The Crazy Trip to Murchison That Had No Problems, Only Challenges

Last weekend was a 3 day weekend here in Uganda. Monday was Martyr’s Day a holiday that I don’t know what to make of. The holiday commemorates Christians in the kingdom of Buganda who protested homosexual acts committed by the Kabaka, the king of Buganda. For their faith he had them executed. This blog post really isn’t about Martyr’s Day so I’ll leave the commentary to another time.

Since it was a three day weekend it was a perfect opportunity to head to Murchison Falls. While not the best place to see any one animal, Murchison is described by many websites and guidebooks as the best one-off park in Uganda. Murchison is a place where you can hope to see three of the “Big Five” (lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros). Murchison has lions, elephants, buffalo and along the way you can stop at Ziwa Rhino Reserve to see, what else? Rhinos! In addition to those “big 3” Murchison also has hippos, all of Uganda’s species of antelope, warthogs, numerous birds and much more not to mention a section of the Nile known as the Albert Nile which features a few absolutely stunning waterfalls.

On Saturday I, along with 8 fellow summer expats, left Kampala with our driver Badu in a light tan mini-bus van. Armed with snacks and camera we set forth to our first stop Nakasongola District which is about 2 hours away on the Kampala-Gulu road: the location of Ziwa Rhino Reserve. Apparently rhinos went extinct in Uganda, but thanks to the efforts of the Rhino Fund, they are slowly breeding rhinos with the intention of returning them to the wild once they have enough. Currently they only have white rhinos, but plan to eventually breed and also reintroduce black rhinos.

After paying our entrance fee, our sanctuary guide, Robert, climbed into our vehicle and we deeper into the sanctuary. Less than 5 minutes walking from where we parked and we ran into our first rhino. I forgot his name, but this guy was the alpha male who fathered all the younger rhinos at the sanctuary. Many times during this trip I learned to be thankful humans don’t live in an alpha male society! If you’re not the top dog, you’re nothing in Rhinoland.

Then about 5-10 minutes later we spotted three rhinos all resting in the shade. One of three was Obama named in part because his father (the alpha male) was from Kenya and his mother was the United States. We gathered for a bit, snapped a bunch of photos and our guide shared with us a bunch of facts such as the gestation period for rhinos is 16 months and that they can charge at 45 kilometers an hour. As Robert spoke, one of the rhinos let out some gas and he playfully scolded them, “We have guests!”

Obama, the rhino

Afterward we had lunch at the sanctuary and were on our way to Pakwach, a town on the north end of the park. A less popular destination than Masindi, but due to the holiday weekend we had to make the best of it. We got to Global Village Pakwach, which is a very nice guest house located essentially within a village adjacent to a very small town. After sorting out the room situation and the bill, the staff wanted to take our order for dinner. Their options were typical Ugandan fare, but with very few vegetables. Aside from starches they had cabbage. After a long trip we all agreed this was unfair to the vegetarians in the group so after some discussion with our driver and the staff we decided to go into the town for dinner. Because things take a long time in a group of 9 in Uganda, we didn’t set out until the sun was setting.

We parked in town and our driver and the nice lady from the lodge went to investigate our options. The first few places fell short so the 9 of us had plenty of time hanging out in the vehicle. As the sun had just set we weren’t surprised to be attacked by bugs, but that night the bugs kept on coming and coming. Finally we began to notice the lights were almost all turned off in town and when a motorcycle’s headlight flashed on we realized why. The town was literally blanketed in insects. That description doesn’t do it justice, whenever a light was on, the whole beams was almost extinguished by the amount of bugs flying toward the light. Finally the driver came back and told us they had found a restaurant. We got in there, ate fish, chapati, greens and cabbage in the dark paid the owner generously and headed back for bed.

The next day we got up early and headed into the park with George, a very happy man from the village who works at the lodge as a guide. Whenever we would encounter animals before telling us a lot of information about them George would yell out the window “Hello! Good morning, ____ (fill in name of animal). Enjoy your breakfast!” And usually as we were pulling away from that animal he would yell out “We love you!” To say George was adorable In his love of animals is to put it very mildly.

I could try to catalogue the various animals we saw, but it’s probably best to let pictures speak for themselves. The important thing to know is while being an excellent guide, George was on a mission. George claims to have only missed out seeing lions three times. My friends back in Kampala were skeptical because apparently it’s rare to actually see lions, but George was determined. Every car we passed by Badu and him would greet with a very warm hello or good morning and then proceed to ask about lions.

Click to see my pictures!

In one exchange emblematic of Ugandan humor a driver told us that all the lions had either gone to a party the night before and were sleeping or were at church. When my driver asked about the lions being at church to the next driver he said, “I think our lions are Muslim and are at the mosque!” All in all everyone from drivers, to guides, to tourists were all very happy and very pleasant.

One notable exception, though. I’m a little ashamed to write about this guy, but it’s an important part of the experience. As we approached a vehicle with what we all assumed was an American family the two cars were at a bottleneck. This is fairly common and happened to us countless times, but both drives would make an effort to veer slightly off the road and both would get by. The American man however responded by shooing us with his hand. Badu, backed up and was able to reverse into a shoulder giving the man space to pass. Ready with their smiles and greetings Badu and George set off their round of hello and good morning, but the man only replied, “Yes, this is what you get when you find your license on the bottom of a cereal box!” George and Badu seemed unphased, but it hopefully goes without say we were all annoyed and ashamed.

Shortly after this, George began to encourage Badu to off road so we could try to get up close to some potential lion’s dens. Each time we off-roaded I would turn to someone and say $16.50, the approximate amount each of us would pay if we got hit with the $150 fine for off roading. After a half dozen attempt, no lions. Thrilled with all the other animals we saw, but disappointed nonetheless we headed to the river. There we bought tickets for a boat ride and had lunch.

The boat ride stopped to let those, like our group, off who wanted to hike. We had a marvelous hike up to the top of the falls. Again, I’ll let pictures attempt to do this justice rather than prattle on.

At the top we met back up with Badu and George and hurried back to the river in order to get on the ferry and to head back to Pakwach for the night. George was also hoping for one last chance to see lions as the sunset. After our ferry ride it was about 7:45 and at approximately 8 as we were traversing the road out of the park, there was a distinctly ominous noise from the engine. I even remarked, “That doesn’t sound good.” Well…it’s wasn’t good. The timing belt had come off. At this point it was distinctly night and we were on a dark road in the middle of game park.

Luckily a handful of vehicles were still passing by getting visitors back to their lodges within the park and literally all of them stopped to offer some help or advice. Finally one vehicle along with a park ranger dropped off passengers and returned for us. We piled into the second vehicle thanking the driver profusely and were ready to be on our way. Easy, right? Well….we couldn’t leave our light tan mini-bus behind and it was too late to leave the park and come back for it. So for the next 15 minutes the two drivers, George and the ranger managed to tie together the two cars and we set out in the working vehicle with ours trailing behind. We went at a maximum speed of 20 kilometers an hour for a little over an hour until we got out of the park. Almost every time we went down a hill, the original car would bump our new car.

About half way through this saga, a small silver line emerged. Our new driver slowed down and just on the edge of our headlight beams there was a lion and lioness just strolling along content in their knowledge that not even the silly humans watching them were going to hurt them. Eventually they strolled off the road and off we went. In the town we left the original vehicle at a gas station where a mechanic would be the next morning and then off we were back to the hotel.

The next day, Badu was confident the repairs would be complete and we’d be on the road by 10:30. Well…at 10:15 we found out otherwise. To his credit by 11:15 we had a forest green mini-bus van pull up driven by a friend of Badu’s. WE piled in and by 12 we were on the road back to Kampala. Big sigh of relief, we’d be getting at night, but we were all healthy, safe and on our way home.

Almost, but there was one last hiccup…fitting of this trip when we were entering Kampala a cop on a motorcycle noticed our high beams were on. Using you high beams is fairly common for drivers in Kampala, but perhaps hoping the car full of foreigners would give a good bribe, the guy pulled us over. After 10 minutes the drivers came back in and we were able to finish up the trip. When I asked they said “we talked to him” and that there was no punishment. I hope they were right!

As George said while the car was still broken down and stranded, “there’s no problem, only challenges”.