Out of Africa
After three nights in Jinja we crossed back into Kenya, spending a night in Eldoret before getting to Lake Naivasha. While there we biked through the nearby Hell’s Gate National Park which turned out to be a lot harder and hotter than we expected, with less wildlife than we saw during our visits to Maasai Mara and Lake Nakuru. I did get a pretty cool shot of three zebra butts.
No promises, but this is probably the last animal shot for a while
From there we headed back to where the overland trip started three weeks earlier: Nairobi. We camped for two more nights (20 total), said our goodbyes to the friends we’d made (who still had many more weeks ahead) and helped to welcome the assortment of new souls who’d be filling up all those empty seats on the truck—including our own.
On the evening of June 4th, we flew to France by way of Doha, Qatar and Milan, Italy, arriving in Nice the following morning.
White Nile Whitewater
After our long day with the mountain gorillas, we had a free day in Musanze, so a group of us went to see Lake Kivu, which forms the border between Rwanda and the Congo. It’s a limnically active lake, which means there’s a risk, however minuscule, that an underwater eruption would cause captured CO2 in the lake to bubble up to the surface. And because CO2 is odorless and heavier than oxygen, anyone near the surface would face certain death due to asphyxiation without having any warning (except perhaps the lake suddenly appearing carbonated). So of course we went swimming.
The next day we said our adieus to beautiful Rwanda and crossed back into Uganda, spending the night at a campsite on the shore of Lake Bunyoni. From there we continued on to Eldoret, stopping for the night, before finally getting to Jinja where we planned to spend three nights. Jinja is something of an adventure playground, with most activities centered around the class 3-5 rapids that occur just beyond where the White Nile exits Lake Victoria. The first day we were there, everyone signed up for a full day of rafting (I mean, c’mon, whitewater rafting at the source of the world’s longest river—hells yeah!), and on the second day folks did whatever they wanted: more rafting, kayaking, tubing, quad-biking, or in our case, not much of anything.
View towards Bujagali Falls on the Nile from our campground
On the morning of May 28th, we got picked up at the campground and shuttled over to Nile River Explorers to get suited up. With our packed breakfast in hand (fruit salad and egg chapati) they bused us over to the put-in, gave a quick safety talk, and got us into the rafts. 70 people in 10 rafts, and this was the slow season. The rapids in the White Nile are separated by long pools of fairly deep, still water, so whereas most rafting guides would try to avoid the tricky parts of a big class 5, the guides on the White Nile seem to relish every opportunity to send the raft, and everyone in it, flying into the drink. So after a comprehensive out-of-boat training session in the calmer waters, we started off.
All aboard!
The day consisted of 8 series of rapids, most of them class 4 and 5, one of which was the tail end of a class 6 we had to portage around. Though several folks in our group desperately wanted to flip, and we came close a few times, we never went over (which I kind of appreciated). However on one occasion we did lose Stephanie, as we hit a rapid unexpectedly off-center. (Sadly we didn’t get any photos of this momentous occasion.) One of the other reasons we weren’t too worried about falling out was the dozen or so whitewater kayakers along with us who acted like pickup trucks whenever anyone had the “misfortune” of having an out-of-boat-experience. Stephanie was quickly towed back to us, a little shaken, but still in one piece.
The most memorable rapid for our group was probably the first, a class 5 which had two possible exits: a gradual chute off to the left, and a 3 meter high (10 foot) waterfall straight ahead. Of course everyone wanted to go over the falls, but we ended up being only one of two rafts that successfully did—and we were the only raft to do so without losing anyone in the process! As a result, we felt pretty awesome for the rest of the day. Here are the photos:
This is how the day began
Mountain gorillas
The alarm went off at 4:40 so we’d be up in time for breakfast. At 6 we loaded ourselves into two 4x4s for the 45 minute drive to Volcanoes National Park, where we met up with the other 50-60 people who’d be trekking that day. Around 8 we divided into groups of 7-8 people. Each group would be visiting their own gorilla family for one hour. At $500 per person, I believe this ranks as the single most expensive activity we’ve done on our adventure.
Our guide for the day, Oliver, said we’d be going to visit the Titus group, a family of 12 mountain gorillas living on the Karisimbi Volcano. We drove for another hour over bumpy dirt roads to get to the start of the trail.
Around 9 we began hiking straight up the volcano—starting at around 3500 meters above sea level. As we were not yet within the boundaries of the park, the hillsides were cultivated like the vistas we saw upon first entering Rwanda. The “trail” was essentially a series of small, makeshift pathways between various plots of land. Children who lived at the farms along the way would run out, wave, and shout “How! Are! You!” The weather was overcast, which seemed to get thicker the further up we climbed.
Immediately a few people in our group started feeling the effects of altitude sickness, particularly nausea and dizziness. In addition, none of us had been doing much in the way of physical activity for quite some time, so it was slow going. I might be mistaken, but I believe our total ascent was in the neighborhood of 500 meters (1640 feet).
After nearly an hour of uphill hiking we reached the boundary of the park, a stone wall demarcating the jungle from surrounding agriculture. Apparently its purpose was more to keep farmers and poachers out than it was to keep animals in. In addition to our guide, there was a man with a machete who helped carry some bags, and a man dressed in military fatigues with an AK-47 machine gun—for our protection: poachers not being the most scrupulous type and of course the wild animals.
Once we crossed the stone wall boundary, we entered the thick jungle. The trail, if one could call it that, consisted of several inches of thick, slippery mud. We must have slogged through that for another 45 minutes before we finally got word that we were close. We turned off the “trail” and into the untrammeled jungle. The man with the machete went ahead and cleared somewhat of a path. Finding a sturdy footing amongst the dense undergrowth was next to impossible.
Without much warning, we stumbled upon Rano (which means “reconciliation”), the silverback and leader of the Titus group. He was by himself, nestled in the bush, munching on the surrounding foliage. Initially we had been instructed to keep about 7 meters (~20 feet) between ourselves and the gorillas, but given the thickness of the jungle and our surprise at stumbling upon him, we were no more than 3 or 4 meters away. We just stood silently and watched as he munched. Eventually the guide instructed the man with the machete to clear a path further along so we could get a better vantage. After a while Rano ambled along, out of view.
First glimpse of Rano, the silverback, from behind
Rano in profile
Just a light snack
Crash of rhinos
Not far from the flamingos, we stumbled upon a family of white rhinos near the shore of Lake Nakuru—our first rhinoceros sighting on the trip (or ever). They didn’t seem very disturbed by our presence, so we were able to get quite close while they napped. Eventually they resumed grazing and wandered off.
White rhinoceros family dozing
Upsy daisy
Flamboyance of flamingos
One of the highlights of our safari at Lake Nakuru was getting out of the matatus near the shore to experience a “flamboyance” of flamingos up close—or as close as they’d let us get. Flamingos are strange creatures. Contrary to their iconic one-legged pop culture pose, they spend a lot of time with their heads in the water, scooping up and filtering algae (their food) using special hairy structures (lamellae) built into their unusual bent beaks. Each of us has some prototypical idea of what a “bird” is (e.g. wings, feathers, beak, flies), yet I am amazed at how much variation and adaptation there exists among birds alone, at how specialized something as “basic” as a beak can be.
Flamingos as far as the eye can see
Flamingos in the grass
The “Greater Flamingo” stands out, literally
Safari at Lake Nakuru
The first stop on our overland expedition was Lake Nakuru National Park, 160km northwest of Nairobi. According to the standard itinerary we should have stopped earlier, at Lake Naivasha, to visit Hells Gate National Park, but our mountain gorilla trekking permits (the trip’s raison d’être) were issued for the following Monday, so we had to make tracks to Rwanda. Afterwards we’d have a chance to leisurely visit everything we’d passed on the return to Nairobi.
We arrived at the campground near Lake Nakuru in the early afternoon, and began to set up. Everyone chose jobs for the duration of the trip—mine was stove set up, Stephanie’s was table, lights, and garbage set up. We also volunteered to be the first cook group (we’d partnered with Naas, the South African), so the three of us began making a spaghetti bolognese (sauce from scratch) while the rest of the group set up their tents and got situated.
We were up at 4:30 the next morning (May 17th) to help get things ready for breakfast. Due to the early rise it was simple meal: cornflakes with rehydrated milk, yogurt, coffee, and tea. The night before we’d made sandwiches to bring with us for lunch. Then we cleaned things up so we could depart at 6 for the park. The 15 of us were split up among two safari matatus (vans). The sun was just beginning to rise as we drove towards the park.
Two steaming buffalo and a waterbuck in the distance
The game drive followed several well-maintained roads around Lake Nakuru. Right off we saw a few waterbucks, many distant birds along the shore, a few zebras, and the occasional buffalo shadowing an egret (or was it vice versa?).
Stately waterbuck
Telephoto landscapes
I picked up a 50-200mm telephoto zoom lens back in March (see: More elephanty goodness) primarily for the Maasai Mara safari—and any other wildlife we might encounter on our overland trip through East Africa. Looking back at my previous posts, it was completely worth it.
Still, I really love taking wide-angle landscape shots, but it just wasn’t feasible to switch back and forth between the 50-200mm and my workhorse 21mm pancake lens. Lacking the luxury of two camera bodies, I left the telephoto zoom on during the entire safari.
That doesn’t mean I couldn’t or didn’t take any landscape shots. Maasai Mara is sufficiently grand that even at its widest (50mm or 75mm-e) the lens was able to capture some pretty stunning vistas. Here are a few of my favorites.
Savanna grass
Topi grazing around an acacia tree at dusk
Painterly clouds at dawn
Yawning animals
Several animals at Maasai Mara caught in the act of yawning.
Hippo yawn
Post-coital lion yawn, tongue out
