Tuesday August 17, 2010 – Lions in the morning, running over my phone, and sunset at Pelican Point

Tuesday August 17, 2010 – Lions in the morning, running over my phone, and sunset at Pelican Point


And 6:45 it is – we load up on crackers and snacks to last us until breakfast, and pile into the back of Siefert’s landrover, with James and the three Danes. We game drive through the western region, spotting elephant and a number of antelope, and cross over to the flats on the east side of the main road through the park. We start where they saw lions yesterday, with James tapping on the roof when we need to stop for him to pick up signal, or when we have to change directions. It’s bundu bashing – cross country and around trees and thickets, finding the best track around the mudholes and through the gulleys. We get closer and closer and there should be a lion there – and then we see it – a lioness in a small thicket of trees having a nap. And then we suddenly notice another lion just on our other side, and a third close by. And then with the antennae we realize there is actually a group of about 5 lions here. It’s amazing how they camouflage – you can look all around and then suddenly realize you have been parked only 10’s of metres away from a lion which is watching you very intently. But these all have great big bellies and have obviously eaten. So we circle a few bushes to get a good look at each one – and identify them either by their collar frequency or by something distinctive in their appearance, such as their whisker pattern. Once that group is ticked off the list we go looking for the next one – a female they haven’t seen in a while. We track all over the place, searching for the signal, and then suddenly we see another lion in a bush – a large mature male with a huge mane and a scarred face. He’s hidden in thicket with the branches camouflaging him, but with the binoculars we can see him clearly, as he looks at us and then decides we aren’t of sufficient interest, closes his eyes, and goes back to sleep.
Lion tracking finished for the moment we continue on to a fishing village on Lake George. At least at one point it was a small fishing village on one of the most productive lakes in Africa. At present it is a desperately overpopulated dusty stretch of impoverished settlement on the shore of a lake that no longer has sufficient fish to support the families, let alone run a commercial enterprise. The remains of a fish processing plant sit on the outskirts of the village, a remnant of a thriving enterprise from a few decades ago. The government allowed the fishing villages to exist in the parks, with a boundary around them and the understanding that there would be a cap on population and they would not use the park. Well that hasn’t worked out too well. The population has exploded – we are surrounded by a huge group of very grubby children in pretty tattered clothing, the fishing doesn’t feed the population, they are acquiring cows and goats, which is against the rules, and because there is no grass in the designated communal area the stock are taken or allowed to wander into the park where they compete for the grass, degrade the environment, and get eaten by lions and leopards which results in retaliatory poisoning. Not to mention the constant need for wood for cooking fires, which can’t come from anywhere other than the park. What a mess! James, who is Ugandan, is absolutely disgusted with both the lack of foresight of the people living there, as well as the Ugandan parks Department for not dealing with the issue. Apparently there are strong wildlife and parks laws here, but a big problem with their enactment. At least the kids are more interested in interacting with us than hard core begging, which gets to be pretty draining. They have no idea what to make of Sarah, who pats the little kids and wants to hold their hands. Business finished we take a tour up the lake past another equally unsuccessful fishing village, a big luxury lodge under construction, and back to the main tar road for a quick soda stop and then return to Mweya.
Laundry and lunch, accompanied by the mongoose and the warthogs. While Elizabeth was scrubbing the office manager came up and watched her for a bit, asked her if she had ever done laundry by hand before, and then said she would have helped except she was working. I guess our ineptitude is pretty apparent. I, in the mean time, when on search for my phone at the visitor’s centre where it was last in my position. Good and bad luck: I dropped it, I ran over it, someone found it but there is a big gravel crush in the screen which means that nothing is readable. But, the sim card is still good so I can make and receive calls, just nothing that involves the screen – like texts. So kind of back in business for now.
James and the Danes pick us up for a late afternoon drive down to Pelican Point, a view point onto Lake Edward. Elizabeth climbs up on the roof for her turn. We drive through Katwe, another on the edge of the park town. They are next to a salt lake, where salt is harvested using the old traditional way by evaporating small squared of salt water. In the 1970’s there was a German salt plant here, but it failed, according to some sources because they didn’t recognize how corrosive the salt water would be on their piping. Along the road we see several cow groups of elephant crossing the roads with lots of young calves – elephant populations are apparently doing well. We turn off towards the lake and drive through tall straw-coloured grasslands to the edge of an escarpment looking down on an expanse of riverine forest leading on to the lake. It’s a beautiful spot – and one that just begs for sundowners which unfortunately we haven’t brought. Apart from which we have to be back in the main park before 7:00, which is pretty much sunset. Elizabeth and Christine pile in the car for the drive back, apparently they were just about suffocated by the lake flies as we drove out. We pass a huge group of kob, who are all on high alert looking off to the west. James tells us there must be predators or poachers there – something getting the wind up the group. More elephant on the road, our timing seems to be dead on for them, and then back to the camp for dinner and an earlier night for all of us.