Kalinzu Forest & Lake Mburo, Uganda
The day following our little jaunt into Rwanda, we drove a few hours to Kalinzu Forest Reserve. It was raining pretty heavily, and water was leaking from the air conditioning vents (the joys of budget travel). On top of that, at the next accomodation (Leopard Rest Camp), there were limited room upgrades available. They were snapped up pretty quickly, and so most of us ended up setting up mattresses in the “conference room”. Not ideal, but it was only for one night. I also didn’t really want to put a tent up outside in case it rained and my gear was soaked. Interestingly - there were one or 2 bats perched up on the ceiling of the conference room, which added to the ambience.
The camp offered a “coffee experience” which was actually pretty cool. The host brought over some locally farmed and roasted beans, we grinded them using an oversized wooden mortar and pestle, and enjoyed the freshly brewed coffee with some bananas - both were surprisingly delicious. We sat around the fire in the evening and turned in relatively early. Before going to bed however, someone in the group found out about a couple murdered in the area recently while they were on tour at the Queen Elizabeth National Park. Whilst it was probably unlikely to happen to us, it was interesting to see our guides handle the conversation, and really what could they say? Yes it was possible, and no there’s not really a lot they can do to avoid it - if some crazy terrorists from across the border happened to run into us at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was already resigned to accepting the risk - I was already this far into Africa, a long way away from home, and there wasn’t really an option to do anything else. Funnily enough, the camp had actually hired some guards to patrol the camp site (not sure if it was just for show or they were actually equipped to stop a terrorist attack - one of them only had a bow and arrow).
On the morning of the 6th November, we ventured into the Kalinzu Forest to see the chimpanzees, and also visited a tea plantation, stopping for a brief lunch by the bus afterwards.
We headed back across the equator in the Lando (Uganda is one of the few countries int he world where you can cross the equator on land), and then headed to our accommodation for the night at Nile River Explorers River Camp.