A Gongshow Weekend!!

I know this is a long post, but bare with me because this past weekend was pretty crazy and eventful!

So for our first weekend off of our CASA business, we decided to do a safari in Queen Elizabeth Park before we headed to Ibanda.

So this weekend was a completely amazing gong show! Here was our original plan:

1) On Friday Morning we would leave Kitengesa around 7am and drive to Lake Mburo so that we can pick up some more information on Queen Elizabeth Park (where we were headed for our safari)

2) From Lake Mburo we would head to Mbarara where Jane had a quick 30 minute meeting with the organization TASO.

3) After eating lunch we would make our way to the south end of Queen Elizabeth Park and arrive in Ishasha around 3pm so that we could see the tree climbing lions at sun set around 6:30pm.

4) We would stay in a B&B there overnight and the next day we would drive 2 hours to the north end of the park, where over the course of Saturday and Sunday we would do a boat safari, a driving safari, and do Chimp trekking.

5) Sunday night we would head to Ibanda where we would be staying for the next 7 weeks.

Now that sounded like a great plan! Unfortunately, that is not what ended up happening…

Early Thursday morning around 3 am I woke up with food poisoning, it was not pretty and let’s just say that I did not fall back asleep. Luckily by the time my alarm went off at 6am I was feeling much better, but I was really tired and weak and it took me much longer to pack and eat than it would have normally taken me, meaning that we didn’t get on the road until closer to 8am. We felt that we were ok because it would only take a couple of hours to get to Lake Mburo (where we would only be for a few minutes) and then it was a short drive to Mbarara so Jane would not be late for her meeting at 11am.

We got to Lake Mburo, we got the information we needed and headed back up to the highway. As we were on the bumpy road heading to the highway, we encountered a giant herd of cattle…unfortunately they were in the middle of the road walking very slowly in the direction we were trying to go in. With bushes on both sides of the car and the cattle herders not willing to move the cattle on to the side of the road, we just had to drive 5km/h behind them until they finally turned off onto another road…which took 45 minutes! By the time we were free, Jane was 20 minutes late for her meeting and we still had to get to Mbarara.

Even though we were late the meeting when very well, but I have no idea what was talked about because by the time we got to Mbarara I was feeling horrible again seeing as I had been awake since 3am and was hungry but I could not stomach any food. So instead of going into the meeting with Jane and Tess, I napped in the back seat :). Now the meeting that was supposed to take 30 minutes took one and a half hours, which put us a little behind schedule but we were still going to make it in time to see the lions.

We quickly stopped for lunch at a restaurant in a hotel. Now there is something that has to be understood about these restaurants and that is that it is impossible to have a quick meal! Even though there was only one other group of people in the restaurant, our food still took 45 minutes to be made. This is because they make everything from scratch in a little kitchen. So unfortunately, our quick lunch turned in to a two hour affair, putting us really behind schedule. But we still figured that we would get there on time because it was 3pm by the time we left and we were pretty sure it was only going to take 2-2.5 hours to get to Ishasha.

Now this is where the fun part starts! We were using the maps in our Ugandan guide book, which seemed to be pretty accurate, and we were aware that the roads were not in really good condition, but we figured that the vehicle we had could handle it. We had our plan of how to get from Mbarara to Ishasha, and it seemed pretty straightforward: leave from Mbarara, get to Ishaka, and then follow the road until we get to Bwambara and continue from there into the park. So we get to Ishaka alright and we find the road that we have to take to get to Bwambara. We start going through different towns and every once and a while we would stop to make sure we were on the right road. The road was pretty bad, we bottomed out the car a few times, but our driver seemed to be able to handle it. After about an hour or two of driving, we ask someone at a crossroad which road to take to get to Bwambara. The man told us that we could not get to Bwambara in the way we planned because the roads were much too bad and we would not make it, so he tells us to go through Rukungiri. We figured that it was ok, it would take a little longer to get to the park than we planned, but we thought we would make it in time…ya, didn’t happen!
After two hours of driving and no sign of Rukungiri we realized that we are not going to make it in time and we were even starting to get worried that we had gotten lost. In the guide book the root to Rukungiri from where we were seemed relatively short, but the road wound back and forth around the mountains and it was slow going because of the road. We passed town after town hoping that it would be Rukungiri and time after time we would continue on. Now on this length of the journey we realized how rural the area was…you know that you are in the middle of nowhere when even adults see white people and stare with wide eyes and their jaws dropped! We also found possibly the most fashionable town in rural Uganda. We honestly thought that everyone was heading to a party because they all seemed to be dressed in their nicest outfits, but eventually we realized that they were all just heading home from a normal day of work…it was amazing to see! Finally we get to Rukungiri around 6pm. We figured that from there it would only be about 2 or three more hours until we got to the park and that we would go to sleep when we got there and see the lions at sun rise. So we head out from Rukungiri with high hopes that we would get there. After over 2 hours of driving we are hoping to see Bwambara soon. It is dark by this time and we really do not want to be driving too long in the dark. We come to a larger town and look for a sign saying Bwambara. As we come up to one we stain our eyes to read it, and what does it say? ISHAKA!!! We actually spend 6 hours driving around in a huge circle in rural Uganda…So after holding back our screams we decide just to head to the north end of the park and find a B&B there to stay and give up on the idea of seeing the tree climbing lions that weekend.

Our time in the park was absolutely amazing!!!! We got to see everyday animals like zebras, elephants, buffalo, hippos, worthogs, kobs, waterbucks, crocodiles, lots of birds, and lizards. We also were probably the luckiest group the park has had in a very long time! On Saturday afternoon we did a driving safari with a guide in our car. We were looking for leopards, which we unfortunately did not find. We did however find two sets of a female and male lion. Male lions are very rare to see because they hide in the bushes while the females are out hunting. We got to see two!!! Now I said that we were able to find the leopards during the safari, but I also said we were the luckiest people in the park. Right after we dropped off the guide we were driving on the highway back to our B&B. All of a sudden we saw something move on the side of the road. We slowed down and looked into the grass and we saw a leopard!!!!!!!!! It was just sitting there like 20 feet in front of us. It started walking straight along the road and we slowly drove along with it. We sat there and watched it for like 20 minutes before we had to leave because it was so dark we could no longer see it. So we drive off and about 5 minutes later we see another figure standing in the middle of the road. We slow down again and it’s another leopard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We only got to see it for a few seconds, but it was long enough to see that it was a leopard. The next day we told our guide and he said that we were the first to see a leopard in the park in about 6 months. He figured that we saw the two so close together because they were looking for each other to mate. It was absolutely amazing!!! The next day we did chimpanzee trekking at the bottom of the gorge. It took a while to find them, but eventually we got to see them high up in the trees. People normally only see males up close because females and their young are usually really shy and they hide in the trees, but I said that we were lucky! We found one mother and her two young sitting low down in a tree. As we got closer we thought that they would get scared and run, but they just stayed there! They were adorable!!! They were so close we probably would have been able to just barely touch one of them if we reached our hands up. There was a little baby who was so curious and playful! It kept on swinging back and forth on a vine and looking down at us! After about 15 minutes, they started to slowly make their way up the tree.

So we were lucky in the park, but as soon as we tried to leave, our bad luck came back. We had stopped at a gas station to fill up so that we could get to Ibanda, but what we didn’t realize was that we had been given bad gas, so our car kept on stalling. We finally managed to get to a mechanic. Now once again the fun starts! There was a big communication barrier and we were afraid that we were going to get ripped off. We told them what was wrong and that the gas needed to be sucked out and good gas put in. All of a sudden there were men under our car and they are saying that they need to take the engine off the car (at least that’s what we think they are saying). We honestly must have looked so funny in that garage! Three white “muzungus” (that’s what they call us) all yelling at the men to stop what they were doing and to listen to us! I’m guessing they have never seen that before. We are actually very proud of how we handled the situation. We managed to get them to stop what they were doing and to get them to put the tube into the gas tank and suck it out. I don’t think they were used to women telling them what to do, but we did it and the car worked fine once we did that and got new gas in. We probably saved a lot of money by not letting them take the car apart!

Finally we were on our way to Ibanda. Even though we were two hours late, we managed to get there!