Chapter 5 - On the road to Mburo

Yesterday we left Kampala early, and as much as the chaos can be fun, we were looking forward to getting out of the city (for more reason than one) and keen to getting into the countryside.
It would be a five-hour drive before we got to our first park of three, we would be visiting -Lake Mburo! We settled in and watched the busy city leave us as we travel through smaller, but busy towns that were accustomed to travellers stopping on the roadside to buy snacks and all manner of things.
Our driver stopped after we were outside the city, and we grabbed some baked banana and turned down the offer to get some roasted liver.
Mark had now tried banana in three different ways, Baked, Stewed (Katogo) and mashed (matoke).
Bananas are such a stable in the Ugandan diet and out here we had got accustomed to having it with at least one meal a day….and were disappointed when we didn’t.

We set back on the road and drove for a couple of hours, watching the lush green landscape and falling in an out of sleep.

We took a rest stop at the Equator line and grabbed some African tea and coffee.
The equator is a tourist hotspot and was lined with souvenir shops for all kind of trinkets.
After our Tea & coffee break, we ordered some veg samosa and Chapattis to go, before we took the obligatory picture at the equator line.
While waiting for a family to take their pictures, we bought some bracelets to add to our collection.

Once back on the road, Caz passed out while Mark snapped candid shots of the markets and communities we passed.
Once we got to the closest town(Sanga) to our hotel ‘The Eagles Nest’ we drove for almost an hour, slowly inclining the muddy lanes.
As we travelled this undeveloped road, we passed smaller communities that all stared as our tour bus passed their neighbourhood.
We received waves from all the children we passed, one even yelling “Give me some sweeties” – obviously accustomed to tourists’ generosity.

After what felt like a never-ending mud path, we arrived at a stone paved road that signalled that we arrived at our hotel at the top of the submit.
As soon as we drove onto the road, the view shifted like 45 degrees which just confirmed how high up in the clouds our lodge was.
We had booked a package, so we didn’t know what to expect when we got there and joked, we might be staying in a local hut for all we

know.

On arrival, we were met by a member of staff to collect belongings.
He was surprised when he realised, we had only travelled with one backpack and a day bag between us? We were travelling lighter than usual as we had taken the opportunity to leave half our clothes in Kampala, that we would collect on our return at the end of the month.

We climbed up the stone stairs to the reception that opened out onto the restaurant onto a spectacular view of all of lake Mburo. We were so high up that you could feel that the air was thinner up here.
We immediately parked ourselves at the edge of the restaurant and just stared at the stunning view of our surroundings.
We were welcomed with a glass of fresh juice before being shown to our accommodation.

We knew we would be staying a Banda tents for the night, but this was better than we could have imagined. Our tent was sat on the mountain edge with more of the amazing view.
The tent was simple, but set in front of a private stoned tiled bathroom that was better than some hotels we stayed in.
It was an open bathroom, but the Banda tents were positioned in such a way to block any prying eyes, but so that you could also access it via your tent.

We didn’t have time

to chill as we had to get in a late lunch before heading to the park for our evening game drive.
We enjoyed an Italian feast of Spaghetti Napolitana & Bolognese, both disappointed that there was no local food on the menu. Sadly this was not uncommon, for some reason the hotels tend to only offer European food, whether that’s because it got a better price points or they don’t believe that tourists will want to eat local food, we complained about the fact it wasn’t even an option.

After our pasta lunch, we headed out to meet our driver and travel to the park.
It had been raining in an out all day, but luckily it cleared up just as we were about to enter the park.
We had to layer up, as for the first time since getting to Uganda, we were cold.
Caz couldn’t believe she needed to wear a hoodie and jacket, but we knew that the further we travel west and deeper into the countryside, the colder evening we would have to get used to.
Quite a refreshing change from the stagnant city heat!

Lake Mburo is one of the smallest national parks in Uganda, Mgahinga Gorrila Park is now the smallest having recently been upgraded to National Park status.
We were told straight off that we wouldn’t be able to see any lions as the

population had all but been killed out by the locals. As they park was used for grazing cows, the locals had taken to poisoning the lions as they kept killing off their livelihood.
We heard rumours that there was 1 male lion remaining, but he lived in isolation and it would be too dangerous to approach him.

We did see a lot of Impalas, which we learned was the inspiration for naming Kampala. According to our guide, Kampala Hill was once where a lot of Impalas lived, so they named it after them.

Mark was grinning from ear to ear, from start to finish!
He was not only to be out in nature with animals, but he was excited to put his favourite new lenses to the test with shots of wildlife.

We spent about 2.5 hours driving around the park, we passed a couple busloads of school kids, and we were jealous these children that got to visit this park as a school trip?
Although we hadn’t seen any giraffes or lions, it was such a lovely drive and we got to see the start of the sunset as we were leaving. Just as we were on our way out of the park our driver and guide suddenly stopped and pointed, “look” he whispered a Crested Crane. The Crested Crane is a sub species of the Grey Crowned Crane and the national bird of Uganda, it’s the bird that appears on the Ugandan flag.

The crane was standing on one leg on top of a huge Acacia tree. It was a silhouette of the gorgeous colours of savannah grass land sunset.

We got back to our hotel just in time for dinner, which seemed so close to our lunch, but we were tired and hungry. The evening meal was a set 3 course menu, which was a departure from our 2 meal a day habit we had got into.
As soon as we had finished our dinner, we settled ourselves in our favourite viewing spot at stared out at the moon. The electricity went out, but we didn’t flinch, we had got used to the occasional power cut.

After only 1 glass of wine (unheard of for us) we headed back to our tent.
Sitting on our porch outside the tent, there was no sound except that of the animals in the wild.
It was so beautiful and peaceful that we were grateful in that moment for the power going out.
We ended the night with Mark taking some long-time exposure night shots, and Caz writing poetry inspired by the scene before us.
With the early start and long day full of excitement, we were in bed by 09:30 in order to get up for our early morning activity.