Whispers of the Wild - Lake Mburo

Another catching up story! Let me take you back to the weekend of the 11th and 12th of July, location: Lake Mburo national park! Starting at the beginning: I got an email from an American girl (Emily) we met in Jina, who as in our raft. She took a group photo and in order to get it I had given her my email address. She randomly reached out to Anna and me asking if we had plans for the weekend. She was looking for a place to go or an activity to do and asked if we wanted to join/had suggestions. Whatever you do in Uganda, usually it’s more expensive to do it alone / cheaper if you have a larger group. It happened to be that Anna and I were also looking for a weekend away activity, and thus we brainstormed a little and agreed to go to Lake Mburo national park. Emily is intern at USAID and through a driver there knew a driver working for the US Embassy, who also does private game drives. Given his rate we figured it would be cheaper to hire him with the three of us for 2 days instead of going on an all-in organized tour.

We left at 6 in the morning on Saturday and drove straight to Lake Mburo in the 4x4 vehicle. The driver, Michael, was very neat and kind and we got to the park without trouble. Before we reached the gate (EXCITEMENT) we spotted zebras, warthogs and some ‘deer’ already, a promising start! Upon arrival we paid the entry fees (40 USD per 24 hours for foreign non-residents, 15.000 shilling for Michael and 25.000 shilling for the car) and entered the park. Fortunately there was still accommodation available (we hadn’t booked…) and we were going to start by driving to the information center/park headquarters. On the way there we saw plenty of zebras. Lake Mburo is one of the only two parks in Uganda where there are zebras, the other being in the north at the border with South Sudan. These animals are awesome! A zebra really is more than a horse with different colours. Their stripes are remarkably well defined pure black and white. Their bellies are big, their asses look cute and for those who have ever seen the Madagascar movies, they really do look a little like the zebra (Marty?) in those movies. They are graceful and gorgeous yet also plump and funny. We saw baby zebras (their black is more brown) and got close to loads of them. Being used to seeing animals locked in cages in zoos, separated from each other, it was wonderful to see all animals be buddies and walk amongst each others.

We drove around for a while, spotting various species of ‘deer’ (topi, duiker, impala, eland, oribi & bushbuck), black faced velvet monkeys and some other animals such as warthogs. After a visit to the HQ were we inquired prices for game drives, guides and the boat trip on the lake we drove to the lake and saw one of the animals the park is most known for: hippos! These animals are massive, though during the day they are invisible. Once in a while you hear a hippo’s nose or upper half of his face come up, but other than that their big bodies, vulnerable to the sun, remain hidden in the water. We had lunch at the lakeside, enjoying the view and animals, before going on a short drive to find giraffes. About a month, maybe 2 months, ago the authorities relocated about 15 giraffes from other parks to Lake Mburo in an attempt to boost tourism. I mentioned we were lucky to get accommodation. In reality, I think there were maybe a handful of other people in the park and that was it. For a park so close to Kampala, during high season, with a small enough size to see most of the wildlife it was very quiet. The giraffes are meant to help, but they are still very shy. You would expect a giraffe to be easy enough to spot, let alone 15 of them, but of course it’s not that easy. The park is still big and a giraffe, in the grand scheme of things, is still only small. They also didn’t move a giant family, but pairs of two, maybe three. Other animals are not yet used to the giraffes (because of their pattern they are maybe still believed to be giant leopards) and vice versa, which meant that as a result we didn’t see any.

We thus returned to the lake and boarded a small boat, which brought us along the shores of the lake. We spotted many hippos sticking their nose out of the water, two small crocodiles, a variety of birds (mainly bright blue kingfishers and African fishing eagles, which look like the American eagle) and one buffalo that gave us a nasty look because we disturbed him while he was enjoying a drink. It was lovely to cruise the lake as it was exactly what we had been looking for: peace, nature, fresh air and zero cars, motorcycles, dust or other things that made us want to escape Kampala.

After the boat we went on a hunt for more buffaloes, but didn’t find any and thus returned to the lake to see the sunset. We found golden skies, yawning hippos and increased sounds coming from the water as the hippos woke up and prepared to go out to graze for the night. We waited till it was dark and the sky had gone black before getting food. This was an experience by itself. Add up ‘lakeside’, ‘electric light’, ‘food’, ‘people’ and ‘night-time’ and you get a very uncomfortable situation. We ate in the middle of what felt and looked like a mosquito storm. It was not so much the problem that they tried to bite, but more that there are hundreds of mosquitoes (these animals must be retarded…) flying into your face, getting stuck between your eyes and glasses and crashing into your food. Our food got extra proteins added readily and our yellow fries increasingly turned dark with mosquitoes that crashed into them and failed to fly away again. We thus ate in a certain state of terror as fast as we could and then rushed away. On the way to our tents (solid tents on a platform with normal beds inside) we managed to spot 2 hippos and a genet cat. Again, remarkable animals these hippos. Very very large, very ugly with brown/pink skin they walk around like cows at night, trying to find grass to eat.

At the camp we built a campfire and enjoyed the most beautiful sky full of stars I had seen in years. I only recall seeing so many stars and a clear vision of the Milky Way one other time, at a camping in the middle of nowhere in Armenia. We chilled a little and then each went to bed, gaining energy for the day after. We had to leave the park before 10, and thus we started driving at 7am to get optimal views. Unfortunately all the hippos had gone back into the water already, and thus we decided to get a guide for a 2 hour drive trying to find giraffes and other animals. We found many animals, including a bunch of buffaloes and a family of baboons, but no giraffes. It was interesting to have someone in the car who knows the park and the animals, which added to the experience. He talked amongst other things about the behaviour of impala (btw, this is the only park in the country with impala, the name-givers of Kampala), who form families of one male and females, leaving the other guys to form ‘loser groups’.

At around 10.00 we left and drove back to Kampala, picking up some fruit on the way. Another eventful weekend so (and another long blog… I really fail at keeping these stories short…). I still plan on doing another safari to see the big animals (elephants, giraffes, lion etc.). At this point in time I don’t know yet how, what or where I’ll do one though… (haha, while I write this I booked a safari already, but let’s keep pretending I posted this just after it happened).