Tue, Jun 26 - Driving to The Impenetrable Forest

Black-crowned Crane - the National Bird of Uganda

We had one last breakfast of eggs and toast at the Arcadia Cottages, and packed our bags and our picnic lunches onto the vans and set off on the long 172 mile drive southwest from the Entebbe area to the mountains of southern Uganda.

Pied Kingfisher eating a small frog

Mother and Baby Giraffe

We slowly left Lake Mburo National Park, stopping frequently to bird and missed the Red-faced Barbet for the third try.  We stopped by a small marshy pond and Bob spotted a rail skulking through the papyrus which turned out to be a Striped Crake, and an extremely rare bird, and a life bird even for Paul, our local guide, and an expert birder!  With this piece of good luck, it was decided to go back and try once more for the  Red-faced Barbet.  A couple of us declined, preferring to stay by this peaceful pond and watch a troop of baboons playing.

  30 minutes later the others returned having seen the barbet and we took off, quite a bit behind schedule.   We had to skip our picnic spot and ate our box lunches in the moving vans.

Euphorbia Tree

Euphorbia detail

We finally returned to asphalt and picked up speed, driving through agricultural fields of corn, banana, papaya and eucalyptus.  All the native vegetation has been removed even from the hills.  It’s a scary thought that the population will double in 15 years as the only area to expand into is the parks!   We passed through villages stretched along the highway with tiny shops manufacturing bed frames, iron gates, beauty parlors, and fruit stands.

Pushing 100 lbs of Bananas up hill to Market

At about four PM the landscape became very mountainous and we climbed up and up until we turned off again onto a narrow, rutted dirt road that wound  up hillsides covered with impossibly steep patches of sorghum, tea, corn, and other crops.  Kids in school uniforms, women carrying supplies on their heads and babies on their backs walked along seemingly for miles, dodging the traffic.  Suddenly we could see in the valley far below a wall of vegetation marking the border of the park and we entered the lush greenery of the virgin forest.  There were enormous trees with new species of monkeys running with incredible speed through the treetops!  

It was quite dark when we finally arrived at Gorilla Mist Lodge at 8 PM.  It was quite chilly at 8000’ but even so, the reception/restaurant area was open to the elements.  We were served soup and had a buffet of various starches and meats.  Tomorrow is the famous birding hike, the Mubwindi Swamp Trail down 2000’ and back up again.  Bob and I opted to skip it as it is very steep and can take ten hours.  Brian had been informed of this months ago, but hadn’t told Paul, so everyone had to figure out how to handle the vans/luggage/logistics.  Eriab, Paul’s assistant, will stay with us, it turns out.

Welcome to the Hotel California!

At nine we walked down steep irregular steps to our rustic cabin.  It a quite cold, but since there was hot water available for a short time, I took a shower, shivering in the warm trickle of water!  We found hot water bottles in our beds, a lovely surprise and fell fast asleep.   At two AM howling wind tore off the Velcro-ed coverings to the window so I staggered around and re-afixed them, and fell asleep once again.