I’m in a bit of a quandary. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m just biding my time until Madagascar. I suppose I could go on safaris, boat trips and guided walks. But ironically, here in Uganda, anything related to nature is astronomically expensive. This country is decidedly NOT for the budget minded traveller, unless he or she wants to spend all their time sitting around doing nothing.
Allow me to demonstrate. I had checked into The Bush Lodge so I could stalk the famous “lions in the trees.” Sounds intriguing, right? However, in order to do so, I had to pay the park entrance fee - $48US - for a permit good for only 24 hours. Meaning that if I went back the next day, I’d have to pay ANOTHER $48. However, if I’d gone with a guided tour, I would have paid the entrance fee PLUS at least another $100US. And that’s for one game drive. Some people here are doing 2 a day, pretty much every day. Except, of course, when they’re driving to the next park, for which they have their own Land Cruiser and driver, who travels with them and also acts as their guide. We’re talking mega-bucks.
In any case, irrelevant. I pays my money & I does my drive. Did I catch a glimpse of the elusive lions in the trees? I did not. Did I manage to get lost on the poorly marked, ever-forking trails? You bet I did. And every trail and every fork looks exactly the same. At some point I remember thinking,”I’m never going to get out of here.” Obviously I did, but there were definitely a few “moments.”
Hopefully this gives you some idea of the isolation you feel in these places. That little doodad reflected in the windshield is my GPS tracker. Thank God.
The good news is that even though I was just stumbling around, this IS Africa, so there’s always a chance you’ll come across something.
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