Adventures in Uganda

By Bonnie Hinschberger

As I sit outside our tent in Queen Elizabeth National Park the birds are chirping and a lone male elephant can be seen in the distance sauntering through the forest, along the water’s edge, breaking branches and chewing on leaves.  We’ve just arrived at the park and have already seen a pride of tree-climbing lions sleeping in a fig tree.  We observed the lions and their behaviour, for what seemed to be a good hour, before continuing on with our game drive.  From a distance our guide then noticed that the lions were descending from the tree.  As luck would have it, the pride walked right beside our 4X4 and stopped to take a drink of water from a puddle in the road only a few meters from our vehicle!  As a hobby photographer, this was a ‘National Geographic’ moment that I will never forget!

As I write I am keeping a keen eye on the elephant to my left who is slowing encroaching closer to our tent.

We’ve only been in Uganda three nights and have already fallen in love with the place and the hospitable people.  At our gorilla trekking yesterday we were blessed with spectacular viewing of a silverback and his troop consisting of 16 family members, including two silverbacks, several females and two infants.  The original silverback is still the keeper of the troop but the other one is slowly working his way in and will eventually take over when he becomes the stronger of the two.

There are still many more experiences ahead including more game drives and chimpanzee trekking.  Based on the extraordinary beauty of this incredible country and all that Uganda has to offer I can hardly wait to see what lies ahead.

Oh, by the way, I was wrong about the lone male elephant.  It now appears to be a small herd of elephants and they’re slowly approaching in my direction.  While I’m not in any danger, I best retire to the tent.

More to come from Uganda!

Lala Salama