First, a little addendum – just before we arrived at Queen Elizabeth National Park in the last post, we officially crossed the equator – slowly you get old and forgetful.

On the morning of Dec. 17, we got back on the road to get to our next destination. We wanted to explore the southern part of the Queen Elizabeth National Park during a game drive in the morning. This part of the park is especially famous for its lions, which actually rather untypical for these animals, like to retreat to the trees to rest there. But first we had to reach the southern entrance gate and on the way there, we could experience for the first time the real African road conditions. For a distance of about 90km we needed almost 4 hours.

Finally arrived at the gate, there was the usual procedure – pay parking fees, disinfect hands and take temperature. The thermometers here in Uganda seem to work differently. With us, body temperatures are almost always measured around 23.7 degrees Celsius – always commented with an “Ohhh. Very good.” Andreas had “I’m so excited” from the Pointer Sisters on his lips when Hamza asked if we were ready to go “hunting” for tree lions. However, our tour was not to last long. While Hamza was driving and looking for lions and still talking to us, what had to come … we got stuck in the mud. Once we didn’t look at the otherwise dry bush path and we couldn’t move forward or backward in the deep mud. After a few own attempts to get free again, which unfortunately only led to the fact that now nothing moved at all, because the differential was now buried, only Hamza’s grip on the cell phone helped to call the park rangers for help. The 2 rangers arrived with tools after about 30 minutes, on foot mind you. It would take another 2 hours and a lot of effort and sweat to get the vehicle free again. Hamza and the rangers alternated here constantly – also after repeated demand, we should rather remain in the car and could not do much, except from the inside with “freizaukeln” and from elevated position to scan the area for predators.

  • The three heroes of the day

Our journey was now over and so we first took up quarters at Topi Lodge to fortify ourselves and wait for the upcoming evening game drive. With this we would have had again the chance to spot the lions or to get stuck again. Arrived again at the south gate, one of the two rangers who had helped us before wanted to go with us. So he cleared everything with his superior officer and swung himself, his binoculars and his AK-47 into our vehicle. Actually an honor, because he wanted to lead us and Hamza to the areas, in which the chance was larger to discover the lions. Actually such an escort usually costs around 40$ – with a wink and a smile he just said that he wanted to make sure that Hamza didn’t get himself into the mud again. In general, so far all the people here in Uganda are very friendly and always – no matter what the situation – have a smile on their lips and time for a few jokes. Our drive through the park should take a little more than 2 hours and we caught wonderful sights under the slowly setting African sun. We could again observe some “pumbas”, monkeys and a huge herd of antelopes. Among the latter was also a herd of Topis – a kind of antelope which can only be found here in this part of the park. The lions again hid too well from us and so we “only” saw a roaming hyena a good 1km away, which the ranger who came with us spotted out of the corner of his eye, at full speed. Well … full speed means in such a national park a speed of about 20km / h, but it was always a mystery to us with what accuracy the locals recognize the animals, where we ourselves only looked into the dim.

  • A hyena in the far distance

Back at the accommodation we had dinner, which unfortunately fell short of the previous meals. The served “chicken” was so tough that all 3 of us thought we had been brought a rubber ball. Also interesting to observe was that overnight 3 fully armed rangers (including machine gun – Andreas thought it was a PKM) from the neighboring barracks were assigned to protect us. With question marks over our heads, from what we had to be protected, we went to bed early, because the next day we should get up very early to experience the biggest highlight of our stay in Uganda.