UGANDA TRIP 2010

Uganda expedition exceeds all expectations!

On 13^th February seventeen intrepid explorers arrived at the Gorilla Lodge in Buhoma, Western Uganda after a twenty six hour trip. It was 1.30am and none of them were looking forward to the 6.30am wake up call before the first day of their trek through Bwindi Impenetrable rainforest.

The first day was 18km as the crow flies, which unfortunately meant 24km for the trekkers, mainly uphill. Many of the walkers found it hard, but dismissed offers from the porters to carry their bags, choosing rather to challenge themselves over the tough terrain. After nine hours of hiking, the group arrived at the Nkuringo Gorilla Camp which was situated on a hilltop overlooking a range of six volcanoes, one of which was active. The Nkuringo Community Organisation then joined us for some dancing and singing as a welcome for coming to visit them. They are a group partially funded by Nkuringo Walking Safaris (www.nkuringowalkingsafaris.com) and the church and teach children practical skills and English in order to help them better themselves. We were the first group so large to stay in their village and the first ever group of westernised school children that any of them had seen.

The second day started out with a game of football against the Nkuringo Allstars on the top of the world which went to penalties but still remained a draw. We followed this with some more trekking, this time with fewer hills, before reaching our second beautiful campsite, situated in a bowl next to a popular drinking spot for the rainforest elephants. Here, we were greeted by a tribe of Batwa Pygmies, who again had never seen a group like ours and welcomed us with more singing and dancing at their homestead.

Our final day was interrupted by rain and a huge thunderstorm, which made our walk feel very refreshing as we completed the final leg of our 60km trek from Buhoma to Lake Matunda. We ended up in yet another fantastic spot on a peninsula jutting out into the lake, surrounded by phenomenal views of volcanoes and idyllic islands. Powerman, the owner cooked up a celebratory barbeque which we wolfed down after our long journey.

We then headed to Jinja via Kampala and a washed out road. This meant that we got to watch trucks being pulled out of ditches as we were held up for two hours in the torrential rain. However, the following day after a hearty breakfast we set off to work with Softpower Education (www.softpowereducation.com).

This is a charity which renovates and rebuilds bugling schools in the Jinja area. We visited one of their pre-schools before heading to a secondary school which had around eighty students per class where we were hoping to help. Chibby set us the task of painting two classrooms and the exterior of the block, which we managed to do by 4pm, opting to stay until we had finished it. We did this whilst surrounded by the students from the school who had come to thank us for our hard work, which really meant a lot to all of us. It was the first time that any of us had experienced such close up feedback from people that we were helping.

The following day we hit the White Nile for some rapid rafting with Nile River Explorers (www.raftafrica.com). We met up early for our briefing and tentatively headed for the river. Nerves began to show as emergency procedures were explained and we entered the boats, and it was not long before the boys boat was upside down in the first set of rapids. The girls were more successful, but Miss.Quinn’s boat eventually went over in the last set of rapids late on in the afternoon. This was another fantastic day, but when we woke up in Kampala the following morning, a number of students regretted not applying enough sun-cream.

Next, we travelled to Murchison National Park, via Murchison Falls for a safari. The falls were very impressive, but the next day opened our eyes to Uganda’s wildlife. We stayed at the Red Chilli Safari Camp (www.redchillihideaway.com) within the park, where warthogs stroll around the site, stealing food from people’s tents. We woke up to another breathtaking view over the Nile before setting off on our game drive. The usual set of gazelles and bucks were seen before we saw the big ones. Giraffes, lions, hippos, buffaloes and even a rare leopard were spotted (excuse the pun) as we drove around the park in the morning, and the afternoon had not yet begun. This involved a 17km boat trip up the Albert Nile to the foot of Murchison falls through an area called Paraa which means “Home of the Hippo”. Here we got to watch around 3000 of these incredible animals go about their daily business, accompanied by Nile crocodiles up to 4m long, elephants, buffaloes, warthogs, bucks, and a variety of large, rare birds. It was another amazing day and Monty’s 18^th birthday, which we celebrated with a cake and an early night.

The following day, we drove back to Kampala via Misindi, where we stopped to look for white rhinos which have been extinct in Uganda since 1982, when the last one was shot by poachers. We visited Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary which was set up to rejuvenate Disney rhinos for release into the wild. The currently have 12 white rhinos in their 350 hectares of bush, including three babies which have been born in the last few months. We had to track them on foot in order to keep the noise down and the children were again briefed on emergency procedures such as running as fast as you can and climbing the nearest tree. With this in mind, we followed the guides and found a group of four sleeping in the shade, including baby Obama and his mother. We managed to get within ten metres of Moja before he woke up and took a step towards us. This gave us the impression it might be time to leave, so we backed off and continued back to Kampala, sharing stories and experience from our trip as we finished our last day in Uganda before returning back to Cairo.

This truly was an amazing trip and one that Miss.Quinn and I will never forget. The students were fantastic and added a great deal to our stay in Uganda. I would also recommend using any of the companies which hosted us in the various parts of Uganda that we visited. It is a unique country and none of us had ever seen such an under developed environment, with people living in self-built huts with no running water or electricity. The Ugandan government are currently trying to encourage tourists to visit in order to raise an income and they are promoting the re-growth of the rainforest and reintroduction of a number of species of animals which were hunted to extinction during their political troubles in the 1970s and ‘80s. All those who took part in this year’s expedition would echo this sentiment and plan on returning in both the near and distant future to explore even more of this fabulous part of Africa.

Doug Andrew, Trip Leader