Saulters in the {BIG} City: Mini

Thursday morning we went to resident lecture followed by post-take rounds. We’ve learned a new trick – apparently after post-take rounds all the upper level residents go to the canteen and get chapatti (kind of like a tortilla) and tea. Anem and I had been showing up on the wards right after post-take and then sitting there for 30 minutes until everyone else showed up. So there’s the answer – tea and chapati! After post-take rounds we actually left the hospital a little early so that we could get on the road to Lake Mburo!

Lake Mburo is one of Uganda’s national parks. Legend has it that there were two brothers, Mburo and another one who I can't remember/pronounce his name. One night the other brother had a dream that they were in danger where they lived in the valley and they needed to move to the mountains. Mburo refused, and stayed camped in the valley while the other brother moved to the hills. That night, a great flood came and Mburo drowned in the valley, and the lake was subsequently named after him. This is one of Uganda’s smallest national parks, but specifically has a lot to offer in the way of birding, and has several big game animals to see.

We had planned to travel here a month or so ago along with the other UVA group that’s here. We filled up two 4x4 vehicles, and headed across the countryside for an hour and a half drive. We passed a lot of beautiful scenery, and once we got closer to the lake we drove through several small villages where children who are used to seeing Muzungus in their territory would run up to the cars and wave. Once we entered the park we were immediately greeted by some monkeys and impalas before heading to our tent camp.

Now the name “tent camp” doesn’t quite do this place justice. It was a beautiful setting with a main open-air lodge where we had our meals and visited, then a short walk down a gravel path were several luxury tents. Apparently they were designed after what Ernest Hemmingway lived in many moons ago. There was mosquito netting inside the tent, warm water for washing, and we even had our own room attendant named Sunday who brought us hot tea in the mornings. The setting was beautiful, but it turns out I’m a bit of a weeny as I stayed awake a lot of the night listening to mysterious sounds and getting scared I was going to get eaten by a buffalo or something.

While we were there we did a boat ride on the lake where we spotted hippos, a crocodile, and several beautiful birds. We also did a walking safari at dawn where we saw zebras, bush bucks, impala, buffalo, a mongoose or two, some baboons, and a big trail of African fire ants. We did the walking safari with an armed park ranger as several years ago some tourists were killed by a buffalo in the park.

It was really a wonderful trip, even though it was just for a day!