Sadly we didn't see zebras, rhinos and giraffes because a few years ago they were relocated 8 hours north from this park to Murchison Falls National Park. But it was nonetheless exciting to see wild animals on their turf (as opposed to the zoo).
In August when we toured, it was the conclusion of a dry and dusty season in the park, with rumors of heavy rain in the air. By about 10am, it's so hot that you will scarcely see animals in the Park. So we headed up to Mweya for lunch and to await our next adventure. Mweya has two restaurants: the hotel being a whole lot more expensive than the lodge. Earlier on, we had managed breakfast at a small community deep inside the Park. Apparently, the park has various communities where people have settled within the game reserve. It is a common for wild animals to show up their front yard, and people cohabit among them without problems.
Later in the afternoon, we hit up Kazinga Channel (connecting the two main lakes that are part of the Park, Lake George and Lake Edward. Can you tell yet that Uganda was a British colony? Everything is named after the Queen and British royalty.
We toured the Channel aboard a water vehicle (called a "launch"), with other tourists and a Park guide pointing out various sights of interest.
On this leg of the tour, you may see water eagles, crocodiles, big lizards, an assortment of birds, hippos, elephants, various animals showing up to drink, and "losers" (buffaloes or hippos that have been kicked out of their herds, or are too injured to keep up. They seek sanctuary in the shallows of the lakes, until they die). I can not remember what else we saw after my camera went dead, with no battery backup. The 80x optical zoom was great for some of my shots, but terrible for battery life. The pictures I have from this day represent a little more than half of what we saw that day. Uganda is definitely rich of wildlife, well worth the day.
As far as costs go, you will usually pay for the safari vehicle (but we had our own), separately for a tour guide (supposed to know where the animals are in such a huge park), gate fees for each vehicle (we had two), and park fees for every person except babies (around 8 of us). For foreigners, park fees are about $90 (for Angelene, although I don't recall them checking passports). As a Ugandan passport-holder, I paid an equivalent of $30. All the other tour activities might have cost around $400 in total. By this time in the trip, we were no longer keeping track of our expenses, so this is an educated guess.
We also brought our own iced water along for how hot it gets out there. We managed a nap for Moses in between adventures, but a long day overall for him. A whole day in the wild like this (and in a vehicle) is not conducive for young babies who won't remember a shred of it.
But what do we say about phase four of the trip? Success! Many thanks to my sister Esther and brother Zablon for organizing the day, and accompanying us throughout. We became tourists for a day.
