Bwindi

The journey to Bwindi was very long and the roads got worse. We drove through pretty little villages with smiling faces from the children who waved at us as we carried on our journey. As we arrived, we drove through the last village which was mainly a village of crafts with lots of goods out on display. Andy tried to cover Steph's eyes, but too late! There would be some shopping at some point!

We arrived at Buhoma Community Lodge, our accommodation for our Gorilla trek. Our room was in a great location with a view straight out into Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, fantastic.

The room itself was a big Army style tent inside a wooden hut type surrounding. The bathroom was out the back. Everything was a little basic, but comfortable and with electricity and hot water, so what more do you need? Andy wasn't sure at first, mainly because the bed was on the short side and he imagined his feet sticking out the end of the bed getting attacked by mosquitoes! Turned out that he just fitted inside the bed and mosquito net.

We went up to the main building where we bumped into our Australian friend, Grant again and an English doctor. The doctor had been on the Gorilla trek that day and described his experience, it sounded brilliant and we were excited for our turn the next day.

Steph was a little worried about which family we would be visiting as everyone was classing the three families into three groups, Easy Trek, Medium Trek and Hard Trek. Easy was 1 hour there 1 hour back, Medium was 2 hours there and 2 hours back and the Hard Trek was anything between 3+ hours there and 3+ hours back.

Steph had suffered a fitness set back just before we came to Uganda. She managed to strain her Achilles tendon 2 weeks before we were due to travel and the doctors were discussing whether to put her in plaster, instead complete rest and immobilisation was agreed.

But before all this, Steph had suffered from a dislocated knee that had caused a lot of time away from exercise. Steph was reassured she would be fine.

You don't get to choose which family you want to visit, there is a chance you can swap with other people if they agree. Hamid came to check on us and we asked which family we would be visiting, he wouldn't tell us, just that it was the best family! We would find out the next day...

The Lion Sleeps Tonight... No Actually, During the Day, in a Tree!

So after our excellent and very lucky viewing of a Leopard, we set off for Ishasha in hope of viewing a Lion.

As the roads in Uganda are not the most vehicle friendly roads we have come across, Hamid takes it easy and this is great for us as we get to spot animals along the way. On this journey we viewed Elephants, Baboons, Colobus Monkeys and even a snake.

We came up behind another tourist vehicle on this extremely quiet 'road' There is black smoke coming out of it and eventually it pulls over, we pull over too and Hamid gets out to see if they are in need of any help.

Hamid gets back in and says that the other vehicle will have to limp to the next town for repairs, he thinks damage has been done by going too quickly on these bumpy roads. We set off again, only to pull over almost immediately with the other vehicle. Hamid and the other driver have a discussion and then Hamid asks us whether the single tourist from the other vehicle could join us for Ishasha as they may not make it in time with their limping vehicle. Of course it's ok and a friendly Australian called Grant joins us.

We arrive in no time to view the Lions with a quick pit stop at a very unwelcoming toilet!

We set off around the park and are joined by 3 more tourist vehicles (the most we had seen so far on our safari).

Hamid spotted a male Lion in a tree, which again we couldn't see straight away! We did eventually more quickly than the Leopard. Hamid told us that it's very unusual to spot a male Lion in a tree with female Lions being more common in them. Again we felt we were very lucky. Hamid also explained that they thought the Lions slept in the trees to escape the flies.

The male Lion was well aware he was being watched and was not moving, so one by one the vehicles including ours went off in different directions in search of more Lions.

Our search proved disappointing and the weather was also starting to change which actually made Hamid pretty excited.

The wind had picked up, so Hamid raced back to the tree where we had seen the sleeping male Lion. Hamid explained that the Lion would not like the wind and would leave the tree.

Back at the tree, we were the only vehicle there and just as Hamid had said the Lion started to wake up! He changed position in the tree a few times before climbing down into the bushes below. He peeked out of the bushes and then trotted off. Magnificent!

Another vehicle arrived just in time to see him escape into the distance.

Again, how lucky were we? Hamid has excellent knowledge and Grant our new passenger was equally thrilled and impressed with Hamid.

Grant's driver met us at the entrance of the park and re-joined him. We were now off to Bwindi, for the Gorillas, we were very excited!

Any Sort of Cat!

Can you see the Leopard yet?

We couldn't until it came more into view now

How lucky were we to see a Leopard!

Our next part of the safari was to see some Lions at Ishasha and then travel to Bwindi for the Mountain Gorillas. As we left Simba Lodge for the last time, Andy said to Hamid that the challenge today was to see any Cat, even if it was a domestic cat! Hamid had been so good with the animal sightings, that he was up for the challenge!

We firstly went back to the part of QEP that we had on the first day. We drove around for quite a long time before we accepted defeat. Just as we had started to leave, Hamid slammed on the brakes and started pointing at a Cactus tree. Hamid had spotted a Leopard! But we couldn't see it at first! Hamid grabbed our camera and started taking photos for us. We saw it eventually as it started to leave the tree, Wow!

We stayed there a while just looking at it before it disappeared into the bushes below the tree. Another tourist vehicle came along and stopped. They asked us what we were looking at. They nearly fell off the roof of their vehicle when we told them it was a Leopard.

We continued on, heading for the Tree Climbing Lions of Ishasha. Would we be so lucky and get a sighting of a Lion?

Kazinga Channel

Bushbuck

Piglets!

Giant Forest Hog

Our Elephant friend who wanted to go the way we were going!

The Yawning Hippo snap

Part of our safari was a boat trip on the Kazinga channel, where we would see lots of animals and birds. Before boarding the boat we came across some Mongoose who were playing inside a small old boat. They were excellent posers for our photos and didn't seem at all bothered by the numerous tourists snapping away.

Queuing for the boat we unfortunately ran into our rude acquaintances from the lodge. They didn't notice us, but that was probably because they were too busy pushing people out of the way to get on the boat first.

Our guide didn't accompany us on the boat, but the boat had it's own wildlife expert to talk us through the sightings.

Steph was excited to have snapped a baby hippo, unfortunately the excitement quickly turned to horror when she was told the poor baby hippo was actually dead!

There were herds of Elephants, Buffalo and Waterbuck all around the channel. We spotted a few crocodiles, which were really well camouflaged. There were just hundreds of birds all chattering at the same time. Photo's can't capture the many sounds of the channel, so we took some videos as well.

Everyone was out to get a 'yawning Hippo' photo and we all kept missing the very few chances. Steph was finally lucky enough to get one, it's not the best picture, a little out of focus, but we got one!

We headed back just in time before the rain.

There was a sprint from everyone to get back in their vehicles before they got soaked. As we left, we were very lucky to find ourselves in a prime spot when a lone male Elephant was in the middle of the road. Hamid our guide stopped the van so we could get some close up shots without zoom. The Elephant decided we were in the way and tried a mini charge at us! Hamid being experienced as he is knew exactly how to keep us safe from any danger, we managed to record a video of the charge.

On our way back to the lodge we were again very lucky as we came across a Giant Forest Hog right by the roadside staring at us and when it turned away, there was another one and some little piglets! Again, the photos are a little out of focus, but there was very little time to snap them. Hamid told us that they don't come out until it's dark, but he thought they may have been confused by the weather which had made the sky gloomy.

Another shy creature we managed to see on our return was a Bushbuck who wasn't so much in a rush to get away.

QEP

Our first full day at the Queen Elizabeth National Park, with a very early start! We saw a beautiful sunrise over the park. The days viewing was mainly of prey rather than predators. We saw so many beautiful birds and as we are not 'birdwatchers' we welcomed our guides expertise. We saw so many Waterbucks and Kob, Warthogs, Elephants, Buffalo and the odd Lizard. We almost ran over a very long trail of ants and came across a very big ant hill. We saw the Waterbucks, Kob and Warthogs up close and the rest from a distance. Our guide had very good eyesight and spotted the animals we couldn't even see.

The day was split with lunch back at Simba Safari Camp where we were staying. It was such an amazing day seeing all these animals in the wild and so incredible see so many of them.

What was really enjoyable was that it felt like we had the whole park to ourselves with only very occasionally coming across other tourists.

Simba Safari Camp was very comfortable and the staff were excellent. Our stay would have been perfect if a group of other guests had a little more courtesy towards others. The staff handled them very well though, despite this group of guests being very demanding and rude to them. The lodge only had a certain number of plugs for guests to recharge their camera batteries and this group of particular guests decided that they had more right than anybody else and unplugged everyone else's batteries to plug in their own, apparently to them taking your turn and sharing doesn't exist. Unfortunately, this wasn't the last time that we would experience their rudeness.

On the other hand they were a small annoyance compared to the fantastic first day we had at QEP.

We stayed at Simba Safari Camp

On our Way

It took quite a while to get out of Kampala, we had hit rush hour on a Monday morning, so the city was more than hectic! As we gradually left and entered the countryside, there was a huge difference between the two. One thing we noticed which was so good, was that Uganda is so green.

The weather wasn't great, it was raining but it was still warm.

We were on our way to the Queen Elizabeth National park, which was quite some hours away. We stopped off at the equator and had our photo and then went for some breakfast.

Steph bought a traditional African drum (she's always wanted one after seeing them at her Grandparents house when she was growing up). We were a little worried that it might be too big for the luggage, but as we found out at Entebbe airport on our way home, we had absolutely nothing to worry about. Our drum was tiny compared to the drums a group of Americans had!

We reached QEP by late afternoon/ early evening because we made quite a few stops to look at the beautiful scenery. Also, we started to make our first sightings of Uganda's wildlife. The animals were quite far away, but the real safari started the next day...

Uganda!

Kampala

One of the quiet roads, just outside the Hotel Triangle

Our long awaited trip to Uganda finally came and before we knew it we were on our way to Heathrow airport. We flew out of Terminal 5, a new experience for the both of us. We have to say that it was a good experience and there was plenty to do before our flight. On our way to our gate, Steph saw people waiting at other gates and was already deciding on our next trip!

Andy found it difficult to sleep on the plane, but Steph had no trouble at all! We had extra leg room seats which was better for Andy being 6ft 1". Landing at Entebbe was very different to Heathrow, first of all there was so much green and a much, much smaller airport. We had no trouble at Entebbe, a little wait at immigration but that was about it. Andy is always nervous as to whether our luggage has made it with us, but again no need to worry.

Maria, our tour company guide was waiting for us and drove us to our hotel in Kampala. This was our first time in Africa and there was so much going on all around. It was a Sunday and Maria said it was quiet, it did not seem quiet at all! Kampala was just crazy, the traffic lights just seemed redundant and all the moto bikes were weaving in out of all the mini bus taxis. Steph thought she'd seen 'mad' traffic in Asia, but this was something else! Surprisingly not scary, just so crazy you couldn't help but watch.

We were staying at the Hotel Triangle for one night before we left on our safari the next day. We went to our room and caught up on some sleep. The rain hammered down while we were sleeping and we awoke to a very soggy carpet by our door. We went for a wonder around the streets outside the hotel, but didn't go too far as we had already planned a city tour on our return from our safari.

Andy was pleased to find that the hotel played the football, so we settled for the evening watching a game before bed.

We woke early to be ready for our safari. The hotel was comfortable and the staff were friendly and helpful.

Hamid our guide for the safari was waiting for us to begin our first African safari.

Our first impressions of Africa were very good and we were excited to continue our trip.

We stayed at the Hotel Triangle in Kampala. We booked a double room, en suite with air-con (we found that we didn't really need the air-con) $120 per night including breakfast.

Andy's 30th

Andy turned 30 on 3rd November. Being a Wednesday, we had a family meal. We cooked Andy's favourite, Steak, Chips, Onion rings, fried eggs and pepper sauce. Then for afters we had Smarties chocolate birthday cake. It took a while to get it all cooked because we were cooking for 9 people, but it all turned out well and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Andy finished off the evening by giving a speech under the influence of helium, which was hilarious!

On the Saturday we held a cocktail party at home for Andy's birthday. We had a buffet, chocolate fountain, vodka jellies and of course lots of alcohol and mixtures to make the cocktails. The favourite cocktails on the night seemed to be Blue Lagoons and Seabreezes. Although Steph made her favourite cocktail, a Singapore Sling. The Tequila Sunrises didn't go down very well as no one could hack the Tequila! maybe the glass was too small making them too strong.

Chewy stayed by the buffet table all night cleaning up anything that was dropped, needless to say that he is now on a diet! Spike was very over excited due to the amount of people throwing his ball for him!

The party went down really well, lots drank and lots eaten! A couple of people had a few too many of the Baileys and Amaretto shots and were suffering the next day with a hangover!

At about midnight everyone departed into town to carry on the party.

Andy's main present from Steph was a Song Gigajuke Hi-Fi system.

Update

It's been a while since we last posted. We've been to Uganda and had the best time, such an amazing place. We have also celebrated Andy's 30th birthday. We will post about Andy's birthday first and then about our trip to Uganda. Here is a photo of one of the amazing Mountain Gorillas of Uganda we visited.

Tomorrow: Andy's Birthday.