Uganda — Great Apes & Wildlife

Eleven days in Uganda on a Great Apes & Wildlife Photo Tour with ORYX, led by Dale Morris. Entebbe to Kibale Forest to Queen Elizabeth National Park to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

Mabamba Wetland — The Shoebill

Speedboat across Lake Victoria to Mabamba Wetland. We transferred to motorized canoes and navigated the maze of papyrus channels. When we found the Shoebill, it was standing motionless in the reeds, staring into the water. It did not move the entire time we were there.

Kibale Forest — Chimpanzee Trekking

Two days in Kibale National Park, four trekking sessions. The chimps announce themselves before you see them — whoops and shrieks through the canopy. Then you round a bend in the trail and one is lying on a branch three meters away, head resting on its arm, watching you.

The forest holds over a dozen primate species. The red-tailed monkey peers through palm fronds. The red colobus sits high in the trees.

Queen Elizabeth National Park — Ishasha

The Kazinga Channel first — hippos, buffalo, Nile crocodile, elephants on the riverbank — then south to the Ishasha sector.

A martial eagle swept low across the grassland. Uganda kob locked horns on the lek. A long-crested eagle sat on an acacia thorn and did not blink.

At sunset, a lioness draped across a fig tree branch against a pink sky, legs dangling. The tree-climbing lions of Ishasha.

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest — Mountain Gorillas

The last three days. Bwindi. Home to roughly 400 of the world’s 1,000 mountain gorillas. The terrain is steep, the forest is dense, and the name is not an exaggeration.

We trekked through mud and undergrowth, sometimes for hours, following trackers. When we found the family group, we were given one hour. Sixty minutes.

A silverback looked directly at me from the darkness of the forest floor.

Another gorilla climbed high into a tree to feed. He sat in the fork of two branches, stuffing handfuls of green fruit into his mouth. Six of us stood below pointing cameras upward. He did not care.

I walked out of that forest and sat on the ground for a while before I could talk.