Long Trek into Rwanda
A new road was supposed to be completed from Bwindi into Rwanda by now, and so a year ago that’s how we planned the trip. Oops.
When the new road is completed, it will be hardly a 4-hour journey from Bwindi to Parcs de volcans in Rwanda. In fact, it will be easier for [...]
Impenetrable Rides
By jimheck in OnSafari, Planning Travel, Uganda on August 10, 2010
Particularly in Uganda where charter flying remains in its infancy, a comprehensive safari has to include long drives. Today we traveled from Ishasha to Bwindi.
Forget about asking me how many kilometers we had to travel; that’s useless. Consider that Alex calculated that for much of our safari from today on we were averaging [...]
Lions before Gorillas
Lions, hyaena, topi, waterbuck, warthog, and of course lots of kob, filled our two days of game viewing in the Ishasha sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP).
This is the closest it came to rivaling game viewing in Kenya and Tanzania. This group – like the vast majority of travelers – come to Uganda [...]
Kyambora Gorge
Like Alice walking through the Looking Glass, we stepped down into the magical Kyambora Gorge for our second chimp trek.
Only 40k from Mweya, Kyambora is a world onto itself. It stretches 21 km into the Kazinga Channel and is at no point more than about 200m wide and often much less, but about 150-200m [...]
A Scenic Wow : QENP
Beautiful scenery, weird and abundant localized wildlife, and great fun on the Kazinga Channel headlined our day in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
QENP wraps itself around the Ugandan side of Lake George, and all of Lake Edward, and includes the famous Kazinga Channel which connects the two. Because of the on-again, off-again disturbances in Uganda’s [...]
Chimp Wonderland: Kibale N.P.
Kibale National Park is the best place in the world to view chimps, and today our expectations were met and exceeded.
The majority of us trekked today, waiting for longer than we expected at park headquarters, for the trek which began around 11 a.m. Aston was our guide, one of the better; he’s been there [...]
Celebration & Sanity!
The Kenyans dispelled all myths yesterday that they were incapable of stable government. The national referendum for a new constitution passed resoundingly more than 2 to 1.
Although implementation will be arduous, and the time available before the next election poses something of a challenge, it is clear that Kenyans across all spectrums of society [...]
Forest Magic
We left Semliki very impressed, but I put the chances of it ever recovering to the outstanding game reserve it once was as very low.
Monday night we were dumped on big time by a Ruwenzori thunderstorm when we were still 3k from the lodge and it was getting dark. Our second sundowner in the [...]
Both Sides of the Moon
The Cleveland Zoo safari spent several days in the Semliki Reserve adjacent Lake Albert right on the Mountains of the Moon. We were lucky to see both the dark side and the bright side.
We flew from Entebbe to the Semliki Reserve in one of the few charter planes that exists in Uganda. Unlike [...]
War on Security
As we were traveling from the Entebbe (Uganda) airport late last night, the first topic we discussed was “security.” Security against a catastrophic 9-11 is better in Africa than at home.
My first clients, the Pomerantz family, (Roger and Cathy Colt and son, Daniel) remarked first that they had recently been to Egypt where it [...]
To the jungles of the Gorilla
By jimheck in Mountain Gorilla, Rwanda, Uganda on July 30, 2010
As I leave for Africa to guide the Cleveland Zoo to see mountain gorillas, it’s worth repeating what a wonderful success story this is.
When EWT sent its first tourist into Rwanda’s Parcs de volcans in 1979, there were less than 320 mountain gorillas, a dangerously low number. At the time scientists had determined that [...]
The Dominoes Reach Somalia
Tuesday Congress gave President Obama additional emergency funding for the war in Afghanistan. But the real new news is that America and Britain are beginning a new war in Somalia.
This was a week where terror succeeded. It began with the Al-Shabaab (Al-Qaeda) bombings in Kampala, which like 9/11 are intended to provoke. [...]
We Won! Power to YOU!
Guess what? We won an important battle: The Wall Street reform act signed by President Obama this week regulates U.S. corporations using Coltan from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)!
Reread my blog of May 10, “Evaporize Goma!”
There I discussed several of the great horrors of Africa : war, corruption, child soldiers and [...]
‘NO’ for Violence in Kenya
By jimheck in Planning Travel, Politics, Safety on July 26, 2010
There’s going to be trouble in Kenya on August 4 and for a few days afterwards, but not as serious as in 2007. Continue on safari, but be vigilant.
A week from Wednesday Kenyans go to the polls for the first time since the violent election of December, 2007. This time they aren’t electing [...]