Sun, July, 1 - Exploring Queen Elizabeth National Park

I awoke feeling much better and joined the others for breakfast at an extensive buffet.  I had pastries and tea.  

I decided that I needed some time off..

Our Rooms

Banded Mongoose

The plan for today is to take a drive around the park in the morning, a boat trip on the channel between Lake George and Lake Edward in the afternoon and then a break until after dinner for a night drive.  I decided to stay at this lovely hotel and relax, as I’ve just begun to feel well, and catch up on (start actually) sending the blog and clearing up emails.  I know I’ll miss a lot, but four hours alone will be heaven!

Warthogs by our Room

I sat on our terrace overlooking the lake and watched a couple of warthogs stroll by 20’ away!

I took a short walk around the grounds (you can’t go far as the hotel grounds are fenced, although the warthogs somehow come in!).  I saw quite a few weaver birds and tried to ID them on my own which was fun and watched a couple of Banded Mongooses stroll by and returned to my porch where I could hear the hippos below in the river, chuckling among themselves.

I looked through my bins and saw, on the opposite bank, buffalo wallowing in the water, and some huge, shiny wet hippos relaxing on the sand, and then two elephants emerged from the water. I guess they can use their trunks as snorkels!  They came up onto a different part of the beach as they are very territorial and started spraying dust all over their bodies.  Another elephant arrived from a different direction and he and one of the original pair spent most of an hour nuzzling and intertwining their trunks - very endearing!

Catching up on the List at lunch

I painted a watercolor of this wonderful view and relaxed until Bob arrived back from his game/bird drive.  He said they hadn’t seen too much except for a pair of warthogs emerging from a den, followed by a stream of tiny young ones!   We walked over to lunch and joined the others at a table overlooking the river and ordered from a menu.  I had a delicious fish stew of local tilapia right out of the river, and Bob had an enormous pork chop, plus soup and tomato/mozzarella cheese salad.  We all loaded onto one of the vans for the short drive down to the river where we boarded a small boat for a 2-hour ride.

In our Open-top Van

Cape Buffalo

We rode over to where the buffalo and others were bathing and continued in the direction of Lake George, observing birds including a large flock of African Skimmers, tern-like birds with long red bills, the bottom mandible of which is longer than the top - for flying above the surface of the water and scooping up bait.

African Skimmers

Elephants horsing around

We turned around and motored toward Lake Edward (our hotel is on a channel that connects the two lakes) and passed hundreds more buffalo and hippos who seem to peacefully coexist, unlike elephants who prefer to be alone with their own families. 

Madagascar Bee-eater

We reached a fishing village where the men were preparing to go out and catch tilapia and catfish.  They only fish at night as that’s when the hippos come onto land to graze and doze.  The hippos are territorial against other hippos (and humans) and each “school” has its own beach and water area and will chase away invaders.  They are responsible for more human deaths than any other African animal!

Fishing Village Boats

Yellow-billed Stork 

'The Croc winked his eye..."

Pied Kingfishers

We returned to the dock at 4 PM and up to the hotel and immediately loaded onto the two vans for another drive.  We didn’t see  much wildlife driving on the many tracks within the park.  We stopped by two volcanic calderas, the second of which had flocks of yellowish/pinkish White Pelicans and Pink Flamingos. 

Great White Pelicans & Great Cormorants

Salt-gathering Operation at a Caldera

We bought Cokes at a tiny shop and continued on.  It started to get dark and I wondered how we would get back for the night drive.  It turned out that that would be our night drive as we continued into dark.  Paul amazingly stopped his van and called out a Verreaux’s Owl which he spotted in the dark on top of a huge euphorbia and illuminated with his spotlight.  We drove back to the hotel and through a campground and saw three hippos ambling along!  We also passed a tent - I wouldn’t want to camp near where hippos graze!!

Back to the hotel - it was 8 PM by then and we went in to dinner.  I went to the bar and got rum for Bob and me and a coke.  Late night’s dinner and bed.  SO glad I took off the morning, as the promised afternoon break never materialized!