight to the Serengeti, one of the part-time employees, Corneilia (who is completing her PhD. in Psychology in England and a friend of the owner, Aubrey Price) gives us a little history of the place.  Aubrey's grandfather originally bought the mountain property and several surrounding hectares to pioneer tea growing in the region when it was still part of the British Empire in the 1920's.  It was eventually passed on to his son (Major Price) and his daughter on his death. The Price family lost the property during the Idi Amin regime of the early 70's but when the current President came into power, he invited former landowners back to reclaim their land if they could prove their previous ownership.  The Price Family reclaimed it and the Major and his sister decided to building the lodge in 1994.  They attracted several investors through friends and family back in England to invest in the lodge,  many not thinking that they would ever see their money again and found this perfect spot to build the lodge on top of the mountain, overlooking a crater lake called Nyinambuga.  Unfortunately the Major died in 1996 so did notget to fully realize his dream and his son Aubrey and the rest of the family inherited it in trust.  Aubrey has since moved there permanently, married a local indigenous girl, and the business has prospered.  They employ between 40 and a 100 local people given the vagaries of the tea and tourism economy but have managed to pay off all of the original investors.  There are only a handful of bandas (cottages) connected to the Lodge and the privacy and inspirational setting allows them to charge a hefty sum. ( A little tidbit.....their Internet service was suspended just before we left since they had used up their monthly allowance primarily from me sending so many photos back to you folks).

So we are finally on our way to Serengeti via regional flights flew Kessase-Entebbe-Tarime-Seronera.   Entebbe poses a bit of a challenge since the lodge has made us box lunches for our flights.  Security will not allow you to take food or drink on a flight but a Coastal airlines employees claims the lunch as his walks us through security and $2 later, the lunches are loaded in our cabin.  Our pilot, who I referred to as Captain "Junior" Johnson has barely any peach fuzz on his face and is flying solo.  His idea of keeping the cabin cool while taxing down the runway is holding his door open with his left arm while in motion.  Okay.....I guess we are in for a good time!  Nonetheless, flying at 7,000 to 8,000 feet above the African savannah is a real treat because it is clear and you can see for miles spotting game roaming in herds.  For a couple of legs, I actually sit in the co-pilot seat so I created a couple of videos including "pilot speak" for your viewing enjoyment. We do a brief pit stop in Tarime to clear customs where there is 2 coastal airline employees and an immigration officer waiting for us purely to clear customs.  The immigration building is a circular structure maybe 10 feet in diameter and is one of only two buildings still with a roof.  The customs officers asks us to bring our passports and a "pen".  Unquestionably a top drawer operation. Customs takes all of 15 minutes and we are back up in the air after waking the the pilot for our last 1/2 hour of flying and we now starting getting a sense for how vast the Serengeti really is.  We land at our final destination the airport in Seronera and are greeted by the manager of the Dunia Camp, Angel (yes a woman) and our lead guide Pascoe.  The land cruiser is absolutely beautiful with an elevated roof in the centre so we can stand up during safaris.  I speak briefly to Pascoe about my keen interest in seeing the migration and he starts the "tap dance" about the dry season, etc. and maybe not seeing the herds of wildlife we would be hoping to.  He was wrong.  Not a 1/4 of a mile out of the airport do we come upon two African lions sleeping under a dead tree.  And one of the fellows was good enough to raise his sleepy head so I could take a fantastic picture of him that I have sent to some of you.  (Anyone wanting the picture please email us at dianeb586@gmail.com). This was quickly followed by a group of Zebras, ostriches, close up and personal with a gigantic giraffe, vervet monkeys, more lions, elephants, exotic birds, vultures and several herds/harems of Impalas with male leaders. They sure have their priorities right in the Serengeti!

We finally arrive at the Dunia Camp delayed only an extra hour of travel time from all the photo shooting, and we come upon this tented community that literally blows you away.  A huge dining room tent, a separate  bar tent, a sitting area tent and then gigantic tents for each of the occupants (I'm talking at least15 feet wide by 35 feet long).  Our showers are bucket showers and the washroom itself has got to be 10 feet by 15 feet.  All the tents are permanent structures and rival western hotel rooms.

We start the evening off with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres around a bush camp fire with all the other guests before sitting down to a 4 course meal.  This is what I call roughing it. We do find out that wildlife comes into the camp freely (Impalas were behind our tent when we were showering) so when dark falls you use a walkie-talkie to have one of the employees lead you to and fro your accommodations to other parts of the camp.

We stay up to about 10:00 a.m. before calling it a night and leave the front flap open on our tent but with a zipperedscreen to watch the sunrise and listen to the wildlife throughout the night.

January 14, 2015 Chimpanzee Walk in the Kibale Tropical Rain Forest & an afternoon poolside at Ndali Lodge

NOTE:  THIS IS LIKELY THE LAST BLOG YOU WILL SEE FOR A FEW DAYS SINCE WE SUSPECT THERE IN NO WiFi IN THE SERENGETI.  HOWEVER, WE WILL CONTINUE THEM EACH DAY SO EXPECT THEM TO SUDDENLY APPEAR.

We have an early morning start as usual getting ready to head out for our Chimpanzee Walk in Kibale (pronounced Chi-bali) which is an 8:00 a.m. start.  The roads don't disappoint us with the challenging conditions and my buddy Fred successfully navigates us through the bumpiest roads yet.  The terrain around this areas is absolutely unique with crops of all assortment on inclines and terraced fields since the areas is the home to 50 craters and extremely hilly.  The tea crops look absolutely manicured and the banana fields with their gigantic leaves overwhelm the region.  The roads are soft, dry, orange dirt and most of the borders of the crop field are accented with an orange tinge.

Fred gets us to the forest ranger station on time and we debark for our next venture.  After receiving the strict guidelines for interacting withe chimps, we are part of a party of 6 (Sergio from Mozambique and Mumcie from Rwanda, both spaniards who share our sick sense of humor and Anita a Ugandan student). Our guide has a name none of us can pronounce so he says call him Ali but adds "I'm not a Muslim".

We get our instructions from the head forest ranger and off we go in the jeep a bit further into the forest.  The road is lined by dozens of baboons who looked at us with amusement. Their "bare asses" is a little off-putting but other than that, they are neat looking.  We only see them on the road and not in the forest because chimpanzees are really territorial. Ali takes us into the forest and we don't go in too far before a chimp is spotted high up in a tree (and I mean high).  Within minutes all of the trekking parties has joined us and we are wondering what gives. The forest apparently has 1050 chimps and here we all are congregating around  this one!  Our chimp "walk" has turned into a chimp "wait and see" and our party starts hinting strongly (not me) we don't want to stand around in a pack. This proved to be a very wise maneuver and our guide takes us deep into the forest resulting in our last hour of the walk interacting with at least 15 chimps which a lot of we caught on video.  Once more, Di came within a foot of a chimp (I'm beginning to think it's her smell. LOL).  Anyhow, these chimps are  bigger than you think and weigh in about 100 to 120 lbs.  They gave us a lot of Tarzan moves and hooting that echoed throughout the forest. We also found out that they are not only territorial but vicious fighters.  Ali was telling us that the Red Tail Colobus feels it has to defend himself but is no match for the much bigger chimpanzees.  The colobus has only 4 fingers with no thumb and apparently the chimps shake the branches that the colobus is on until it loses it's grip and falls to the ground.  Another chimp, grabs it by the tail, spins it around until it is dizzy and disoriented, kills it and then eats it.  That's life in the jungle.

The chimpanzee walk only ties up the morning and it allows us to return to our resort and once more swim in a mountain pool with an unbelievable vista.  We have lunch outdoors over looking the crater lake under a loggia. Later on we have a relaxing dip in the pool and the girls catch a bit of sun tanning.

It's been a great day and we are looking forward to heading to the Serengeti tomorrow which will be largely a travel day.  We will not likely have Internet for most of the Serengeti so I suspect we will post a number of days events that will show up at the same time.

Before leaving Uganda, I would like to comment on the people.  We consciously did not photograph their abodes since "a picture paints a thousand words" and we wouldn't want to misrepresent them.  Also, they don't like you taking pictures of them because they think that you are going to make money from it. Their mode of transportation is all over the map with primarily walking bare feet or in loose sandals followed by bicycles. And what they will put on a bike or a motorcycle is unbelievable. Up to 6, yes 6 people on a bike or a motor scooter or an incredible amount of produce or bananas.  And and as for cars, anything goes. We passed a car with 3 people and 2 goats in it and our driver says he has seen up to 14 people in a car. They are kinda of spoilt, aren't they?

For sure their lives are modest by any standards but they seem genuine and happy.  We were always met with courtesy, not only at the lodges and tours, but by the population in general constantly waving at us. They appreciate what tourism does for them and they are grateful.  At the same time they are diligent workers, be a tea leaf picker, a hoer of wood or a banana farmer.  They work hard but at a slow pace. They work well as a team and their insane road conditions is offset by always giving way to each other.  There is no horn honking, no yelling at each other and we never saw a sign of temper.  These people have been through a lot and the tourism really got nailed by the Ebola scare and the terrorism threat that was non-existent in their country.  We do hope that things recover for them soon because the have a lot to offer.

We leave Uganda knowing that we got our money's worth but more important great memories and exposure to genuinely nice people.

January 12, 2015 - Journey to Katara Lodge and boat cruise on the Kazinga Strait

We were fully expecting a "throw away" day today because it was mostly travelling by jeep on arguably the worst roads we had encountered to date.  It was anything but starting with the vehicle to take us on this hallowed journey.

This was not a garden variety, dilapidated jeep but instead an army green, 4 rows, 3 seats per row covered by a canvas top in mint condition.  The two sweet little "Jean Guy's" were in heaven.  Our driver Mudimba (girls corrected me at the end of the day that his name was Mueima - they're wrong) was a treat and although shy, easy to engage and had the eyes of an eagle.  So the ladies got themselves perched high up in the third row to enjoy a panoramic view of what was to become a day full of wildlife viewing.  Sometimes you're just lucky.

We were not even in Queen Elizabeth park 2 minutes when we came upon two Tree lions sleeping peacefully high up in a tree.  Apparently sighting them at all is infrequent so we figured we were on a roll. Sighting animals was non-stop for the entire 5 hour journey.  We saw, elephants, baboons, crested eagles, black & white colubus monkeys, water bucks, water buffaloes, Kob, Topi, wart hogs, traditional monkeys, etc.  In all, 12 different species and multiple sightings. The ecosystem is quite different than Bwindi and the Savannah elephants evidently are much larger than the forest elephants.  Nonetheless, their "dumps" are just as gigantic which they often do on the roads.  Only the baboons and monkeys got loud when we were close to them and our driver, Mueima (maybe the girls were right) would see wildlife well before we did so it allowed us to take at least 200 to 300 photos/videos during the drive.

The roads, if you can call them that, are hilarious.  We literally drove on the shoulder of the road because the main roads, be it dirt or some form of asphalt, were incredibly bumpy.  The driver jokingly referred to it as the "African Massage". Try that for 5 hours! Believe me though, we really didn't notice it.  The Savannah is beautiful, wide open with trees here and there and you can see for miles.  It is dry season and the forest rangers were burning a lot of the grasslands to rejuvenate for the animals.  We saw lots of armed rangers with their handy AK-47's because poaching is bad in the park. The savannah elephants have large tusks and we know who likes those tusks.

So finally we leave the highway in Katara and take what apparently is a road (which seems more like a run-off) to our hotel.  We're thinking...what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?  Two kilometers later we pull up to the front of our lodge and our fears are allied.  The vista is incredible overlooking the Great Rift Valley and you can see literally for 50 miles.  If you stare long enough, I'm sure you can see animals on the plain.  Not for us....we wanted a nice cold Nile Special beer. Our beautiful huts were on the side of this somewhat gentle sloping mountain overlooking the valley and the huts were open-sided on the front and one side giving you the feel of a tent.  (These sides close at night with industrial strength screens that look invisible). Because the huts were open to the outside world, we discovered a few spiders lurking around.  Louise suffers from arachnaphobia so over turn, I got the waiter to re-spray our rooms without her knowing.  A little preventitive medicine.

No rest for the wicked.  It was off to the Kazinga Channel a mere 1 1/2 hour drive. Oh well.  But again, we were not to be disappointed.  Driving to the boat launch, we ran into several hippos, elephants, brother Jeff's favorite, the "wart hog" and baboons by the hundreds.  Like, was this being staged for our benefit?  We got on to the boat, seats 10, which was very comfortable, clean and much like a mini, open houseboat.  The wildlife was incredible and for the two hour journey, non-stop wildlife very comfortable mingling among each other.  The water buffalo numbered in the 100's if not a 1000 and we saw at least 150 hippos, mostly in the water but some beached ones that reminded me of an old girl friend (Herbs, I think you dated her as well).  We saw herons that were 3 times as big as the ones at the Marshes Golf course.  I could go on about this for another few paragraphs but suffice to say, you'll see the pictures...and the videos.

Okay...back in the jeep for the return 1 1/2 hour journey.  Within minutes, we ran into a Savannah elephant feeding on a tree by the road.  His ears flaired out and our dirver in his wisdom, came to an abrupt stop. We waited ofr him to finish before proceeding. The girls decided to sit in the top row on the way back to take in the sights as best they could and take in the cool breeze.  Right.  They were literally orange from the dust on the way back with "racoon" like eyes.  Me and my buddie Mueima  busted a gut. It turned out to be a terrific day but in hindsight, we would have arranged the day differently and gone straight to the boat cruise to save 1 1/ 2 hours of 8 hours on the road.

We topped off the night with white wine and chateaubriand overlooking the Rift Valley.  Sigh.

January 12, 2015 On the move again to Katara Lodge

January 12, 2015 Mahogany Springs Resort

It's early morning (5:30-ish) and I thought I would send out a short blog to those interested parties.  I'm having local Ugandan coffee (very good) and the waiter will be waking my two little french companions with warm coffee,

Certainly mixed emotions moving on because we only just got here, the place and surrounding nature are uniquely wonderful and the people and the service is by far the best that I've experience in recent memory.  I found out the lodge has only been open 3 years and is owned by a 31 year old Brit.  Go figure. (I asked if they had ever heard of the Phibbs family and they said no. LOL).

The people work hard and long hours but really enjoy it,  Their well educated and their English is very proper which they all take in school,  They are ambitous in the context of their world, Uganda, many seeking to some day own their own adventure company or run a resort.

We are off this morning to Katara Lodge and a good part of the day is a travel day.  We fully expect it to be a slow bumpy drive but at least we get to travel through Queen Elizabeth Park and fully expect to see elephants, giraffes and antelopes in their natural habitat.  We will be enjoying a 2 hour boat ride this after where we will experience hippos, crocodiles and water buffalo to name a few.

What do you think about that Malcom and Connor?

Well it is approaching 6:30 a.m. and I need to get ready for breakfast and pack my luggage (right).

Stay tune for an update this evening on the boat cruise.

January 11, 2015 - The Gorilla Trek in Bwindi Forest

It was evident from the very beginning of this trek that the Ugandan people are very fond and protective of their silver back gorillas. The trekking at this particular site began back in 1992 and has been the economic mainstay for the surrounding region.  The fee per person is hefty ($600 per person per day) but when you see how much of it goes back into the local economy and the welfare of these magnificent beasts, it is an awfully good deal. They allow four parties of approximately 5 to 8 people per party to trek gorillas per day and they limit your "direct" exposure to the gorillas to about 1 to 2 hours since humans and gorillas share 98.5% of the same DNA (99.5% in the case of "Dad" Atkinson) which makes them very susceptible to human diseases.

The trek is literally on the side of a mountain in a rainforest so proper clothing for the trek was important.  Long sleeve shirts, long sleeve pants, trekking shoes with your pants tucked in your socks protect you from the flora and ants that have a nasty bite. We also had to spray for mosquitos but they proved to not be a non-issue given the elevation of 1,600 metres (about 5,000 ft.) above sea level. Trekking at that elevation can be exhausting but at least it allows for a pretty comfortable climate for being on the equator which I would suggest was about 25C degrees.

So the trek started around 8:30 a.m. and we were introduced to our lead guide who provided us some historical information and the rules of engagement.  Gorilla trekkers were sent out pre-dawn to locate the various gorilla families and they communicate with the lead guide on their locations. He first confirms with the trekking party (us) that none of us are ill and if you are, you can get your money refunded.  If you show signs of illness during the trek (coughing, diarrhea, vomiting) they pull you from the trek but you lose your money.  They take their trekking very seriously. We also have paramilitary spotters with, yes...."AK 47's" for whose protection, I don't know.  We are also  encouraged to use porters if our back packs are more than 2 kgs. so we hired two.  Again, you are helping the local economy by hiring these porters.

The first half hour was very uneventful in terms of active wildlife and the climbing is not challenging but when the lead guide got the call from the spotters, the game was on!  Stage left right into a thick forest with machetes chopping our pathway up a steep incline. This never stopped prior to coming up on the gorillas and continued when we would follow their journey. To say the least, hearts were pounding and our clothes was getting moist from the inside out.  In less than an hour from the start, we met up with the family of gorillas.  They were way up in the trees eating branches and leaves, much like chimpanzees but a lot, lot bigger. There huge and while they were from about 30 to 90 feet above us in the forest canopy we were excited.  We thought, can it get better than this? It was fantastic and from our vantage point certainly lived up to its billing.  We could see at least 4 gorillas rummaging from one tree to another and our guide was very calm about what we were seeing but assured us confidentially that the best was yet to come.

The gorillas finally came down from the trees and the first one came straight down beside Diane and I and walked by us, maybe a foot away as if we were not even there.  We had been told not to look them  in the eye and look timid and they will walk on by.  (I caught the little frenchman peaking!).  The "She" gorilla was soon joined by several others including two baby gorillas clinging to their mothers. These big animals were never agitated with us and we stayed with them and followed them a good hour with the guide macheting paths for us to follow.  In all, we saw 12 gorillas which is way beyond anything that we could have imagine.  The piece-de-resistance was the male silverback who was the head of the family.  He was huge compared to the rest at 16 years of age and had a very distinct odour which I would put at a strong but moderately unpleasant stink.  This obviously warns other males to stay away.  Apparently he replaced his father who died 2 years ago at the ripe age of 52.  And the big guy put on a helluva show for us.  Sat about 10 feet away eating tons of leaves and branches and you are going to see him not only in lots of pictures but a video as well.

 At no time did we feel in danger from them and we were very persistent in following them.  The lead guide did an incredible job at getting us close to them and two more times gorillas would pass by us feet away.  I don't think Di, Louise or I ever expected to get so close and intimate with them and we all felt that was absolutely one of the highlights of our life.  We really feel humbled to have the life we have  to get to have experience this day.

Okay I'm getting sappy so back to the trek.  After this encounter with the family directly for 1 1/2 hours, it was time to go. We went back to the base camp and were presented certificates for our treks and we thank once agin by the lead guide for caring about the gorillas and contributing to their economy.  As is custom, the three of us tipped the lead guide $30 US and each of the porters $15 each.

I would say a bargain for the experience of a life time.

January 9-10, 2015 Mahogany Springs Resort and prepping for the gorilla trek tomorrow

January 9 -10, 2015 Entebbe, Uganda - Kihihi Airport - Mahogany Springs Uganda

You guessed it...another overnight flight less than 28 hours after the last one.

It's 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning January 11th and I am writing about the previous days events in hopes of catching up today on the BLOG.

I "videoed" the take-off in our 12 seater AeroLink plane from Entebbe to Kihihi Airport which when we arived was only 25 kms. from our first lodge resort, The airport was big enough to house a waiting area and 2 restrooms open to the air. The landing was quite nice even though there wasn't a runway (yep....really).  Did I mention the airport doubles as a golf course as well? We were greeted by Martin our driver in a somewhat okay conditioned jeep and we headed out for our "estimated"  one hour journey.  Right.  It took 1 3/4 hours to go that distance so you really need to prepare yourselves for slow driving since the roads are pretty rough. It was a really neat view and the landscape was scattered with giant ant hills some as high as twenty feet.  The villages we drove through were very, very modest but the absence of danger and discontent was noticeable.  One little girl came up and grabbed my hand and in a tiny voice asked for sweets.

The people walk everywhere and they walk for miles.  5 to 10 kilometer walks to and from work is nothing.  The market was on that day and we saw hundreds of people with baskets on their heads to carrying a couple of bananas to sell. A really calm and friendly environment whom looked sincerely interested in our presence.

We arrived at Mahogany Springs before noon and were escorted to our rooms.  I wish to hell that I could attach the pictures we took because the setting is right out of Shangralai.  From our spacious bedroom we look out over a vista at agriculture fields that climb up a mountain side about 2,000 feet before topped by an inpenetrable forest, Man, did we feel lucky.  The boss man name was Jotham and  our 3 waiter/porters were Gad, Marting and David,  The service was from a guilded age in the past and when we returned to our rooms that night, the beds were turned down, hot water bottles, in the bed with a nice poem about the gorillas on our bed with a picture of a baby gorilla and the misquito nets perfectly surrounding the beds and treated with an odorless spray.

The food is spectacular and with appropriate quantities.  We couldn't be happier.  The people are extremley nice and well-educated and somewhat wordly.  They are happy and have great sense of humors (they need too...you know how Di and Luise can be jokesters.). I decided to have a night cap (Glenmorangie) with anice young tour owner whose was celebrating his 28th birthday and I asked him to guess my age,  He said 68........Well.....it was then off to bed around 10:00 p.m. since our gorilla trek starts at 7:00 a.m.  We will need to wear rain gear and the trekking group the previous day saw 11 of which one brushed one of the tourists.  We are expecting an even greater encounter on January 11th.

Last minute frenzy

3 small bags

All this crap

Just a few days away and the pressure is mounting.....lots left to do, and all this stuff has to go into those 3 small bags.  Maggie is trying to help!