Adventures with Julia

At 9am Kenneth arrived at the Guest House to take us on the first leg of our safari journey.  He is a driver for The Uganda safari Company, which is handling our travels through Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  He had been our driver during our stay in Uganda in 2018 and it was nice to see him again.  He drove us north through Kihihi and Queen Elizabeth National Park to a put in at Katunguru, where we transferred to a 17 foot motor boat. 

 In 20 minutes we arrived at Honey Bear Bush Camp. We were greeted by the camp crew, including Jonathan Wright, the owner of the camp and a friend. Our first meeting with Jonathan was 22 years ago when he guided us through a couple of parks in Uganda and took us to his home in Kampala to meet his wife and children. That is when the friendship really began.  From there he guided us through Queen Elizabeth National Park us to Mweye Lodge, where we met up with Scott and Carol.  Two years later when we returned to Uganda he took us to a new concession he was developing in far NE Uganda, called Kidepo. It was not yet open, but there was a skeleton crew who cooked for us and made up a room for us to sleep. We toured around the area with him and saw animals, a little village nearby called Lorokul, and the unfinished remains of a hotel Idi Amin had started.  In 2014, we were in Uganda again. We landed in Entebbe and were transferred to Jonathans new home in the outskirts of Kampala. After an overnight visiting with him, we spent a night at a lodge called Wild Waters, where the source of the Nile departs from Lake Victoria on its way to Alexandria and the Mediterranian.  Now we were seeing him again for the first time in 10 years.  After a hearty greeting we were taken to our bush camp cottage, complete with an outdoor bathroom and an elevated bucket with holes in it for a shower. 

We were right at home. For three days we went on game drives and boat excursions to see animals and birds as well as thousands of hippos, some of whom came through camp each night to get to their grazing fields.  Each day we had early morning coffee, followed by a game drive coffee break about 10am, lunch in camp about 2pm, sundowners at 5pm on drives or boating excursions and dinner in camp at about 8-8:30pm.  It was too much food and too late to eat for me, but we braved it out rather than be impolite. 

 As the camp was on the Kazinga Channel with water everywhere, so that made for great elephant, hippo and bird watching, all of which I could look at and listen to for hours.  One time we even encountered a 3 foot green snake swimming near the boat. It was very pretty.  We had two incredible game drive experiences.

 The first was a drive up into the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains to see several craters that were all linked together and had erupted only 7,000 years ago. We drove around the ridge of several of them and looked into densely wooded craters or crater lakes. Some of the lakes contained fresh water and had lovely reflections and others were extremely saline and used to collect salt.  It was a very scenic drive. 

The other game drive was to look for lions and leopards with a research scientist who brought a tracking device. He shared his efforts with us. The scientists track lions until they are able to collar a few of each. Then they followed the collared animals to learn what they were doing.  He told us he had 3 lions tagged with collars. Once we got in the area where he expected the lions to be, he got out his tracking device and homed in on the animals.  He was always successful and we found the lions asleep in the grass with full bellies. I doubt that we would ever have seen them if not for the tracking device.

 The grass was quite tall. The tracker did not tell us what he was looking for. He just kept using his machine and telling the driver when, how much, and where to turn. Finally he had the vehicle stop and told us the animal was 5 feet in front of us. None if us could see anything but grass. Finally the animal moved a tiny bit and we could just make out a leopard. It was very exciting to see it through the dense grass.  That was a real treat. 

Other activities included a walk through Jonathan’s new, River Station camp, an unfinished, upscale camp near Honey Bear Bush Camp. It will offer guests a choice of style, comfort and price.  Jonathan is doing the same thing at Murchison Falls. He currently operates a bush camp in the Murchison Falls area and will now add an upscale option there as well.  The last activity I especially enjoyed was a slow boat ride from camp looking for birds. Several I have observed include: Pied and Woodland Kingfishers, Striated Heron, Great White Egret, Grey-headed Kingfisher, Little Bee-Eater, European Bee-Eater and a Crested Crane.

January 19, 2024

Had a relaxed morning and departed Honey Bear Camp at 11am by boat for Katunguru, 20 minutes away. Then drove 25 minutes, stopping midway for a herd of buffalo to pass, to Kasese airport, where we waited until 1pm for a Caravan to arrive. 

The flight to Kidepo was an uneventful 2.5 hours through continuous haze, diagonally from SW to NE Uganda. The drive to Jonathan’s Kidepo camp, Apoka, was about 25 minutes.  Once there we settled into our very nice bungalow, complete with a normal, indoor shower and an outdoor bathtub. There was even a swimming pool.