Another long travel day to start out our Africa leg. First up: Istanbul to Entebbe with a quick layover in Rwanda. We were wondering what the layover would be like since our tickets were only showing Entebbe as final destination. But turned out we just stayed on the plane to let passengers off and then passengers on. Kind of like a shuttle between the countries. Once in Entebbe, we had a slight issue with our visas but after a quick ATM visit all was resolved. We then had to wait about 2 hours for our small flight to Kasese. Grant was excited for this flight as it was on a small puddle jumper plane. And instead of getting to jump out of it, he got to enjoy the views of Uganda and land in a grassy field.

In Kasese, we were met by our driver, Godfrey, who would take us the 2 hours to the Chimpanzee Forest Lodge. He offered us some bananas to eat along the drive (which were actually better than grocery store ones!). And the crazy thing was we could throw the peels out into the road! Though it did take me a little bit of time before I actually did. There were so many goats, cows, and banana trees along the roads. Coming in on a Saturday, lots of people were dressed in their best coming/going to church. The road to the lodge went through many towns and along different types of terrain. So many smiling faces along the road especially among the kids. Godfrey noted it’s like we are special guests when people from our country travel through and the kids jump with excitement and yell “How are you?” if you smile and wave at them as you pass by. Godfrey stopped along the road a couple of times to allow us to get pictures especially of the crater lakes. The views surrounding the lodge were incredible. There were so many tea plantations around. We didn’t realize how prevalent tea plants were in Uganda, but we learned it is one of their biggest exports.

Once at the lodge, we grabbed some breakfast that ended up being a pretty big spread. We each had an omelette, pineapple, African coffee (coffee with milk), passion fruit juice, and bacon. Then we were shown our room where we were able to catch a power nap. That was much needed after the long night of traveling we had.

Our afternoon activity was a walk around the lodge’s tea plantation and around one of the crater lakes: Lake Nyabikere, which means “Lake of Frogs” in native language. Thankfully we didn’t see any along the route! Our guide taught us how the tea plants are grown and harvested. Very interesting process as they only take the top fresh green leaves. He also noted that the harvesters are paid by the kilo and really only make 4-5 US dollars a day. As we made our way down the hills, he continued to teach us about various trees like the parasol tree and eucalyptus tree. They use eucalyptus for a lot of things from medicine to firewood to furniture/housing. We then entered onto safari park land where we were able to see the hippos that live in the lake! We didn’t think our first day we would see any animals beside the local farm animals and birds. We were still maybe 10-15 m away but it was incredible to see them in their natural habitat and not behind a glass wall at the zoo. Last little bit of trek was walking through various plots of land containing banana trees, coffee, and vanilla plants. He told us the three major cash crops in Uganda are tea, coffee, and vanilla. Vanilla was a recent addition as they realized how much money it could make for them. We passed many locals as they were carrying their crops and tools along the trail. It still amazes me how they can balance these baskets/bowls on their heads and walk for over 3 miles if not more. Our guide seemed to know everyone and even stopped at someone’s house with us to try their homemade banana gin – we were already finding that everyone in Uganda is so friendly and willing to share their craft, food, etc. with friends and visitors.

We ended the day with another great meal. They served us a 3 course meal including vegetable soup, salad, BBQ pork or veggie stir fry, and watermelon for dessert. We are definitely going to gain some weight during these next two weeks on all our safaris. They serve a lot of great fresh food (and we feel bad if we don’t eat at least most of it…). Then it was off to bed to get ready for an early morning of chimpanzee tracking!

Random tidbits:

• Seems like each tourist group is assigned a waitress at the lodge
• Sandals for men and women are provided for the showers
• Have to let water run for few minutes before water heats up
• Miles traveled: 10,380 across 4 planes
• Total miles traveled for trip: 29,586 miles