The Holidays

Happy 2011!

Well this is my first attempt at a blog type thing, so I will try not to bore you, although telling a story is definitely NOT my forte. If Dom had the time to write this he would make you laugh. This is a summary of 3 weeks, so it's very long and I hope to do shorter blogs more often. That way it will be less difficult to pick out the best pictures, and hopefully less likely to bore you.  Which, if you have access to FaceBook, Dom and I have 150 picture posted between the two of us.

After record snowfall in MN which delayed our departure for a bit, Dominic and I made it to Uganda on 16 December.  We are staying in the capital city of Kampala, until March, when we will be heading home.  Our place has a very nice international set up; we actually have hot water and internet, which is a complete miracle and I am counting my blessings every day. We are not used to being spoiled in Africa.

There was a big surprise, however, and that was a family of HUGE cockroaches waiting for us in our kitchen.  If you even have these problems and can’t hire an exterminator right away, I highly suggest buying a can of DOOM. We found this crazy chemical in the store near our place. It’s a miracle in a can.  We sprayed it everywhere in the kitchen and they started “coming out of the woodwork”. Even though I love my invertebrates, fast roaches make me scream and my skin scrawl!  Dom took the job over from there, thank you honey!  The exterminator came a week later while we were on vacation and we haven’t seen one since…. although I will let you know for sure in about 20 days when the babies from the not-dead egg cases hatch. DOOM even kills egg cases, “they say”. 

The city is always busy and traffic can be bad, it’s exactly like in Chicago where you have to plan your day around the traffic.  We are time-sharing  a Toyota Land Cruiser with Dom’s good friend and parasitologist, Tom Gillespie and workmate Innocent Rwego.  Dom drives the stick-shift on the other side of the road, I am not quite there yet. I was going to practice while we were in a wildlife park, but it didn’t happen due to numerous interesting circumstances (foreshadowing!!).   So to get around town I take the matatu, AKA a mini-bus, which I am very used to from my Zambian travels.  It’s about a dollar to get anywhere. We try to stay away from the bodas, as the motorcyclists in traffic are especially unpredictable and there are many accidents every day.

For the holidays, Dominic and I visited two parks in Uganda, the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria (2 nights), and Budongo Forest and Murchison Falls in the northwest (3 nights).   On the first trip, 2 other couples went with us, Dom’s workmates who are much fun.  We drove an hour to Entebbe then caught a 3 hour boat ride in an old, deep boat that fit about100 people.  Everyone was travelling for the holidays and it was stuffy with the occasional live chicken bawking. Luckily we were covered from the sun with a tarp, but there was no bathroom and that was a challenge to say the least!  When the boat reached the deeper part of the lake the waves grew larger as the boat started rocking back and forth hastily…for an hour.  Lake Victoria is about the size of Lake Michigan.  If you’ve never been sea sick, you are lucky and you should count your blessings! 

Christmas did not feel like Christmas.  We woke up and it was raining cats and dogs, but we watched the birds on lake Victoria and that was awesome, ahhhh, wildlife.  Kingfishers, egrets, Egyptian geese with 7 goslings, yellow weavers, hammerkops.   Then we all snuggled into one of our rooms to celebrate x-mas with a few ‘toddies’. The rain finally stopped and we went on a self-guided walk up the road to the town which looked kind of like an old western town, then back through the forest. The forest was beautiful and some of the trees were very old, which is always refreshing to see.   The "resort" was nice, better than we expected, but humble, especially since we reserved rooms very late and so stayed in the “dorms” next to the kitchen – very loud indeed. They fed us plates and plates of traditional food, I finally had matoke. That is the Uganda staple that goes on every plate at every meal, it is mashed plantain and quite nice.

After the boat ride home we stopped at one of Tom's favorite places called Stone Pub. It has the world's greatest Pork. Pork everything.  They literally kill the pig in the back yard, salt it and BBQ it right there. Fresh, fresh, I definitely said a big thank you to the pig before we ate!

When we got home Dom and I spent the day taking a long walk in the hills of the nicer neighborhoods of Kampala.  Some even call them the "Beverly Hills" of Uganda!  BTW, the weather is 80 day and 60 night, and the rains actually keep the humidity down. I am flabbergasted.  Dom is enjoying his job, and it looks like we will be settled into Kampala for the month, until we go to Rwanda in Feb. Although, I am planning a trip to the west to visit a project called Kasisi, in Kibale Forest.

The second trip to Murchison Falls and Budongo Forest was brilliant, we even added a night to our trip.  Budongo is called a virgin, or pristine, forest.  It has never been logged and so the signs of a healthy forest, which I learned in 2001 on my Costa Rica study abroad program, are: many epiphytes in the trees, vines and lianas (woody vines), many species of flora and fauna, and lichens and moss on trees everywhere.  The forest has a sweet smell, I was in heaven.  We stayed at the Budongo Eco Lodge, I highly recommend it if you ever come here.  It is one of the only places you can do chimp tracking!  There are also 366 bird and 250 butterfly species identified. 

Our eco lodge was planted inside the forest and with our screen windows always open, we slept and awoke to the many sounds of the forest.  We quickly recognized the chimp and black and white colobus monkey calls that woke us up.  But the frightening screech of a tree hyrax was not cool, it sounds like someone is being tortured.  On our forest walks we almost ran into some chimps, but we could smell them and the “things” they left behind.  I also got “ants in my pants” for real! and the female guide told me to take my pants off so we could find all the ants, at least 30.  Red/army ants are vicious but small enough not to have big incisors for when they do bite and hang on it’s actually worse than it sounds.  So there I was in my undies in front of my Ugandan guide Joyce, we crossed many cultural barriers that moment, and we were both cracking up in laughter, especially when I asked her to take a picture of me with my pants down in the forest.  (The other people in the group were told to walk off).

Two big storms came through camp, one of which hit right in the middle of our walk. Due to the high winds and the chance of being unlucky under a falling branch, our guide John quickly walked us out of there.  Dom caught some great video and we drank a Nile Special beer on the porch while the rain flooded camp. We were very happy to not be camping.

We spent one day in Murchison Falls National Park, and took a lovely guided boat ride down the Nile to see the big fall. We didn’t have time to hike up the cliff to see the falls from atop, but the wildlife was excellent.  Elephant, crocs, hippos, warthogs, hartebeest, and birds galore on the edges of the river kept us busy with our cameras.  The guide told us that the crocs hang out around the corner from the falls because that is where the fish are discombobulated from the fall and are easy targets.   The falls produce this white foam that looks like soap but is natural. We compared it to ice caps, marshmallows in hot chocolate, and my favorite, a rootbeer float.  We saw a pair of fish eagles (similar to bald eagle) on top of the trees calling from afar and then flying to each other. We saw many kingfishers fishing, black kites in large groups flanking the trees, and bee-eaters that dig holes in the sandstone cliffs. It was fun drinking a Nile Special on the Nile!

We also enjoyed a self-guided safari in the savannah of Murchison (we saved a lot of $ b/c we had a car and Dom could drive). We saw at least 50 Rothchild giraffes (I have a picture of one that looked like Sabrena’s sister!), buffalo, Uganda kob, hartebeest, warthog, ground hornbill, duiker, oribi, bushbuck, waterbuck, guineafowl.  No carnivores, as expected, as it was not the right time of day.  Other animals we saw during this trip include, owls, genet, colobus monkey, and hare.

As we were ready to leave Budongo, we noticed a very flat tire on Dom’s driving side.  Luckily this happened at the lodge because there were many people to help us out, especially since we couldn’t find our jack and the spare was flat too!  We waited 4 hours in the morning for it all to get fixed, but it only cost us $20 in tips, we were very lucky.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve and Dominic’s birthday at a workmate’s house with 3 couples in Kampala, it was perfectly chill.  We hope you are all well and staying warm in the crazy record weather cold, snow and warmth, my dad told me it was almost 60F in Chicago and the snow melted?

We’d love to hear from you!

If you haven’t changed my contact info yet here’s the oneà amy.hanna330@gmail.com

Skype address: amy.hanna330, our skype is working well here so let us know if you want to try it.

Much Love, Amy and Dom



Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary walk

  

 

Murchison Falls




Freshest pork in the world at Stone Pub in Entebbe





Christmas breakfast with Edith, Innocent, Tom and Carol


 

Kingfisher common at Murchison
















Budongo Forest morning hike



Ugandan boy bringing a live chicken from Entebbe to Ssese Islands via 3 hour boat ride







 

Murchison Park Savannah

  



Colobus in Budongo Forest



On the way to Budongo, we ran into Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, off the main road, so we went in to see what it was all about. They provide rhino habitat for 8 white rhinos, and are hoping to bring in more from South Africa and/or Kenya this year. The sanctuary only holds rhinos, no anelope, etc. as it is a breeding facility to provide more rhinos to other sancuaries in Africa.  For $65 Dom and I went on a 2 hour walking safari, the guides bring us right up to the sleeping rhinos and they know where they are at all times. Anti-poaching patrols are active and diligent, and very nice guys.  The grasses were long but Dom managed to get some goos close ups. We saw two babies too, adorable =)