Tuesday, June 28, 2010

We did some game viewing on the way out of Lake Mburo National Park. This park has a great deal of prey but few predators as it is a relatively small park. However, Joseph tells us that Lions were spotted here last year for the first time in over 50 years. This could be a problem as there are many cattle both in and outside of the park. The cattle here have extremely long and curved horns that sometimes meet in the middle. These are called Ankole cattle and they are not supposed to be inside the National Park lands. If they are found there, they are rounded up and placed in “cow prison,” a small corral in which wayward cows are placed until their owners bail them out of prison and take them home. We were speculating that last night’s dinner might have been an unlucky prisoner.

Leaving the park we took some great video of the yellow beaked lapwings entertaining us with a road side show, a momma nad baby veret monkey and a herd of 200 or more Ankole being driven down the road directly at us. Among the highlights of our viewing this morning were many small herd of Impala, Waterbuck and Zebra. A red beaked kingfisher, many beautiful blue starlings, a pair of sacred ibis, a spoon billed ibis, and a black headed heron.

We stopped at Mbarra to get petrol and the girls opted to use the local loo. The first option had shoes but no feet and when the door was pushed it pushed back. Occupado. The second option proved to be somewhat lacking in amenities. Let’s leave it to say that the women came back feeling the necessity to wash their feet and cover themselves with purel.

The ride to Bwindi from Lake Mburo takes 7 hours so we stopped for a late lunch at Chumbura Gorge. The Gorge is about 150 feet deep from the edge and is surrounded by Savannah. But the Gorge itself is rainforest and is home to a group of Chimpanzees. One of those chimps could be seen on the other side of the Gorge in a tree on the top eating from a fig tree. That means he climbed at least 100 feet just to eat his lunch.

Joseph informs us that Chumbura means “I can’t find it.” This comes from the fact that people who lived along this river would have their things washed down the river after a flood. Since the river empties into the Kazinga Channel and eventually Lake George, they would inevitably come back from their search for their things saying “I can’t find it.”

We took the Ishasha Road to Bwindi and arrived there in the late afternoon. Buhoma Lodge is where we are staying in Bwindi and we must be up at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday to go Mountain Gorilla Tracking. More on that tomorrow.

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