August 15 - Touring Entebbe and a cruise on Lake Victoria

We both had a rough night…still have jetlag.  Paul was awake off and on, Mary woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep.

We met our guide for the rest of our Uganda tour, Francis.  We discussed the upcoming itinerary with him and then we headed out for a tour of Entebbe.  First stop was an ATM to get some cash.  One American dollar is 3,535.58 Ugandan Shillings.  So, if you have a $10 meal you need 35,355 shillings.  We are currently carrying around over a million shillings. 

Then it was on to the Botanical Gardens.  The gardens were established by the British when Uganda was a Protectorate.  Francis confirmed that Uganda is a member of the British Commonwealth of nations. When we got to the park we picked up a guide, Ratifi (yes, like in The Lion King) who gave us a walking tour.  He was very knowledgeable about the plants and the birds.

The Park:

Calabash Nutmeg Tree and its flower:

African Umbrella Tree:

Cannon Ball Tree:

Alligator Tree (the roots look very much like alligators):

We saw some interesting birds:

Hornbill:

Yellow Billed Egret:

Unknown but possibly an immature Grey Heron:

We also saw a couple of black and white colobus

and many vervet monkeys.

We saw a really big spider on its web (the guide tossed a leaf on the web to draw out the spider)

and some guard termites protecting the mound.

Most interesting was the fire ants…not venomous but they give nasty bites.  It was fascinating to watch then.  They move in a vast column of ants.  We couldn’t get a picture of the really big stream of ants…they started attacking us.  However, we saw a group that was forming a column.  And what was really fascinating was that the column was lined on both sides with guard ants who were stationary and guarded the column.  Isn’t nature amazing.

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Video of fire ants

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From there we stopped at a small craft market.  The clothing and baskets were so colorful and there were wonderful wood carvings and paintings.  Alas, we have little room in the luggage for much in the way of souvenirs but Mary did find a couple of scrunchies to buy.

We then drove through parts of Entebbe where he pointed out some of the old British colonial buildings that are still in use today for various government agencies and departments.

We ended the afternoon with a cruise around part of Lake Victoria.  

We saw an Africa Fish Eagle that looks very much like the American Bald Eagle only smaller.

There were lots of fishermen out fishing but the pilot said most of them were fishing illegally...so they were staying very close to the shore so they weren't easy to spot.

There were also some tilapia fishing farms. 

We saw tons of pied kingfishers all over the lake and in the brush along the shoreline.

As we cam into shore there were lots of cormorants and yellow billed egrets settling into the brush, getting ready for bed for the night.

They had nice snacks on the boat so we called it dinner. 

And we had a bit of a sunset.

Once back at the hotel it was packing and repacking and repacking.  The challenge is to keep the sum total of all of our luggage (checked and carryon) to 33 pounds each person for the small plane that we will eventually be taking back to Entebbe.  We are leaving some luggage at the hotel with all the extra stuff.  Didn’t get to bed as early as we would have liked.  But we have a long drive of seven or eight hours tomorrow so perhaps we can nap on the ride.