Took a trip up to northern Uganda to see Murchison Falls Natl Park. This is a politically unstable part of the country, which may as well be its own separate state. There are rebel groups, primarily the LRA (Lords Resistance Army) operating in collusion with Sudanese forces loyal to the government in Khartoum. Unspeakable war crimes have been and continue to be committed here, including the kidnapping of children to be used as sex slaves and soldiers. These delusional northern insurgents are pushing a platform of some disturbed brand of Christian fundamentalism to restore the Ten Commandments in a literal sense to the government. There are millions of people hiding in IDP (internationally displaced persons) camps to escape the atrocities of the LRA. The watershed moment came in March 2000 when a cult founded by a prostitute predicted the end of the world at the millennium and ordered the suicide, Jim Jones style, of all her followers. Investigation later produced evidence this was mass murder, not suicide, as over 300 innocent people were burned in a church.
I pitched my trusty tent at the Red Chili campsite and then had a few beers while watching the sky deepen into night. In the morning, I loaded onto a boat and we glided up the Victoria Nile river, past an army of hippos and croc’s. The boat was able get us up close and personal to the avalanche of water. It was a spectacular scene, the mighty Nile river being forced into its narrowest gap at twenty feet wide. The source of the Nile is Lake Victoria and it snakes up through northern Uganda at the beginning of its nearly 4000 mile journey headed to the Meditteranean sea via Egypt. The river goes through this gorge, Murchison Falls, widely considered the world’s most powerful surge of water. The queen of Uganda’s colonial landlord made a visit back in the sixties and the locals constructed a special viewing platform just for Her Majesty.
Later in the evening after dinner (and my requisite bush whiskey), I staggered back to my tent and found a surprise roommate. A massive hippo was grazing just next to it and prevented me from entering. So I waited. And waited. This behemoth bastard wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, he turned his attention elsewhere and I made a mad dash for it. Once inside, I fell asleep, only to be woken within ten minutes on his return. I could hear the creepy sounds of his enormous mouth grazing on the grasses right next to my tent. Like a housecat hearing a vacuum cleaner, I wanted to disappear and hide but there was nowhere to go except deeper into my sleeping bag. Occasionally, he would brush his bulk up against the nylon wall and all I could think about was the sobering fact about hippos being the leading cause of wildlife-related deaths in Africa. To further compound my panic, a lamppost illuminated his silhouette against the tent wall. He stayed on for fifteen terrifying minutes, which seemed like fifteen years. I couldn’t fall back asleep for another hour, pondering the irony of how vegetarians (elephants, hippo’s, buffalo) can be so menacing. You’re more likely to be killed by an herbivore than a carnivore.
The next morning I went on a game drive in Murchison Natl Park. This is one of Africa’s most beautiful parks, a distinction it received after most of its wildlife was decimated by automatic weapons from Idi Amin’s troops. Elephant and rhino were the hardest hit although the reprieve of wildlife gave the plant life in the park a chance to regenerate. Huge ellie herds were consuming the trees beyond sustainable levels. The slaughter of the biggest bulls (for their huge tusks) has limited the size of the current elephants. They all seem so tragically small.
We rounded a bend in the road and I saw the most peculiar site just beyond a herd of gazelles. A tank was poised under an acacia tree (in a national park!). A local told me the military keeps a presence there to fend off incursions by the LRA. The military also helps the rangers with anti-poaching patrols. This trend is becoming more common across Africa as wildlife departments are getting assistance from their military for anti-poaching.
|  | 
|
