Excursion to Murchison Falls National Park

Murchison Falls is the yellow area to the right of the "Democratic Republic of Congo" label.  

We had beautiful weather the entire trip.

I decided to join some fellow Americans in the form of a couple of residents and a fellow fourth year medical student for a trip to Murchison Falls National Park on the west side of the country, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.  I absconded from work on Thursday and we drove about 4 hours to see the falls and go on a few game drives and a boat tour.  The park is no doubt one of the most special places I've visited.  The sheer number of animals was incredible.  I was expecting to drive for hours and see a few antelope-like animals, maybe an elephant, a giraffe and some water buffalo but we literally saw hundreds of animals.  We saw them in droves populating the big rolling hills of more open areas as well as more forested land that take up the huge expanse of the park.  And that's after some significant poaching that happened in the past here.  To give you a sense of how this region was a hiding ground for the Lords Resistance Army, in 2002 a guide for the company that took us on the trip was in the far remote north area of the park and was shot and killed by members of the LRA.  Fortunately it seems as if the LRA has been significantly weakened since then.  

The Toyota Hi-Ace 4 wheel drive van that to my surprise rolled over every obstacle we encountered.

One of the few nicely paved and marked highways on the trek from Kampala to Murchison Falls National Park.

Getting back to the animals, our first encounter with wildlife was after driving for a while on the last stretch of dirt road before reaching the campground when we saw several groups of baboons.  They seemed to be drawn to the road and one member of the group, probably the alpha male, always lingered in the road the longest and casually made way as we passed by.  They are apparently only dangerous if you have food that they want.  Otherwise they don't bother people.

These were baboons we saw on the road on the way in to camp.

One of several baboons that greeted us on the drive in to camp.

Murchison Falls.  Here the Nile River flows through a narrow section of rocks.  Two days later we took a boat tour upstream and saw the falls from the bottom.

Our next encounter with wildlife was with the camp warthogs.  They didn't seem to mind all of the people walking near them.

When we arrived to camp, the guides gave us an overview of the facilities and some safety issues regarding the wildlife.  They said that the warthogs don't bother anyone and aren't a danger unless provoked.  More worrisome are hippos.  They said that 'if' a hippo comes into camp, it will come at night and will only get angry if someone shines a light in its eyes or otherwise provokes it.  And to keep hippos or other animals from coming near the tents, the staff would light kerosene lamps in front of each tent that would last until daylight. 

The first night, I had gone to my tent after having seen the enormous hippo for the first time.  I fell asleep at around 8:30 and at about 9:30 I woke up to what sounded like large stamping feet a little distance from my tent.  I listened, trying to figure out what the sound was and if it meant the hippo was angry and about to charge my tent.  The sound got closer and closer, and I started ruminating over whether I needed to scream, turn on a light to scare the hippo or to be prepared to roll in between the two wooden bed frames in my tent and get into the fetal position.  The sound kept getting closer and closer and I peered over the canvas to look through the netting and saw the hippo right outside my tent.  It slowly moved forward and made several chomping sounds with each step, at which point I realized that the sound was actually the hippo pulling out chunks of grass as it fed.  I lied there in bed as motionless as possible as it seemed to circle my tent and then slowly get further away.  After about 10-15 minutes of feeding, all of a sudden the hippo decided it was time to leave because I heard it gallop off at what sounded like a fairly rapid clip.  

I'll just let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

A water buffalo.  These are actually some of the most dangerous animals in the area.  The older males eventually get pushed out from the rest of the group and live out the rest of their life alone.  They are sadly referred to as 'losers'.  

Jackson's Hartebeests (Jacksons) have really long narrow heads and gold-colored eyes.

Elephants

Elephant eating

Elephant along the Nile

We saw these types of dwellings frequently on the drive to and from Kampala.

Giraffes 

I'm not sure what kind of bird this is but I'll take credit for the timing on this shot.  One out of a thousand probably isn't a rate to go gloating about but I'll take it.

These baboons were at the entrance to the camp area.

This hippo let us know we were getting too close by charging out of the water.  Imagine that thing outside of your tent sounding like it's trying to chew its way into your tent to eat you.

Even with that generous belly and those stubby legs hippos can run up to 40 km/hr.

On the boat tour of the Nile there were hippos everywhere.  During the day they hang out in the water and at night they  go feed on land.

A dead hippo with a crocodile peering its head out of the water on the left.

Murchison Falls from below

Sunrise from camp

This was by far the most dangerous stretch of road on the way back to Kampala.  The road didn't have two full lanes and trucks that seem much larger than the ones in the US forced the driver to constantly gauge whether to slow down or stop before the next hole on the side of the road  or go into the dirt or to accelerate.