Thursday August 12, 2010 – Murchison Falls to Lake Albert

Thursday August 12, 2010 – Murchison Falls to Lake Albert


Today was a driving day. We greeted our guard, who had spent the night fighting the mosquitos by the fire and keeping the early morning baboons at bay, had breakfast, and then packed our rather damp gear up into the back of the truck. I have managed to misplace one set of car keys, which I had to drive back to the campground last night, as well as my phone. Both intensely annoying but likely somewhere in the car. So off we went towards the Lake Albert Safari Lodge, our destination for tonight. We turned a bit early and had an interesting drive along a glorified cowpath through a number of small villages heading west to the main north-south road. Our gps is actually quite handy, although we haven’t really figured out the details on how to find places, but we can track our way along using it and the paper maps I have. The nice thing is it tells us how long to a turning, which is really handy because at a top speed of 20-30 km it does take ages to get anywhere. Anyway, we drove through numerous small clusters of huts filled with children shouting “muzungu, muzungu” and laughing as we drove past. Three white females in a 4x4 is apparently a very amusing sight. This appears to be a cassava region – on the ground in front of many of the houses are plastic sheets covered by white chunks of cassava, which apparently takes a lot of processing to make edible. Women walking along the roads have big bundles of the cassava roots on their heads, presumably waiting to be chopped and soaked and whatever else is required. There is a quite a mix of livestock – fat-tailed sheep, ankoli and ankoli cross cattle with their huge long horns, and many many goats. There is an interesting genetic colour pattern here – they look like dark coloured goats with variously sized overlapping white polkadots. Very attractive actually. Plus chickens and the occasional ducks, and very scrawny looking dogs.
We pass through some lovely forest areas, where we stop to look at a dead civet by the side of the road, and generally try not to get run off the road by the buses and trucks coming in the opposite direction. I am the driving wimp – I pull over at least more than my half of the way, but the oncoming traffic seems to proceed at full speed down the middle of the road. I’m not sure what they would do if I refused to pull over, but I’m not about to put it to the test. A lot of the taxis have religious slogans on their rear windows, not sure if that gives them some sort of celestial advantage in traffic accident prevention.
We wind our way up the rift escarpment, with views out west over Lake Albert, until we eventually reach Hoima. We stop here for lunch, search in vain for my phone, and catch up on the latest episode of “La Tormenta”, one of the long running soaps. The Ugandans are really wonderful with Sarah – I have yet to see a person lose patience, as soon as they recognize there is something not quite right they often ask why, or what happened, and are extremely nice to her. She has spent a lot of time observing in kitchens and holding hands with a range of strangers. Hoima is a dusty, dirty, messy, busy town so we fill up with fuel, enjoy the few 100 metres of tar road that tantalizes us, and backtrack onto the dirt and gravel road which is pretty rough in parts. We wind back down the escarpment again and, following the gps and a henscratched map I made on a bit of paper, eventually reach a wide grassy plain dotted with Uganda kob and eventually pull up in front of Lake Albert Safari Lodge.
Lake Albert Lodge is a lovely collection of thatched buildings right on a cliff overlooking the lake. Bruce, who owns the concession, is a South African who I have had several recommendations to. There is a dining room, a lounge with books and games and a TV, some lovely outdoor seating, a kids playroom, and a small pool out back towards the lake. It’s gorgeous. They obviously weren’t expecting us, but when we said we were camping he said “OK, but the campground is a mess – a swamp and full of burrs. Would you like to stay in a banda for the same price?” Not an instant of hesitation on our part – Adbul, who seems the in charge guy for today, installs us in two gorgeous stone and thatched cottages looking over the water. I have a 4-poster king bed plus single for Sarah, a hammock in my living area, and bathrooms with hot showers. OK, except for the fact that the water system is a bit buggered and they are working on it. But we get our hot showers, unpack and dry our soggy tent and fly, and make the acquaintance of Robin and Jade, ages 8 and 5, Bruce’s two daughters home from Kampala for the school holidays. It is soo nice here! After unpacking (and finding both my phone and the extra car keys) we go to look at Bruce’s two horses, one of which hasn’t been feeling well. Bruce and I consult over medications and such, and inject the horse, and then Sarah gets to lead it round and round a small pen for about 15 minutes – undoubtedly the high point of her day. The groom, Alex, seems also to be the main minder of the girls and is happy to have Sarah along with them as well.
Sunset over the lake is beautiful. We decide to splurge full out and sign up for the meal plan: soup, main-course, dessert; served in the dining room with Bruce and his girls and Justin, a civil engineer working in the area and based here. Looks like we are the only guests tonight. We pack it in early and walk back to our bandas under another brilliant sky, with just a crescent of moon. There are lights on the lake and the sound of paddles slapping the water, rather charming but is apparently illegal fishing in action, and the fireflies are buzzing about the gardens.