Behind the Scenes

The Uganda Wildlife Education Center was originally founded to accommodate confiscated and injured wildlife and to look after orphan animals which have been taken away from smugglers.  While they do reintegrate some of the animals, it is basically a zoo.  As part of their education program, we went on a behind the scenes tour, which is a two-hour tour that starts before the park opens so you get to hold, pet, and feed some of the animals.

We started out with the snakes and got the chance to hold an African Rock Python.  Thankfully Dad went first because Mr. Snake decided to poop on him, gross.  The snake was rather large and we both required help holding it.

I guess everyone poops, even snakes.

He was heavy!

Next stop, the giraffes.  We were driven around the Education Center in the back of a pickup truck.  As we pulled into their enclosure, you could tell they knew what time it was as they were lined up waiting for their morning treat.  We pulled the car in and the giraffes, along with an eland, marched in a line after our car.  They got a nice treat of carrots and eggplants.  Feeding them was quite entertaining, and even though we were in the truck they still towered over us.

Soo much fun!

The eland really wanted snacks too.

Got any food left?

After stopping by a few other animals (chimps, rhinos, and hyenas), we were headed to the big cats (my favorite)!  They recently got a new male lion since the one they had passed away last year from old age.  He was being held separately so they could slowly introduce all of the females to him.  Zara, the head female lion was extra friendly and we got to pet her.  The guide literally said, “You can pet her just don’t put your fingers by her mouth.”  Not sure why he needed to add that, because would most people really try to put their fingers in a lions mouth?

The lone male.

Just like any cat, she kept rubbing up against the cage and seemed to like being pet.

We got to feed her some meat, look at those paws.

After the lions, we were off to the leopard.  After just seeing two in a tree, I honestly didn’t realize how large they were up close.  He was slightly aggressive and I definitely would not want to mess with one in the wild.  We also had meat for him and he literally pulled this frozen hunk of meat through the tiny holes in the fence.  It was intense, to say the least.

He was a big boy.

He devoured the frozen meat.

Last, but definitely not least, was Charlie the elephant.  Unfortunately, he is the only elephant at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center, but he didn’t seem to mind.  At just 4 years old he’s already as tall as me.  We got to give him some treats and in return got to give him a hug.  It was love!

Afterward, we got to do the zoo at our own pace and then headed out for a nice lunch to reflect on all our travels.  Three weeks is going by so quick!

Hugging Charlie.

We had to give the command, "Charlie, up" as an exercise.

My new buddy, Charlie.

:)

Life in Kampala

After our 12-day trip around the country, it was unfortunately time for Greg to head back to work.  That meant I got to take Dad around and show him my daily life in Kampala.  He got to experience all the normal things, like going to 3 grocery stores and the butcher/bakery just to get everything needed, plus some of the more entertaining things, like experiencing Owino Market and bartering for shoes.

My good friend, Amanda, also had family visiting (we did Ziwa with them) and they wanted to experience volunteering at Kids Club Kampala.  First, we had to make a pit stop at Owino Market to buy more shoes (I don’t know how I missed a blog post, but I helped out at Kids Club with more than one shoe giveaway and have volunteered there a number of times with Amanda now).  Owino Market is the largest, and probably most chaotic, market in Kampala.  We were on a mission for children’s shoes, so we headed to our normal lady.  You pass by rooms/stalls filled with people sewing, piles upon piles of clothes, mounds of different herbs and spices, any kitchen gadget you could ever dream of, and for that matter, just about anything and everything you can think of is sold at Owino Market.  As we haggled on prices of shoes and searched through burlap bag after burlap bag, other Ugandans ran to different stalls in search of even more shoes for us.  Once we had enough, it was time to do a little shopping of our own.  Dad was already downstairs haggling over a few pairs of shoes for himself.  Once we settled on a price that was no longer the mzungu price, we were on our way to the Katanga Slum.  (Sorry, no pictures of the market.  Not the safest place to pull out a camera.)

Since we had some newbies with us, we were given another tour of the slum.  I think Dad had a similar reaction to my first time, where you just can’t believe in this day and age people are living in such horrible conditions.  But, as always the children all started coming out to follow us around and before long we all had kids holding both hands as we walked around.  This time, we even got to see where the group of ladies grows mushrooms (another small program run by Kids Club) and we got a preview on how they make the beaded necklaces from paper.

This little guy was too cute.

3 best friends.

This is the slums source of "clean" water.

The kids wanted to hold our hands on the tour.

They grow the mushrooms in a dark shed in bags with cotton.

One of the ladies showed us how to make the beads for the necklaces.

Once our tour was over, it was back to the classroom to see the kids and distribute some books that had been donated.  Dad made the mistake of picking up one of the kids, and next thing you knew there was a whole line of kids waiting to be picked up and swung around.  He made a lot of new best friends that day.  I think by the end of the day he was rather beat and we were ready to head home, tomorrow we are headed to the Ugandan Wildlife Education Center so we needed to rest up.

The kids were literally lining up.

Even playing futball, the kids still wanted to be picked up and swung around.

Dad playing futball with some of the Kids Club Kampala kids.

Book giveaway.

Just a Traditional Wedding Anniversary

One year ago (August 16^th), Katie and I said our “I do’s” and started our big adventure of life together.  What better way to celebrate this momentous one year anniversary then waking up super early and trekking out into a swamp with my dad to get our first look at the shoebill in the wild!  We were given some gumboots (what they call rain boots here) and ventured forth into the swamp.  It was a good thing that we were given the gumboots because the swamp water reached almost all the way to the top of the boots.  Our guide said that they had seen shoebills for the last few days that they went out, but we unfortunately were not so lucky.  The shoebills continued to be their same elusive selves and hid from us the entire watery swampy trek.  We did see a bunch of other birds, but our main goal once again eluded us.

Uganda's national bird, Gray Crowned Crane.

Woodland Kingfisher.

Trekking through the swamps in search of the elusive shoebill.

Not done celebrating our anniversary, we finally drove home from our 12-day adventure across the country and went out with a group of our friends to try the Ggaba Fish Market.  The fish stalls are in the bustling cramped market that is right on the water.  We sat at a large outdoor table and had a view of the water with the accompanying smell of old stinky fish, cooking oil for the hopefully fresh fish, and whatever random food whiffs that happened by.  Instead of ordering little fish pieces or fish sticks, here you order a full fried fish either big or small.  Being Dustman’s we had to go with the large fish.  The fish are cooked in a wok with copious amounts of oil.  Probably not the healthiest way to cook a fish, but definitely makes sure that the fish is cooked thoroughly and won’t get us sick.  After its bath in oil, the fish is served whole with a mound of salt, chopped onions, tomatoes, chips (french fries), and of course a beer.  I think my dad was a bit surprised at first, but soon after we were all picking away at the fish with our hands and all that remained were fish bones and a fried fish head.  The fish was really tasty and definitely something we have to do again.

Fishy, yum yum!

Where they cook the fish.

Grilled tilapia with onions, tomatoes, and chips.

The traditional way to celebrate a one year marriage anniversary is to have a piece of the wedding cake.  How are we supposed to do that all the way in Uganda?  Papa Dustman to the rescue!  My dad brought pieces of our wedding cake along with him and we were able to end the day snacking on our delicious wedding cake with some champagne.  Trekking for birds and having whole fried fish may not be the normal way to celebrate an anniversary, but we may have started our own tradition!

Happy one year anniversary!!!

Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

The Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary’s goal is to repopulate Uganda with rhinos and release them into the national parks.  Currently, there are no rhinos elsewhere in Uganda (besides two in a wildlife center), as they were poached to extinction here.  An ambitious goal but one they are doing a good job working towards.  If all goes as they plan, they should start introducing rhinos back into the parks (starting with Murchison) within the next 20 plus years.  It may seem like a long time from now, but it is actually pretty good considering that these guys are on the verge of being extinct all over the world.

The first person to greet us on our arrival to the Ziwa building was their friendly tamed warthog!  The warthog was found as an abandoned baby and raised by hand by the owners.  They tried to release her back to the wild, but she wouldn’t go, so now she hangs around the main building.  We were actually able to pet her, and it feels like petting a piece of leather that has wire bristles coming out of it.  While the warthog was fun, the rhinos were our reason for being there, so we joined a group with our friends who were also trekking for the rhinos.

Farcy the warthog.

Our trek to see the rhinos took all of about 5 minutes until we saw a mother and a baby rhino hanging out close to the path.  Usually, you have to walk or drive for a while to see the rhinos so we were very lucky.  The mom and baby didn’t seem to want us around as they kept moving farther and farther away from us.  Not getting the hint, we followed the pair for a while until they walked us right into another set of rhinos; 2 females and one male.  The males in the park have their horns cut (they grow back) since one of the males had killed another in a territorial dispute over the summer.  Not wanting to lose any more rhinos, Ziwa decided to cut all of the male’s horns so that they could still fight but not kill each other.  The rhinos made their way back to the main building and started grazing outside of a worker’s house.  We saw a guy open the front door, look at the rhinos, and then close it like nothing special was going on.  How crazy must it be to open your door and have 3 rhinos sitting outside of it?  Sorry, I’m going to be late to work today, my driveway is blocked by rhinos!

For all our pictures from Ziwa, check out our SmugMug.

Mama with her baby, who is currently the youngest but a new baby is due any day by another rhino.

They did not like us following them.

Katie & Greg with a male & two females in the background.

Greg & Dad with the three rhinos.

Why did the rhino cross the road?

Hanging out by the ranger's home.

It’s sad to know that these are the only rhinos in Uganda, but hopefully, everything goes as planned for Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and rhinos will one day live as wild animals in the parks again.

Next Stop, Murchison Falls

The final two locations for our journey around the country were Murchison Falls National Park and Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary.  The drive from Queen Elizabeth to Murchison started out on nicely paved roads.  We made our way to Fort Portal in good time so we decided to stop for some food.  This was a mistake since nothing in this country moves quickly, and a quick stop for lunch turned into a two-hour meal.  We hit the road again, only this time we were not met with nicely paved roads, instead we were met with hours and hours of some of the worst roads we've ever been on.  There were huge dug out gutters on either side of the road, as well as a large one down the center from the heavy rains.  Landmines of large rocks were in our path, making it even more difficult to navigate.  This portion of the trip alone took us over 6 hours!  I was never so happy to see a paved road in my entire life!  We've done our fair share of off roading but this was ridiculous.

Not even the worst of the seriously bad roads.

Since it was too late to cross the river inside the park, we decided to stay just outside the park at the Boomu Women's Group.  It was a taste of rural African living as we got stayed in little huts and had a home cooked Ugandan meal.  The place was quite unique and I would recommend anyone to stay there.

This isn't the exact one we stayed in, but they were actually quite spacious and cute inside.

Home cooked Ugandan dinner, quite tasty but lacking meat.

The next morning we set off to check out the awesome power of Murchison Falls.  We arrived at the falls and hired a guide to show us around.  He suggested that we start at the bottom then work our way up so that we would appreciate the view and power at the end.  The hike wasn’t difficult, but it was an extremely hot day and the heat was bouncing off the mineral rocks on the path making it even hotter.  Jumping into the water at the falls seemed like a good idea to help cool off, but I wanted to survive to see the rest of the trip so continued on through the heat.  We made it to the top and were greeted with an amazing view of the Nile River getting pushed through a small channel, then down the huge falls.  The water fell with such force that it splashed back up and made huge waves before finally coming to rest at the bottom.  It was a great sight and created tons of little rainbows.  We unfortunately had to be on the move to catch a ferry to the Northern side of the park where we were staying and where most of the animals are.

Abyssinian Ground Hornbill.

The mighty Murchison Falls.

At the bottom of the falls, breathtaking.

At the top of the falls, it was a hot one.

The Northern side of the park is where most of the wildlife is, and we saw a ton!  While we see most of the same animals in each park, it is always a different experience when you see them in a new landscape.  We did get charged at by elephants again, which for us was becoming a usual occurrence.  One thing we had not seen on this trip yet was a giraffe and we saw a lot of them.  We also got to see them run which is a really funny sight.  Giraffes run as fast as they can, but instead look like they are moving in slow motion as their legs don’t seem to keep up with the rest of their body.  Our hotel was on the outside of the park on the Northern end so we made our way there, only to be blocked by a flooded road.  Unsure if we could cross, we started driving off the path in hopes of finding a dry spot, but then saw another car make it through the flooded road with little difficulty.  We backtracked and drove ever so slowly through the flooded road, praying that we were going to be okay.  Once we were out, we were greeted by another flooded road!  Since we didn’t see the other car, we figured they made it through so carefully navigated the river again.  Finally, we made it to the hotel and relaxed for an early morning.

Jackson's Hartebeest, aka Squish Face.

Patas Monkey.

Greg with some Giraffes.

Elephants!

Who doesn't love a family of elephants walking by?

The next morning we were met with the wonderful surprise of a family of lions.  Mom, three babies, and a male were all present!  Mom was not too happy with the male and we got to see and hear them roaring at each other.  Have I mentioned how much I love the baby animals, plus lions are always a favorite sight!

Mama was not too happy.

Family love!

Baby lions, my favorite!

As always, I took way more pictures than I would like to admit.  To see all our wonderful safari pictures from Murchison Falls, check out our SmugMug page.

I may start to sound like a broken record, but the safaris in Murchison were filled with more of the sights and wonders of Africa.  One new wonder at the hotel which took us by surprise, although the workers didn’t seem to care at all, was a HUGE, size of your hand, beetle.  The three of us stopped and stared wide-eyed.  Two workers came over to see if we were okay, so we pointed at the beetle expecting the same reaction.  Instead, they looked at us and basically said: "yeah, so?"  Apparently, hand-sized beetles are a normal occurrence and nothing to be surprised about.  Luckily that was the only beetle we saw of that size for the rest of the trip.

The one animal that cannot be seen on any Ugandan safari is a rhino since they were hunted to extinction here in the 1980's.  To see them you have to go to the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary which was our next and final stop.