#mazike

We got up relatively early for our game drive, only to find that the ‘hot’ shower was cold. We braved it and were very awake for breakfast. They were offering a full English breakfast, but J stuck with fruit and S had some baked beans, mushrooms and fruit. Dona had the full breakfast. We then headed out for our game drive at Queen Elizabeth park. The park is 1,950 square kilometres. Despite the size of the park, there are less than 150 known lions and 130 known leopards in the park. Our chances of seeing either were not great. Interestingly, the park extends into the DRC. However, unlike humans, the animals can cross between the two without a visa or a negative PCR test.

After we arrived at the park checkpoint, we were encouraged to bring one of the park rangers with us on our game drive as a guide. As we were told you cannot go off road in the park, we were concerned that we wouldn’t see very much. We were pleasantly surprised. J’s biggest goal was to see a leopard. We got to see one up close in the daylight, drinking from a pond and taking refuge from the heat in the shade. The ranger even let us go offroad so S might be able to see it. She loaned him her binoculars and he thinks he spotted it.

We saw some new animals we had not previously seen, including a forest buffalo, marshal eagle and a proper viewing of the Ugandan kobs. We also saw a couple of other cool things, including a massive herd of over 200 cape and forest buffalo, which were apparently interbreeding, a herd of Ugandan kobs leaping across the grassland, and a family of warthogs with tiny babies which the guide estimated to be a month old. We also got to get out of the vehicle to go up to the edge of a lake, where there were two schools of hippos. We were within 10 metres of the hippos but were not in danger as they don’t like to get out of the water during the day. We also saw a lot of waterbucks. We’d seen the occasional waterbuck in Kenya, but not this many. Apparently the waterbuck has a gland which secretes a nasty tasting substance into the waterbuck’s flesh when they are threatened, so the cats don’t like to eat them. The lions here prefer the Ugandan kobs and warthogs.

After the game drive, we returned to the lodge for lunch. On the way back to the lodge, Dona stopped by another roadside stall so J could taste some freshly roasted plantain. The plantain was hot and the outer skin of the plantain had crisped up nicely over the fire.

After lunch, we headed back out for a boat trip on the Kazinga channel, which connects Lake George to Lake Edward. The wildlife along the lake was amazing. We saw a number of new animals and birds, including a monitor lizard, crocodiles, sea eagle, long-tailed cormorant, hamerkop, great pelican, great egret, palm-nut vulture, kingfisher, black-winged stilt, sandpiper and a black-crowned night heron. There were many others, but we can’t remember their names. Apparently Uganda is home to 620 species of birds. We saw elephants bathing, eating and drinking in the water. At one point they started to trumpet and make other menacing noises to scare us off. The nearby school of hippos was none to pleased and they also moved on, grunting and snorting along the way. The amount of animal noises was impressive. We also got to see a very rare albino hippo. The albino hippo has pink skin which is extremely sensitive to the sunlight and they almost never come out of the water during the day. Once the ride was over, we met Dona and J noticed a massive marabou stork sitting on top of the building next to us. J got to see it up close before it flew off. It is a massive bird and a very strange-looking creature. We went back to the lodge to relax while Dona went to look for a new air conditioning fan belt. Apparently the mechanic who came to fix it while we were on our boat trip brought the wrong belt.

We headed back to Mazike for dinner. Dinner was a roast chicken leg for J and a vegetable rice dish for S. We sat by the fireplace for a while and then headed off to bed.

We woke up and had breakfast. S had cereal and J had watermelon. Weirdly, when they brought the milk for the cereal, it was hot. We learned that people in Uganda tend to have hot milk in the mornings and they don’t generally have cereal (this is a western thing that they do for the guests). After climbing down from the (tree)house, we headed to the next lodge, Mazike, which borders Queen Elizabeth national park, the oldest park in Uganda.

On the way, we learned a lot about Ugandan culture and history from Dona and he asked us lots of questions about English / US culture. At one point, Dona stopped at a roadside stall and took J to see all the fresh fruit that was laid out. J got to taste a fresh passionfruit. Aapparently you can open them without a knife by simply squeezing them. Dona explained this to J after she spent 5 minutes trying to pick open the fruit. Dona also picked up some massive avocadoes so J could eat them in a few days, once they are ripe.

Driving to the lodge, we occasionally saw animals, but saw our first antelope, a Ugandan kob. We arrived just after mid-day at Mazike. This lodge has fixed tents and is decorated with stone, natural wood and thatching. The view is over a massive valley and there are multiple seating areas in the common space. There is even a swimming pool. Like all the other lodges we’ve stayed at, it is quite lovely. Apparently the place was built and managed by a Spanish family that fled back to Spain soon after COVID started. We are the only guests here and it does not appear that there have been guests here for months, if not a year. There are also only three staff members (Edwin, Caleb and Florence), who are handling everything. There are normally around 20 staff here. Edwin, the chef, has now become the interim manager.

Lunch was delicious. We ordered a bottle of the house white, and they came out with a magnum bottle of ‘Four Cousins’ from South Africa. That is the smallest bottle they had. S had a vegetable soup and dessert. J had an avocado salad and watermelon. We passed our mains (buttered tilapia) on to Dona. Given that there are only three of us staying at the lodge, we have invited Dona to eat all meals with us. He previously explained to us that he could not eat with us without being invited. We told him we would have expected him to just pull up a chair, so we’ve now invited him. Confusingly, he also explained that if we invite him, he cannot say no. We hope that the good food is compensation for him having to eat every meal with us.

After lunch, we headed off to see a unique salt lake, which is used to produce natural salt for Uganda. Water from the salt lake is pumped into 10 metre squared, individually owned evaporation ponds. They go through three cycles of evaporation. Depending on when you take the salt out, it can be used for different purposes. The second and third cycles are used for animal and human consumption, respectively. Some of the salt comes out with a dirty black colour while other salt comes out a bit whiter. Our salt lake guide showed us what the salt for human consumption looks like and rattled off a bunch of health benefits. She said it was good for high blood pressure and diabetes. This is strange as in the US and the UK, you are told to limit your salt consumption if you have high blood pressure. She said that is because salt from ‘S’ country’ is processed and contains lots of harmful chemicals, whereas this salt is natural. Dona bought a big bag for his wife.

We then headed out. On the way, we saw a lake full of hundreds of flamingos. To get closer to the flamingos, we stopped by the side of the road and walked toward the water. We walked through a group of young boys (probably between the ages of 5 and 10) playing football, with goals that were only a metre wide. They asked us to play and we just laughed. Dona explained it’s been ages since these children will have seen a tourist / foreigner. When we got back into the car, we noticed that the air conditioner fan belt had burned out.

On the way back, we saw a herd of elephants and Dona said he spotted two female lions, but it was dusk, so neither of us could see them.

We got back to the lodge and headed straight to dinner. Dinner was a lovely black pepper steak for J and Dona, and a vegetable and rice stir fry for S. We took our magnum bottle of house wine and sat by the fireplace. We chatted with Dona for a bit and then went to bed.