Rwanda – Kigali, Gisenyi, Nyanza and the DRC border

This wasn’t a photographic trip, I wanted to put the photographer in me aside and just be there, talking to people and enjoying the moment; so, you won’t see many pictures in this post.

I must say I have been surprised to see how different Rwanda is compared to Uganda, mainly the development and the overall management of Kigali (the capital).

Very well-organised and clean, Kigali stands out as a very welcoming city. Busses seem to be on time, most of the transports require you to go to a proper ticket office (!!!) and buy it at a standard price; so, no bargaining and trying to get closest to the ‘fair’ price. Whenever you say no to a boda boda driver at a stage, the others will usually not harass you anymore (this, of course, depends on the situation). These things might not sound familiar if you haven’t lived in a town like Kampala for several weeks/months.

Murchison Falls – Chimp Tracking

Sleepy faces. Slow movements. Few words. A common scene from an early morning. A nice breakfast put us all back on our feet, ready for chimp tracking.

For the tracking, we had to go into the thick forest, moving slowly and staying together in a group. This is necessary in order to not be considered a threat by the chimpanzees; scattering around would give them a feeling of being surrounded, frightening them.

It took us a good hour (or so) before we could see a chimp. Until then we could hear them calling each other (chimps have a sort of language; there are up to 30-40 sounds used for indicating different actions, i.e. food, anger, danger…).
The first one, was a rather sleepy one; he stayed most of the time laid down on a large branch and chilling under the sunlight, turning around at times.

Murchison Falls – On top of the falls!

After an exhausting climb under the hot African sun, our group made it to the top. Welcomed by both the incredible view and the fresh shower created by the water crashing into the rocks.

It was amazing, and the feeling to be finally arrived and to be in front of these marvellous falls in Uganda was priceless. Few months ago most of us wouldn’t even have remotely thought about the possibility of being in Africa and now, here we were, speechless in front of yet another spectacle of nature.

Murchison Falls – Boat ride on the Nile

After the refreshing lunch break, it was time to finally head to the falls.
To reach the bottom of the waterfalls, we had to take a boat ride on the Nile. Truly great! There were hippos, crocodiles (some really close by!) and loads of birds. Too bad I lost most of the pictures from that tour;

Pro-Tip: Never ever delete stuff from the camera if you aren’t 100% sure you made a copy somewhere else.

I managed to save some pictures, but most of them are just present in my mind.

Red-throated Bee-eater

The boat ride brought us just right under the Murchison falls. Now just a long climb was between us and the top.

/Nesh

Murchison Falls – Lunch break on the Nile

And as you can understand from the pattern I use in the titles, the game drive ended without us being able to see any lion.
Our guides also went to get a ranger for tracking the felines, but luck wasn’t on our side this time. Once we got to the place where they were supposed to be staying, we just found lonely bushes and grass, without any sort of cat.

After an hour, we just gave up as it was time to catch the ferry which would bring us to the other side of the river Nile for lunch.

Murchison Falls – Game Drive – Elephants

Today I will publish 2 posts as tomorrow I will leave for my Rwanda-Burundi trip and I will not be able to publish anything for few days.

I can say we have been both lucky and unlucky; lucky because we managed to see some elephants, unlucky because they were quite far from us. I know it is not much of a big deal, but other tourists had the chance to see them really close to them.

Due to them being far, I couldn’t grasp much of their behaviour; but I am pretty sure I will see them again some time soon!

 

/Nesh

Murchison Falls – Game Drive – Giraffes

I must say I was quite surprised when I first saw a giraffe in real life. Of course, I knew they were very tall, I read it gazillion of times and saw loads of pictures, but being just few meters away made a huge difference. Even the smallest one, a baby giraffe, was tall compared to us (or our van).

We saw them in 2 occasions and got to take pictures both from afar and very close-by. Although they tended to not get too close to us, they seemed to be very interested in us; especially the baby giraffe, which literally stood on the road in front of us, just facing us.

Murchison Falls – Game Drive – Beginning of the safari and Water Buffalos

After a well-deserved rest at the lodge, our group woke up at 6am for the game drive. Our group was split in 2 safari vans (with a very large sunroof) and we moved around the park.

The drive, more or less 3 hours long, had very exciting moments, such as seeing giraffes and buffalos from very close, and other much more quiet ones, where we would just drive on the dusty road in search of some new animal.

We got extremely close to a herd of buffalos, they didn’t seem to much bothered by us taking pictures or the vans themselves. They mainly stood there looking at us with our cameras.

/Nesh

Murchison Falls – Karuma Falls and close encounter with baboons

After the Rhino Sanctuary, we headed for a short stop at the Karuma Falls.
From this point on, we will be more or less following the river Nile to get to the Murchison Falls.

On the way to the falls, just after the bridge which brought on the other side of the Nile, we met a congress of baboons just next to the road. They were not scared at all, we were literally 1 mt away from them; and, among the group, there were also a mother with 2 young baboons.

It was just amazing, I was so close to them and, thanks to the zoom of my lens, I could get even closer. We had just few minutes before the group moved on and so did we.

The waterfall was very large and loud. They are planning to buy an electric dam just on it, so we might be among the last people to see the falls in its natural beauty, before being spoiled by man-made constructions.

Murchison Falls Safari – Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

Here we go!

Last week has been quite of a pain in terms of connectivity. I had little connection and I could not post/upload anything; so I need to catch up!

Two weekends ago, some friends and I went to a tour at Murchison Falls; it was a 3-day tour departing from Kampala, passing by the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and then heading to the Murchison Falls national park for a game drive and, on the last day, for chimpanzee tracking.

I probably don’t even need to tell that this was by far the most amazing trip I have ever done! It was incredibly well-planned and our group was great (our whole group was composed by several groups merging together); we had so much fun together!

Our trip started in Kampala at 8am and our first stop was the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, on the way to Murchison Falls. It is the only place where it is possible to see white rhinos in Uganda.

It is a very quiet and well-kept place. It is even possible to ‘adopt’ a rhino and name it as you wish (for a donation); so there were rhinos with quite interesting and funny names (one was named Obama, as its mom was Kenyan and the father from US).

Ssese Islands – Stargazing and Milky Way

Hello,

as mentioned in yesterday’s post, today I will be posting some pictures of the night sky and Milky Way in Uganda.
I am in a rush today, so I will be posting just the pictures.

Enjoy!

Entebbe – Bugala island, Ssese Islands

Hello folks,

last weekend, together with some friends, I went to Ssese Islands, near Entebbe, and stayed there overnight; specifically on the Bugala island, which is the largest island of the archipelago.

It took quite some time to get there: Entebbe is some 3 hours away from Kampala and the ferry from Nakiwogo to Bugala takes other 3 hours.
Although long, the trip was totally worth it.

Source of the river Nile in Jinja, Uganda

Hello there,

I quickly start off saying that I am currently having issues with the color settings of my monitor and some of the pictures I am going to upload might look slightly different than they are supposed to look. I am working on it.

Few weeks ago, after many failed attempts to go to Jinja with some friends, I decided to just go by myself and get over with it.

Jinja is where the river Nile starts its way up all the way to Egypt, the source is the point where the river leaves the Lake Victoria; it is debated where the source actually is, you can read more here; being this place heavily advertised as such (there is even a sign!), I will just overlook the fact that this could not be the exactly be the source and enjoy it anyway.

Jinja is a quite nice touristic town, 2/3 hours away from Kampala. It has a different look from the capital, the building styles are still heavily influenced by the strong presence of Indian people before the expulsion of all Asians from Uganda in the 70s.

Slow beginning of the week

Hey there,
after a long and nice weekend at Bugala island (the biggest island of the Ssese islands, in the Lake Victoria, Uganda), today I feel very slow; so, I am going to publish a short post.

Sunset in Kampala.

Sign stating the ‘official’ source of the river Nile, the longest river in the world.

/Nesh

Lake Mburo National Park – Conclusion

At last, we are at the conclusion of this journey through this incredible park, considering its size.
We had the chance to see and appreciate very different species and got to finally see them in real life.

A venue of vultures on a tree.

This was my first safari and I truly loved it. My first but not my last.
In fact, in 2 weeks I am going to undertake another and much longer challenge: Murchison Falls National Park.

Skulls of several animals, including an hippo (the largest one).

Lake Mburo National Park – Warthogs and Buffalos

After meeting many of the animals in the Lake Mburo national park, we are almost at the end of our journey. Now it is time for the buffalos and the very curious warthogs.

During our walk, we saw many warthogs (if you didn’t notice yet, they are nonetheless the same species as Pumba, from Disney’s The Lion King); they seemed to be, as I said before, very curious.

Lake Mburo National Park – Antelopes

Today, the focus is on the antelopes of the park.
As you will notice from the images, these animals are very curious and, after getting to know us and understanding that we are not a threat to their community, sociable; in fact, we could get quite close to them without scare them away or disrupting their behaviour.

Lake Mburo National Park – Zebras

Hello,

the journey at the Lake Mburo national park continues with a very beautiful animal: the zebra.
This time, the post is going to be mainly visual, meaning that I won’t write much and let you get a feeling by yourself.

Lake Mburo National Park – Olive Baboons and Vervet Monkeys

Today’s post is focused on the primates in the Lake Mburo National Park, namely the the Olive Baboons and the Vervet Monkeys.
Right after getting at the HQ of the park, a troop (yeah, I googled that up) of baboons crossed a road nearby.
At first, we were all very excited, it was our first close encounter with the wildlife (we had only seen some zebras on the way to the HQ, while being on the boda-boda); little we knew that we would see more and more of them and even from a closer distance.

Young Vervet Monkey

Lake Mburo National Park – Introduction

Hello everyone,

as promised, today starts the series of posts regarding my visit at the Lake Mburo National Park, located in the western Uganda.
Although being the smallest national park in Uganda, this park still hosts many species of wildlife, including zebras, hippos and buffaloes.

The trip to the park has been quite long; in fact, it takes slightly more than 4 hours to get to the park HQ from Kampala. What made the trip more exhausting was waking up at 4am and then having to wait more than an hour for the matatu (the mini-bus which brought us near one of the gates of the park) to be full.