Uganda 22: July 4, 2005

As our time in Uganda winds down, Liz and I are trying to make a few last trips around the country. Uganda's premiere national park is Murchison Falls, located on both sides of the Nile as it pours into Lake Albert. Following the Embassy's Fourth of July reception (held on the first), Liz, me, and our friends Kathleen and Shawn loaded up the car and headed out. (Photos Here) Murchison is about 300 kilometers northwest from Kampala -- a five hour drive, the last three on dirt roads. The ride is fairly easy, nonetheless, with little traffic once you get outside Kampala. An hour out of Kampala, it begins to get drier, flatter, and hotter. As we drove into the park, we passed lines of women carrying jerry cans of water on their heads as they returned home from the local water pump, groups of young men playing checkers or carting loads of bananas or charcoal on their bicycles, and groups of children merrily waving to us (or asking for money). Older women sat on the beaten earth in front of their huts threshing grain or roasting corn. In smaller trading centers, shoppers bargained for produce, used clothing, consumer goods and a variety of knock off products. Embassy policy currently only allows us to visit the south side of the park due to instability in northern Uganda. The northern half of the park is in Gulu district, where the Lords Resistance Army has been active. There have been no problems in the park for several years, but better safe than sorry. That's a shame, because much of the wildlife is located on the far side of the river and it's the closest Uganda has to the Kenyan and Tanzanian parks when it comes to the volume of game. During the 1970s, Amin's troops killed many of the animals in the park and, in fact, made the Ugandan rhino extinct (there are plans to reintroduce the rhino to the park). At one point, Murchison was the destination in east Africa to see wild game. That is not the case these days. Nevertheless, Murchison still hosts a variety of land, river, and air fauna. As we drove through the park, we passed troop after troop of baboons camped out on the road. Most scurried into the bush as we zoomed past, but a few younger members stopped and gaped at us. We took the afternoon boat cruise up the Nile and saw hundreds of hippos and numerous crocodiles. Several fish eagles gazed at us from the tree tops. As we meandered up the Nile, groups of water buffalo paused from drinking or bathing to look at the boat. We also saw a family of giraffe and a lone elephant munching on a tree. Eventually, it became much more humid and we heard a dull roar. Foam whirled in the current and flowed downstream. We turned a corner and saw the cause -- the falls. Not as big as Niagara or Victoria, they still are mighty powerful. The Nile, already a major river, is squeezed through a six meter chasm and rockets outward. After returning to camp, we took quick showers in our open air bathrooms -- the water dribbling down from a 2 gallon drum. We had cocktails on our porch and watched the sun go down over the river with the Blue Mountains in Congo off in the far distance. That night, as we slept, hippos grazed underneath our cabin and monkeys scampered overhead. The next day, after lounging by the pool in the morning with Kathleen and Shawn, we packed up and headed home. On our way, we drove up to the falls and picnicked. We were able to walk right up to the river and peer over the chasm. Our clothes were soaked from the mist and the humidity. The flora next to the falls is what you would expect in a rain forest -- ferns and vines -- instead of the dry grassland across the river. The Nile rushed by and thundered downwards.