An Easter trip to Murchison Falls National Park

It's a VSO secret - you travel overseas to volunteer and get the bonus of being able to get to some fantastic places for weekends and holidays. We took advantage of the long Easter weekend to travel to the Murchison Falls National Park. After considering driving ourselves we decided to go for the easy option and joined a trip organised by Red Chilli. It was called 'Falls and Game' and lived up to its name.

So at 6.30 am on Easter Saturday we were driving across Kampala to the meeting point picking up two other volunteers on the way. We arrived at the top of Murchison Falls in time for a picnic lunch. We had a walk, or rather a scramble, around the falls and plenty of opportunity to take pictures. They certainly are spectacular.

Then it was time to head over to the Red Chilli camp which was to be our base. We shared the camp with resident warthogs and hippos who came out from the nearly river Nile at night. Don't leave any food or anything that smells interesting in your tent and if you go to the loo in the middle of the night take a torch and look where you're going!!

Next morning was another early start for a game drive. Unfortunately the car ferry across the Nile had to be fixed and the 7am ferry didn't leave until nearly 9am. By then our itinerary had been switched around so we went on a boat trip along the Nile for the morning. Lots of hippos, a large herd of elephants, several Nile crocodiles, lots of different birds and a chance to view the falls from the river at the base.

Then after a quick lunch back at the camp we finally got across on the ferry and had a wonderful game drive around the northern part of the park.

What a way to spend Easter Sunday!

Easter Monday had another early start to catch the 7am ferry. This time it set off on time but a few metres out from the shore one of the two engines cut out and it took them over an hour to land us all safely on the opposite bank! We did wonder for a while if we would be seeing Lake Albert from the water!

Another shorter game drive. By now we were saying 'oh there's another elephant!'. Then onto Karuma falls and another scramble down a steep path to see the falls. These are very different from Murchison but just as spectacular in their own way.

Finally the long drive back to Kampala with a stop for lunch. It was an Easter break with a difference!

Cheese from Gulu

Glen and I both spent the last week in Gulu. I was travelling alone for once so Glen came with me in the vehicle. I still can't quite get used to the luxury of being driven whenever I go away. However, with the state of the road to Gulu I was very grateful to have a professional driver. The first half of the journey is ok, once you've got through the Kampala traffic. But the second half! First there are the road works around the Masindi junction with single file traffic and driving on very dusty gravel, then a section that hasn't been fixed at all and is a very bumpy murram road.

After that most of the rest of the journey, around 160km, is on disintegrating tarmac. Generally there is a strip of tarmac in the middle, roughly wide enough for a single lane, with rough edges and mud either side. But there are sections with big potholes right across the road. So it's a stop, start drive braking hard and then bouncing through the pothole! It gets even more interesting when you meet oncoming traffic. The general rule in Uganda is that biggest gets priority. So we had to dive for the ditch whenever we saw a lorry or a speeding bus coming towards us!

Gulu is in the North of Uganda on the road heading to South Sudan. This is the area that was badly affected by the LRA conflict for 20 years from 1986 to 2006. Life is gradually returning to normal in the area with people back home recovering their land and starting their lives again. But there are still lots of challenges with conflicts over who owns the land and a generation who missed out on education. The town is now a bustling place with a growing population, shops and markets. Everywhere you look are NGO offices, although apparently a lot less than there were and many NGOs are now pulling out, their work (or funding!) completed.

I visited one of our partner organisations to work with them to complete a bank reconciliation and cash count for the end of March and set up a template to use for future month ends. We also completed the redesigned quarterly monitoring form, including reconciling their reported expenditure for the whole period of the grant and a forecast for the April to June quarter as well as their actual expenditure for the January to March quarter. All a bit of a challenge when there was no power for most of the first day and then it went off again over lunch on the second day. Luckily there was a generator at the hotel so I was able to charge up my trusty laptop each evening.

Glen went with one of the other VSO volunteers to a vocational training institute just outside Gulu. He had a interesting couple of days sitting under the mango tree discussing science, motor mechanics and engineering with the students and tutors. They run courses in welding, metalwork, carpentry, plumbing and electronics as well as the motor mechanics. They have a bakery and are also experimenting with cheese making. We came home with a gift of a cheese! This is a real luxury in Uganda and is only available in the big supermarkets and delicatessens and is very expensive!

We are now enjoying cheese omelettes, cheese with avocado and tomato, cheese on toast and just cheese!!