From the Classroom to the Jungles of Africa
Day 1. Arrived in Uganda
After 24 hours of flying, I arrived in Entebbe, Uganda. I was met at the airport by my instructor and our driver for the trip. We headed straight to Gorilla African Guest House, where we stayed for two nights. Once I arrived at the guest house, my instructor showed me to the shared room. It was pretty funny because as the door opened, all you could see was darkness and mosquito nets. Everyone would say ‘Hi’ then go back to sleep. At dinner, everyone was finally awake, and we got the time to have a proper meet and greet with the other students, our two instructors, and our drivers.
Day 2. Visit to Entebbe Wildlife Education Centre
I loved every aspect of Entebbe Wildlife Education Centre! They focus solely on conservation and education, targeting their audience as children to inspire them and help them develop an understanding of the importance of wildlife conservation. I also love that most of the animals at the centre are rescued, and they provide visits with the chance to see animals in their natural habitat.
Day 3 - 10. Arrived at Tooro Semliki Wildlife Reserve
After a 6-hour drive, we arrived at Semliki Chimpanzee Reserve. Along the way, we observed baboons on the road walking and saw one female holding her deceased infant. It was very sad, eventually; she ran away carrying the infant. We stopped for a late lunch and were back on the road.
Once arrived at camp, we immediately saw an elephant. We got so lucky!! My instructor said she couldn’t believe that we already saw baboons and now an elephant, and the last students she took here a couple of weeks ago weren’t as lucky as we were.
We got to camp around 6 pm, and it was still light out, so we immediately began setting up our tents and mosquito nets inside the tents. We ate dinner, then were off to bed. The first night, I was woken up by wildlife sounds and our rangers patrolling camp. I was actually so scared and couldn’t sleep because we were surrounded by so much wildlife. The wildlife in our area were chimpanzees, red-tailed monkeys, tantalus monkeys, black/white colobus monkeys, olive baboons, bushbabies, waterbucks, warthogs, bushbucks, buffaloes, Uganda Koba, and elephants.
The typical day at camp was waking up before the sun to trek in search of the chimpanzees. We always wore snake boots and had our headlamps on. The trek was mostly uphill, and we saw the chimpanzees twice. We would come across nests high in the canopy and find fruit that chimpanzees forage on.
We would return to camp for lunch. Our lunch meals had plenty of carbs in them to fuel the rangers that would go back out and trek for the chimpanzees again after lunch. We mostly ate rice with vegetables and matooke bananas. The food was SO delicious!
After lunch, we would go to the lodge, which was 3 miles from camp. The lodge was called Semliki Safari Lodge, and it was a small, beautiful lodge for tourists. We would do an exercise (i.e., behavioral sampling, population density, age and sex of primate, habitat description). Tanatalus and colobus monkey were observed at the lodge.
After, we were done collecting our data, we would go back to camp and work on finishing our coursework or have a lecture.
During our free time, we would be drawing in our natural history journals. We kept a natural history journal throughout the duration of the course. We wrote in our journals every day, describing and drawing our observations, reflecting on what we saw and any questions we had. We also would play the card game ‘Bullshit’, learn the Ugandan language, or do laundry.
We took two trips outside of camp. The first day trip was to Lake Albert to get fish. We got to see more wildlife (i.e., baboons, cattle, goats, and tantalus monkeys). There were many children in the village. The children would say, “I’m tired,” as a way to imitate Americans.
The other trip was to Sempaya hot springs, which were about an hour from camp. It was very interesting to learn about the springs and how they have both a male and female hot springs each with different characteristics. The female one is supposed to be most attractive because of the sparkling water. We also boiled eggs in the water and ate them. We observed baboons at the springs and along the road.
The last night at camp, it rained for the first time! My roommate and I took the opportunity to enjoy it and soak up the rain. Of course, all my laundry was hanging outside too, so I didn’t have much dry clothes after, but it was totally worth it.
Day 11. Arrived at Queen Elizabeth National Park.
We left camp to head to Queen Elizabeth National Park. We departed early in the morning and got to our hotel around 3 pm. The drive was beautiful!
Once, we arrived at our hotel, we got to relax for a bit than we had lunch before leaving to go to Katwe Salt Lake for our tour. The drive to Katwe Salt Lake, goes through the National Park, where we saw elephants.
On our way to Katwe Salt Lake, we stopped at Katwe-Kabatoro Town Council, where we observed cattle grazing and the beautiful view.
Driving back to our hotel through the National Park, we spotted lions!
Day 12. Safari ride at Queen Elizabeth National Park
We woke up early to head to Queen Elizabeth National Park for our game drive. We observed a herd of elephants and a lion.
After our drive, we drove back to the centre for brunch and then went on a boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel, which connects Lake Edward and Lake George.
Once we got back to the centre, it was dinner time. Before heading to dinner, we saw a group of chimpanzees that were prob nesting in for the night. We might’ve scared them off because of our excitement. We felt bad because they prob relocated to build a new nest since they do that each night.
Day 13. Arrive at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
The next day, we woke up early to drive to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. It was a 5-hour drive. Towards the end of our drive, we got a flat tire. A group of children came running down the hill and just watched us we fixed our tire. I accidentally made one of the baby’s cries… he was just sooo cute sitting on top of his brothers’ shoulders, I guess I kept staring at him and he cried…
Once we arrived at the lodge, we headed right to our room to drop off bags and relaxed before dinner. There was a dog at the lodge that everyone fell in love with, and the dog just happened to have puppies!!
Day 14. Trek for mountain gorillas
Saved the BEST day for last! We woke up early to arrive at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park at 7 am. We gathered at the park’s headquarters for a short orientation led by Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers. The rangers gave us information on safety, gorilla behavior, and what to expect on our trek. Each group was assigned to track one of Bwindi’s habituated gorilla families. We also got our walking sticks and hired two Porters to assist with carrying our belongings. We started our trek at around 7:30-8:00 a.m. and ended around 1:00 p.m.
We located our group of gorillas at 10:00 am and stayed with them for an hour. We found the gorillas pretty sure, considering some treks can last up to 8 hours. I remember shaking when I first became face-to-face with the silverback as I just watched him feed on leaves with an infant next to him. It was such an incredible and unforgettable experience.
Whenever the gorillas moved, we would follow right behind them. They were unbothered by our present.
The trek was probably one of the hardest physical hikes I’ve ever done. I remember my legs shaking and feeling numb on the way back. it was so worth it, though. An interesting fact I learned is that individuals will pay for Porters to carry them to the gorillas than carry them back down after the tour is over.
We arrived back at the lodge at 2 pm. After some resting time, we ate dinner and headed back our room to pack our bags to leave tomorrow.
Day 15. Drive back to Entebbe
Our last day was a long 9-hour car ride back to Entebbe, where we stayed at Gorilla African Guest House. After breakfast, we began our ride back. I remember yapping with my roommate for a while and napped a lot. The views from the window were beautiful. We stopped at the equator for lunch and then continued our drive. Once, we arrived back in Entebbe, we ate dinner and hung out talking and said our goodbyes to the ones who were departing early in the morning.
Day 16. Back to the airport for flight home
We woke up, ate breakfast, and just hung out waiting for it to be our time to go to the airport. Once it was my time, I said goodbye to my classmates and two instructors, but I said see you soon to my one instructor because I would be seeing her in two weeks in Costa Rica for another fieldschool. At the end of the trip, its always bittersweet because a way of me was sad to be leaving, because I wanted to stay, but I will i’ll be back again one day, and the other part of me was happy to go home. My overall experience was so incredible and left me speechless, it was really life changing to observe the difference in culture and just amazing to see the villages it takes to protect the mountain gorillas and wildlife in protected areas.