Queen Elizabeth National Park

‘The Park occupies 1978 sq. kilometers’. Eddie, the ranger we hired to guide us around the park, would mention this figure every five or six sentences, perhaps to emphasize the size of the QENP. No need for that. Coming from Mbarara, we crossed the mountains surrounding the park and we could see the endless valley with the Rwenzori Mountains far away on the horizon. Rwenzori was the original name of the park, but that was before 1954 when Queen Elizabeth II came to Uganda and decided that her name would be a better choice.

The Queen Elizabeth Park

Emily, Pidson, Sarah and I at the main gate

Our weekend safari started with a boat ride on the Kasinga Channel. Ugandans claim that the Kasinga Channel contains the largest concentration of hippos and from what we saw they are probably right. The 2-hour boat ride was productive: water buffalos, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, antelopes, warthogs, and a large amount of birds including fish-eagles, pelicans, storks, and a bunch other that I don’t know the name.

Elephants, hippos and buffalos mingling by the water

Herd of water buffalos

Hippos resting with pelicans

Lots of hippos and buffalos squeezing in the water

The Mweya Lodge was our next stop to grab some food and find accommodation. The lodge is the most luxurious place I’ve seen since we arrived in Uganda and that left me thinking about the bubble that tourists live in when they come to Africa. That will be subject of another post. US$110 was the price to stay at the lodge, whereas the neighboring hostel charged USh30,000 (US$15) for bed and breakfast. The only issue was that they were ful booked so they could only accommodate the five of us in the entrance area. US$95 were worth the sacrifice and so we stayed at the more interesting Mweya Hostel.

The Mweya Safari Lodge...

... and the Mweya Hostel

Andres hanging with warthogs in the lodge's backyard 

The Mweya Lodge is the typical place where white tourists come to pretend they are in Africa without actually being in Africa. Western comfort, Western food, decent prices for Western standards, and the inevitable ‘indigenous’ music and dance show by the bonfire so they can have pictures that look like Africa. The lodge served the most expensive meal I had in Uganda yet. USh40,000 ($20) doubles my previous record at the most expensive place in Mbarara. Western cheap, Ugandan exorbitant.

Very African? Bonfire and 'indigenous' dance

It was 6am when my alarm buzzed reminding we had a game drive scheduled with Eddie, the ranger. Eddie was promptly waiting for us at 6.30 and we left with the promise of spotting some leopard and the unique climbing lion, which just like the name says, is a lion that climbs trees like leopards do.

Eddie, the ranger, in the middle of us

We can’t complain about Eddie’s promises. We first saw hippos doing their morning walk to the water. Later, after herds and herds of antelopes and buffalos, Eddie shouts ‘Leopard’! We all look left: where? There he was, imperceptible under a cactus tree. We suggested a closer look but Eddie discouraged us, ‘he will run away, leopards don’t like company’. We then tried to spot Mary, a female elephant that is a regular visit to a local fishermen village. Eddie asked the kids around the village but they hadn’t seen Mary for a few days. All of the sudden Eddie receives a call. ‘Someone spotted a lion’. Eddie takes us to the spot. There are four other cars trying to spot 'the king'. She, a female lion, was resting in a cactus tree. The problem was that the tree was pretty far away from the track and off-road is prohibited. Well, nothing that Eddie can’t solve ‘just let these cars go away’. The excitement grows as Eddie goes off-road and we approach the tree. We can now perfectly spot the lion, lying in the middle of a cactus tree with their typical aristocratic look as if we weren’t there. As Eddie starts driving around the tree we can see she’s following us. Finally, she opens her eyes and slightly her mouth. Good enough. We are super excited. There is no way she’s going to climb down since it’s not hunting time yet. Mission accomplished.

Warthog sniffing

Antelopes staring

Female elephant, not Mary though

Leopard saving a good distance from us. Can you see it?

Lion in cactus tree

For the rest of the day the highlight is a herd of elephants that we ran into on our way out to Mbarara. Several elephants cross the road and halt their march staring at us as we stop to take some shots. We are literally 2-3 yards away from them but they don’t move. Patiently they wait for us to go away and resume their march to the lake. Time is obviously not a problem for them.

Elephant staring at us

Part of the herd waiting for us to leave