Uganda- The Return 2017
Where Silver (Silverback Gorillas) meets Gold (Golden Monkeys) and Chimps!
What you will see. And More……
After being in Uganda on two different occasions the last year, I wanted to go back again to see the country and more of the wonderful game parks and primate trekking they have. This country has one of the highest concentrations of different species of primates on earth and I was on a mission to see as many as I could.
With one of the highest concentration of different primate species in the world, this wonderful country with beautiful terraced mountain landscapes is an incredible place. Uganda no wonder is a haven for bird watchers, animal viewing, and primate trekking. Its many national parks and rivers, provide something to do for every type of person in the world from game viewing, to mountain trekking, to extreme water sports.
Evarest is an amazing guide with knowledge of all the areas of the country. Anyone traveling to Uganda should contact him as he can arrange just about anything, from accommodations to trekking, to water sports, to safaris. His familiarity with this country and the villages will astonish even the hardest of travelers to please.
The land of Uganda is filled with many different cities and villages to make for a great people watching experience. The land is encompassed by green terraced mountains, to tropical rain forests, to savanna grasslands. The people like most African countries are very poor, yet very friendly and you can find a wide range of people doing their every day tasks to photograph and talk to. They are very welcoming to Mzungu’s (white people), and are always willing to lend a helping hand with some of the best customer service in all of Africa.
Golden Monkeys
Only found in four national parks in the world in Uganda, Rwanda, and DRC, this monkey is an endangered species because of their territory being threatened by recent wars and limited habitat in which they have lived. Trekking them, can be long as they are in different parts of a mountainous bamboo forests and often do not come down from the trees and are very shy around humans. Their constant moving makes them hard to photograph, but all worth it in the end as you get to spend an hour seeing how they live.
Gorillas
Uganda, along with Rwanda and DRC are the only places in the world you can see the Mountain Gorillas in their natural habitat. Of course the price for this is steep ranging anywhere from 600-750 USD. This is my second time seeing them and I can honestly tell you that I would do it over and over again. Each experience is different, as you can hike 1-4 hours each way depending on where they are located. You can expect a hot sweaty mountain climb either way but the experience is truly rewarding. The group we tracked this time was the Nshongi Group which is one of the first groups in that area to be tracked some 30 years ago. We got to see the baby gorillas fruitfully playing in his natural habitat around his mom. The Silverback, which was massive in size remained within the bush, not wanting to be photographed, but sometime, you just have to put down your camera and enjoy the hour you have with these amazing gentle giants.
Of course being on the road means you will see many different species of animals. Some you have to look for, and some just pop out of you at plain sight (much live the olive baboons who like to jump on cars). It teaches you to look around and notice what is in the beautiful surrounding countryside through the mountains…
Queen Elizabeth NP- Ishasha Southern Sector
No tree climbing lions to be seen 🙁
Queen Elizabeth National Park is one of the bigger national Parks in Uganda. With its different types of land from mountains to jungles to savanna grasslands, to lakes, it is no wonder this National Park has everything there is to offer for a safari experience. Ishasha was a beautiful savanna grassland area and home to the tree climbing lions. Unfortunately for us, we did not view any of these which was my main reason for going. There may be as little as 44 left in Ishasha and it is very hard to spot them. We did however see a variety of other wildlife and how they survive on this wicked environment. With no tree climbing lions to be seen, looks like I will have to head back there someday….
Queen Elizabeth NP- Kazinga Channel
Just north of Ishasha lays the land of lakes with lakes named after formal British Monarchies, dot the landscape. Kazinga Channel which can be described as a bird watchers paradise is a deep channel that besides birds has hippos, crocodiles, buffalo, elephants, and much more. The people in this area make their living on fishing and are out on boats for hours of the day. The pictures and bird shots prove this is an amazing area…
Chimps
There is not many places in the world anymore that you an view Chimps in their natural habitat. I was lucky enough to see a family when I was in the forests of Guinea and also Nigeria. However being in Uganda, they have a massive population of habituated chimps that live in their normal every day life. We did not have a tracker to find them for us so we had to use a guide and trek them ourselves with sounds and the last spot they were seen. Watching them play and eat and groom each other was an exhilarating experience along with some of the sounds they make in communicating with others. Like the Golden Monkeys and Gorillas, you are only allowed to spend 1 hour with them and be careful not to touch them, even though some of them are very curious about you. I wish I would of gotten a better shot of the baby, but the mom would not have any of it as i got 5 meters away and she would shield him….some of the photos I got were amazing as they actually came down from the trees to visit us….
Bigodi Wetlands
The last stop we took was to the Bigodi Wetlands. This wetland area is home to 8 different primate species. Some of the rare primate and bird species endemic to this area we saw were: Black headed weaver,Common Bulbul, Ross’s Turaco, Red Colobus Monkey, Black and White Colobus Monkey, Olive Baboon, Red Tail Monkey, Crowned Hornbills, L’hoest monkey, Black and White Casqued Hornbill, Yellow bill Barbet, Red billed Paradise Flycatcher, Red Leg Sand Squirrel, Grey Cheeked Mangabey.
This was a great nature walk for primate and bird watchers alike and really offered a glimpse on how fast and good you can be with your camera….
One response to “Uganda- The Return”
Hello Daniel, it is good to see you are out enjoying nature and sharing with all of us. Thanks for giving me a wonderful morning of pictures and stories.
Hope you are having a good year.
Naomi