Around Uganda in 16 days (IV): North of Uganda - Kidepo Valley National Park

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A) Kitgum 

B) Kidepo Valley National Park

Day 12.

The day before we asked an Irish, owner of a hostel in Kitgum, if he knew some decent place where we could have the brakes fixed. He told us that there was a foreign company which makes boreholes and he gave us their contact. We spoke to someone from that company in the evening and he told us to take the van the following morning to their compound because they had a muzungu mechanic and he would have a look at the brakes (in case you haven't read it yet, maybe you want to know what happened with the brakes).

And so while Óscar went to re-re-re-re-re-re-repair the brakes, we went to do the shopping for the next days. 

Kitgum felt like a very pleasant town, with less hassle than other towns we had been before, and even though you are still an exotic element and people look at you, in our experience, you can walk on the street without people calling you muzungu every two metres.  

When we met again with Óscar he told us that apparently the problem with the brake was that the spring in the right brake was a bit longer than the left one, which is why adjusting the little wheel we had seen so many times before was not enough. The mechanic had cut the spring shorter and then welded the rest again together. Great!

At mid-morning we were leaving to Kidepo, with about 140 km ahead of us on a road which wasn’t a tarmac road but wasn’t as bad as those we took before. 

On the way we passed several areas with rounded huts with grass-thatched roofs, which seemed to be small villages, though in reality most of them were remains of IDP camps – camps for internally displaced persons. 

IDPs are like refugees, but they are displaced within their own country. As they are still in their country, they are not considered as refugees and don’t have refugee rights, but in any case, they are all the same they are people who were forced to leave their homes, their villages and their lands, often because of armed conflict or violence. 

I imagine you have heard about that famous video on the Internet about the child soldiers in the north of Uganda. These IDP camps we are seeing all around are from the car are the result of that conflict. The north of Uganda is an area which, since 1986 until 2006, has suffered an incredible horrible time. Thousands of people had to leave their homes because of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is basically an army of psychopaths led by Joseph Kony, who has the "honour" of been object of the first warrant of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court of The Hague. 

Kony raised the LRA from the remains of another army, the Holy Spirit Movement, which had been led by a woman, Alice Lakwena (apparently a relative of Kony), whose name was Alice Auma but she changed it to Alice Lakwena when she was possessed by the spirit of the Italian soldier Lakwena. Some years later, it will be Kony who would say that he had inherited the spirit of the soldier Lakwena. So I guess you can imagine what kind of army these people can lead. Although, especially at the beginning, the LRA claimed that the aim of the conflict was to overthrow Museveni, the President of Uganda, the fact that nowadays they are still committing atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic shows that their motivation is far away from that and that their acts are only motivated by a twisted mind. 

During the 20 years that the LRA was active in Uganda, perpetrating all kind of barbaric brutalities, many people left their villages and were resettle in these IDP camps along the roads in an attempt to give them more security. 

In 2006 Joseph Kony was finally expulsed from Uganda, and even if it doesn't mean that the problem is over (it just moved to another area), at least since then the north of Uganda is a place where people can live and in which is possible to travel. 

Fortunately, with time, people are slowly going back to their villages and many of those huts that we can see from the road are empty. The north of Uganda is back to the normal life and stopping by anywhere in the region means finding nice people and a lot of smiling children. 

And so, crossing all these half empty "villages" where children wave as soon as they see the van "Bye muzungu!!!", we continued our trip through the north of Uganda towards Kidepo National Park. 

Since our plan for the next two nights was to camp in the park, we stop in the way there to buy some charcoal to cook. The charcoal is something very important in Uganda, because most of the people don't have a kitchen at home, and they cook in small stoves with charcoal. So, finding somebody selling charcoal next to the road is something very common. 

While we were buying the charcoal, one of the typical local means of transport full of people overtook us. I know it doesn't sound very exciting, but I though you could find it interesting. 

In this area the matatu are not so common, and people usually move in these trucks in between villages and cities. Obviously, it passed at full speed. 

After securing the sack of charcoal on the roof rack of the van, we continued our trip to Kidepo, we were almost there. 

At this point, we already know that the problem wasn't that the string in the right brake was too long. 

At midday we arrived to Kidepo Valley National Park, one of the best National Parks in Uganda, and the most remote of them, just at the Northeastern corner of the country, bordering with Kenya and South Sudan. 

It is a vast extension of Savannah surrounded by mountain ranges, no very high ones, but making the landscape of the park unforgettable. The park covers the valleys of the rivers Kidepo and Narus, and it only has one rainy season, from April to September (while in other parts of Uganda there are two rainy seasons along the year). This gives Kidepo an especially dry climate, and makes it probably the best place in Uganda to see wildlife during its long dry season. 

Even if we came in July, already in the way from the gate to the offices of the park we already saw some buffaloes and elephants. 

When we arrived to Apoka, the area with the services in the park, we registered in the offices of the park and we chose one of the camping areas of the park. When camping in Kidepo it is compulsory having a ranger with you, who takes care that there is no problem with the animals. The ranger is also compulsory for the game drives or walking safaris. 

We headed to the camping area, which is a flat area with basic facilities and a banda without walls so you can seat in the shade. We put up the tents and started to cook de dinner. 

After having dinner and spending some time talking around the campfire we went to sleep, we wanted to wake up early in the morning to go for the game drive. So we just only had to kill around 300 mosquitoes (with a torch), while Óscar was wondering himself if that noise out there were hyenas around the campsite looking for the rests from the dinner. 

Day 13.

You wake up in the morning... and slowly (in my case a "long" slowly) your head start putting things in place... you look around and you see that you are in a tent... mmm... yes... things start to make sense and you remember that you are in Kidepo. 

We slept with the mosquito net closed but with the door open, so I could see through the door. 

You start moving and getting ready to get out of the tent. You open the mosquito net, you get your head through the door and, behind the rest of the campfire, still hot, the savannah stretches in front of you. You have a new day in Africa waiting for you. 

As soon as we had breakfast we got into the van and started to move looking for the animals.

Definitely, the rainy season is not the best season to see wildlife because of two reasons. One is that in the rainy season the water is available for the animals all around the park, and even out of it, so the animals are spread all around and it is more difficult to find them. In the dry season, the valley of the river Kidepo is completely dry and the only area where animals can find water is in the area of Narus valley, and so all the animals come to drink there, where it is relatively easy to find them. 

The other reason is that with all the rain, the grass grows incredibly high, in some areas the grass was even as high as the van, so it is very difficult to find the animals. 

At one point we decided to pass by the other camping area of the park, because of course, it is the best area to go to the toilet. That day there were nobody camping there, and when we looked into the banda of the camping area we found a big surprise. 

There was a lion in it. It must have been fighting with another lion because it had a wound in the upper part of the back, close to the head. And so the ranger radioed to the head quarters of the park so they could inform the veterinary department of the Uganda Wildlife Authority. 

Even if was an injured lion inside a banda, it is impressive seeing the king from so close. 

After going to toilet, while keeping an eye in the banda, we continued with the game drive. 

As I told you in the first part of the trip, Kidepo is one of the two national parks in Uganda where you can see zebras. And since we were not lucky enough in Lake Mburo, we wanted to see them here. 

In Kidepo we were a bit luckier and we found a group of zebras, but... it was just that, "a bit luckier". We found a small group of zebras in an area of high grass. As far as I am concern, I still haven't seen zebras at all. 

As you can see, when we say high grass, we mean it. And that was not the area with the tallest grass we saw.  It is amazing how plants grow here when it rains. 

A bit later we stopped for lunch, we left the van in one of the roads on the park and we walked in between grass more than two metres high towards a small rocky hill where we sat to have lunch and enjoy the views.

For the afternoon we had planned a special activity: a visit to the ruins of Katurum lodge. 

Katurum Lodge is a hotel which was built by Idi Amin in the 70s, it was close to be finished but it never got to be open. After the fall of Idi Amin in 1979, the hotel was vandalised, and later what was left of it was burnt in a bush fire, which left it as it is nowadays. 

I don't like the building, but one thing is true, the view of the savannah which can be seen from there is really impressive. 

In the way back we had another interesting experience with one of the kings of the savannah: A male lone elephant. 

Travelling with Óscar is very interesting, apart than being a nice guy or having a lot of experience travelling in Africa, he is also a biologist and studied animal behaviour. And it is really nice that, for example, when you see an elephant like this one, he explains how the society of the elephants is organised and why there is a lone male wondering alone in the savannah. Or why it is usually the case that the lionesses hunt and not the lions, when it doesn't have anything to do with sexism. 

The elephant we met was a young male, probably around 20 years old, which, as it happens with all the males, had been expulsed from the herd when he began puberty. 

You should be careful when meeting elephants, it is an animal you should have respect for. It is not usual that an elephant attacks, the normal thing is that they are paying attention to their business, they might look at you, scent you, and continue with whatever they were doing. But don't try to go too far, because an elephant can start running towards you, and it is a lot of kilograms running towards you. 

This time it was an interesting encounter. We saw the elephant, not very far from the road, and we started getting closer very slowly and carefully. As it is normal, the elephant saw us and this time, instead of continuing with what it was doing it decided to let us know that we should be careful. It is very strange that an elephant attacks straight forward, first it would warn you. The elephant stops, gets a bit closer... we go back... Then it stares directly at you, rises the head, shows you the tusks and spreads its ears...

...it shakes the head moving the ears and the trunk... it is telling you to be careful and that you are not in the right place. 

But if you are careful nothing should happen at all. We were moving back with the van every time the elephant was suggesting us to do so, and at one point the elephant crossed the road in front of us and left. 

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

The truth is that I never felt threatened, just warned. And I liked it. I liked that an elephant told me the right place for me to be, and made me understand where he was and where we were, that we were at its home and that we should respect its rules. 

Back to the camping area we started to prepare the dinner and I was taking some photographs. I went up on some rocks to see a bit better the camping area and I saw far in the distance a herd of buffaloes. 

So I jumped into the van with Emmanuel and the ranger and we headed towards them to see them from closer. 

It is impossible to show in a photograph what I saw there. It is not that there were millions of buffaloes, but there was one moment when wherever I looked there were buffaloes around the van, not very close, of course, but all them staring at you, scenting us... Having hundreds of buffalos staring at you is also a very interesting feeling. 

Back in the camping area, I went up again on the rocks to see where the buffaloes were, and I saw that they were coming closer to the camping area. By the time the dinner was ready, the buffaloes were at around 50 or 100 metres from the camping area. 

We had dinner around the fire and with the camp lit with small lanterns that Óscar had set all around the area, it was really beautiful. Having dinner in the middle of the savannah, just you, under the moonlight... that really makes you feel that you are in a safari in Africa. And if the ambient is also so nice... 

After the dinner, taking advantage of the full moon light, we decide to go close to the border of the camping area. We could hear the buffaloes moving in between the grass, we could even see some groups of buffaloes which had entered the camping area and they were once again staring at us and scenting us... 

From far away, we could hear other sounds... lions... Again Óscar was telling us how lions communicate in between them and that many times they hunt at night. And you are just there, listening, in the savannah, in the middle of all that. 

We went back some metres to an area closer to the tents. We knew that the buffaloes were there, in the camping area, behind the trees, we couldn’t see them but we knew they were there and we were just listening to the sounds. After a short time, something made the buffaloes start running, and suddenly, we could feel like thousands of footsteps running away from us while we could feel a thunder under our feet. 

We went back to the fire and sat there talking about it and with that feeling you have after experiencing pure and unspoilt nature. 

We stayed there talking around the fire for a while and slowly we were going to our tents. 

What a great experience.

You have just read the fourth part of the trip. You can also read:

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part I.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part II.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part III.

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part V.