Murchison Falls National Park

Murchison Falls National Park is a 5-6 hour drive north from Kampala. We did that, and it took 5-6 hours!

The park is 4000-some square kilometers (big) and has more in common with United States’ wilderness areas than it does our national parks, in my mind. Mostly gravel roads (being rebuilt by a Chinese construction firm, something we’ve seen a lot in both Kenya and Uganda), the park is divided into two halves by the Nile River.

Astute readers will note that this is the third time the Nile has come into our story. First at its source at Lake Victoria, second at Denis’ island, and finally third here in the park.

Our first order of business was a drive to the top of the falls, where we did a bit of hiking and exploring. The Nile narrows to only 7m (meters, not miles, which is equivalent to only 3/4 of an American football first down!) wide at this point, which means there is a massive amount of water tumbling over the falls in a very confined space. It’s powerful!

Once we got that out of our system, we caught the ferry (being replaced by a bridge, built by the Chinese, of course) to cross over to the North half of the park, where the lodge we stayed at is located. This would be our jumping-off point for our two safari trips, driven by Denis in our good ol’ “Tourist Vehicle” and guided by a professional park guide named Samuel. These were private tours; just me, Liz, Tim and the guides. Jeff opted out and did some work instead. *shakes head*

The savannah area north of the Nile is wide-open with a maze of rough dirt roads, suitable only for 4×4 vehicles and skilled drivers. Our most successful trip was the afternoon/evening trip, which we took the day we arrived. The morning safari left an hour before sunrise. We saw a staggering array of animal life on display.

Photo dump!

After our morning safari, we cleaned up, had a late breakfast and took a boat tour up the Nile, towards the falls that we had explored the day before. Once again, this was a private tour and we pretty much got to do whatever we wanted, stopping at our leisure and asking questions along the way. Thousands of birds, dozens of crocodiles, hundreds of hippos and around a dozen elephants made for quite the trip!

Photo dump!

All in all, an amazing experience. Tomorrow we head out early for a 10+ hr drive (that’s 10+ American football games by the game clock, or 1.5 games by the actual wall clock) as we head towards the final phase of our trip in Rwanda.