UGANDA SHINING A LIGHT ON

Hidden valleys, isolated rural communities and wildlife goodnews-stories. We go beyond Uganda’s gorillas to find that this recovering African country is far more diverse than you may think

2021-09-01 - Words & photographs Sarah Marshall

When nomadic pastoralists reached the vast grasslands stretching from the foothills of the Napore Mountains, they stopped dead in their tracks. Exhausted by their long, arduous and dusty journey from Ethiopia, these Karamojong (tired elders) could move no further. Tiredness, though, probably wasn’t the only factor determining their decision to settle here in the 17th century. Flanked by a battalion of commanding peaks at a crossroads between South Sudan, Kenya and north-eastern Uganda, Kidepovalley is both arrestingly beautiful and overwhelming in scope. Driving through plains dotted with precious shea trees, past dry riverbeds shaded by scruffy palms and into a slalom of soaring slopes, it’s hard to place on a map. One of Uganda’s many hidden faces, Kidepo inwardly gazes into its own little world.

A country of wildly varying climates and altitudes, most of Uganda remains a mystery. Historically, gorillas have taken the limelight, with most travellers heading to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the south-west to track one of the 22 habituated troops as an extension of an East African safari.

But things are changing. Pot-holed roads have been paved with tarmac, and in 2019, national carrier Ugandan Airlines resumed operations after a 19-year hiatus with plans to launch a direct flight to the UK – the first in six years – later in 2021. Intrigued by whispers of isolated tribes and reports of lost species coming back from the brink, I would spend 14 days exploring a section of the continent where red earth burns and rainforests glisten just as intensely as ‘the pearl of Africa’ that Winston Churchill encountered 100 years ago.

THE PICK OF THE WILDLIFE

Few places are as raw and untouched as Kidepo. Off limits for many years due to violent cattle rustling and civil

unrest in South Sudan, one of Uganda’s finest national parks has slowly become more accessible.

“Kidepo means to pick,” explained my Karamojong guide, Robert Ochaya, from Great Lakes Safaris, as we collected armfuls of borassus palm fruit the size of bowling balls. In rainy season, everything was blooming. Sticky tamarind seeds plastered the ground and poisonous desert roses flaunted their fuchsia pouts like femme fatales.

Crossing the Kidepo River before it would flood later that afternoon, we’d driven to the South Sudan border to ceremoniously straddle an invisible line in the ground. A military base is stationed at the site for security, although these days the rusting tanks are only used to collect firewood.

“The elephants go over the border at night, but they come back by the morning,” explained veteran head ranger Philip Akorongimoe, indicating that South Sudan is still unstable.

But the elephants are not the only animals to seek refuge in Kidepo. On an early morning game drive, I watched cheetahs chase waterbuck and oribi across the plains, while black clouds of buffalo swelled on the horizon. “It’s possible to see herds in their thousands,” boasted Philip, an animated character who humorously lavished facts with outrageous imagination. “I call this the city for retired generals, the barracks. they come here to chew the big G.”

There are no resident vets in the 1,442 sq km park, and no researchers have been here since the ’90s, but from an infinity pool built into the boulders at Apoka Safari Lodge, I observed a healthy amount of wildlife on the plains. A collection of 10 smart, canvas-walled eco-cottages and an open-air lounge, it’s the only property inside the park. A hike to see the isolated Ik people, who live in the clouds at the top of Mount Morungole, is one of the highlights in more ways than one. Living alongside the Karamojong, this minority group, numbering around 10,000, also originally arrived from Ethiopia.

We took a two-hour scenic drive to the trail head, eager to explore the landscape. Outside the park, land is communal and

although there are rumours of plans to establish conservancies, for now the virgin area is clustered with mud hut villages and small vegetable gardens.

Preened like peacocks, Karamojong men like to show off. Pastoralists paraded along the roadside with wooden staffs slung over their shoulders where the barrels of AK47S would have once gleamed. Fashioned from broken car reflectors, red shards dangled from each ear. On their heads balanced tiny knitted pork-pie hats decorated with ostrich feathers.

“You can’t leave your car parked here,” joked Robert. “They’ll smash the lights for jewellery and slash your tyres for shoes.”

Forced out of the park to reduce poaching, communities were pushed into the mountains. At the base of Mount Morungole, thick crowns of thorny branches guard homesteads, with corrals carefully protected inside. Memories of cattle rustling, a way of life to pay dowries, are still too fresh to take risks.

Children spilled from dwarf doorways as we approached their settlements, excitedly screaming “mzungu” as my ghostly-white body floated up the steep hillside. The women were bent double in their patchwork of gardens, picking beans and maize.

The Ik prefer to isolate themselves at the top, where pumpkins grow less bitter, trees are easily available for firewood, and there are no cows. A thick mist was already swallowing the peaks by the time we arrived.

“We don’t want cows,” insisted villager Kusum, shaking his head vehemently. “They bring trouble.”

“The Ik prefer to isolate themselves at the top of Mount Morungole, where a thick mist was swallowing the peaks by the time we arrived”

Crouching, I crawled into a hut where dried corn was strung up like bunting and thin animal skins coated the floor.

“We never sleep on a mattress,” explained Kusum. “We fear we might dream.”

Frail and shrivelled like a sun-dried bean pod, Mateo, the oldest man in the village, nostalgically recalled life in the park. “Animals were everywhere, but we had no difficulties,” he reminisced while perching on an ekicholong, a wooden seat shaped like a clothes iron. “It was better before.”

It did seem the communities had been given a poor deal. Any poaching incidents were mainly connected to South Sudanese trespassers, Philip had previously told me. At the beginning of his 21-year-career, he’d been called out five times a day to deal with incidents. Now, though, it was quiet.

RHINO RENAISSANCE

One of the biggest victims of poaching in the park was the rhino. The last one was killed here in 1983, deeming the species locally extinct. Attempting to repair the damage done, a breeding programme to resurrect a population of white rhinos was launched in 2004 at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in Nakitoma, a six-hour drive south.

Travelling towards Gulu, we passed the husks of burnedout churches, scars of a brutal reign of terror by the Lord’s Resistance Army, that lasted for two decades until 2006.

“At night, the rhinos came to sleep below the guest accommodation, their hulking shadows illuminated by the moonlight”

Now the only signs of decimation were the pearlescent wings of termites scattered on the roadside like confetti, their plump bodies collected in buckets to be deep fried.

Checking into Ziwa’s simple accommodation, I scanned photographs of the 34 resident rhinos plastering the offices at their HQ. Following a baby boom, head guide Raymond Opio admitted numbers had exploded and they were running out of more than just wall space. Starting with four animals from Kenya and two donated by a zoo in Florida, the small population has flourished in a former cattle ranch where communities graze animals on a rotation system.

During a walk with Raymond, I met one of the newest arrivals, born in February. Catching our scent, the calf raised his snout and bristled. “They will charge to defend their mothers,” warned Raymond, who knows the animals better than his own family. “And even at that age, they can do some damage.”

The grown-ups, however, were surprisingly docile. At times we were so close, their bulbous bottoms eclipsed the sun. At night, some animals came to sleep below the guest accommodation, their hulking shadows illuminated by the moonlight.

Night walks promise potential sightings of aardvarks and the rare giant pangolin, the subject of an research project by the UK’S Chester Zoo. Raymond recalled an attempt to tag one of the endangered scaly creatures, requiring five men to hold the elusive creature down.

Immediately after my visit, the sanctuary temporarily closed for 50 days following a long-running dispute between the landowners and private management company Rhino Fund Uganda. Government organisation Uganda Wildlife Authority has since intervened, promising a brighter future with plans to translocate some rhinos into national parks.

LOOKING FOR CHIMPS IN KIBALE

One of Uganda’s greatest strengths is its marriage of community and wildlife tourism, demonstrated in Kibale National Park, a five-hour drive east. Setting off from Primate Lodge, an idyllic forest hideaway where chimps have been known to knock at the glass doors, I hiked in search of the great apes.

Butterflies darted through curtains of trailing vines hanging from the dense canopy, and light-seeking ironwood trees strained skyward like turkey necks, extending their sinewy buttress roots across the forest floor. High up in the trees, chimps pelted us with fruit pulp and other less savoury substances. wiping her bum with a leaf, one grumpy teen lobbed a branch at me, signalling our hour was up.

Cleverly capitalising on traffic generated by chimp tracking, eco-tourism outfit KAFRED (Kibale Association For Rural and Environmental Development) launched community-led walks around the nearby Bigodi Wetlands Sanctuary. Led along a wooden boardwalk by nature guide Ben, I spotted blue turaco birds flamboyantly fanning their tail feathers and spied on red colobus monkeys nibbling furtively on intoxicating leaves. Ben showed me papyrus reeds ingeniously used by women as sanitary pads and demonstrated how palm fronds could be woven into mats.

Preserving cultural customs is a challenge in a rapidly developing country, but it lies at the core of luxurious 27-suite Emburara Farm Lodge in the agricultural Mbarara district, a two-hour drive south. On the working ranch, activities revolve around 45 Ankole longhorn cattle. In the morning, I accompanied herdsman John Karuhanga as he lovingly polished his treasures with a bundle of stringy sisal fibres. Eager for attention, their mighty horns curved and twisted to form an elaborate calligraphy script. A few hours later, I observed as John replenished their trough with a coating of iron-rich termite mud, using his hands to mould the clay mixture into shape. “Look at them nodding their ivories,” he exclaimed, beaming like a proud parent. “They know we are friends.”

After watering cattle, most men would strip off and bathe naked, John told me. Thankfully the shower facilities at Emburara meant no nudity was necessary that day. Surprises

“I hiked through Kibale National Park in search of the great apes. High up in the trees, chimps pelted us with fruit pulp”

were in store that evening, however, when John lit a fire with cow dung to cajole his cattle back into their corral. Seeking warmth and respite from biting insects, they marched obediently, and a clatter of horns danced in the flames.

Both domesticated and wild, strange creatures can be found all over Uganda – some much closer to human habitation than you might think.the final stop of my journey took me to the Manamba swamps of Lake Victoria, near to international airport gateway Entebbe, where dozens of shoebills have made a comfortable home. Plucked from a prehistoric era, the enormous birds stealthily move through reeds and lilies looking for lungfish, while Boeing 777s zoom overhead.

One of Uganda’s pioneering birders, who once had his own TV show, Johnnie Kamugisha was the first guide to venture into the swamps more than 20 years ago. Dressed in a cap studded with pin badges of various winged species, he was every bit the avian fanatic. “I find birding easier than eating food,” he insisted, as we drifted down the shallow waterways in a wooden canoe.

Working closely with local fishermen, who earn an income from transporting tourists through the wetlands, Johnnie has established a bulletproof security network to protect birds and eggs in high demand from overseas collectors.

“They call me mzee (wise old man),” he laughed fondly. “They keep watch when I’m not here.”

Expert knowledge helped us quickly locate a juvenile. Sitting quietly, we marvelled as the young shoebill carefully hunted, stepping with the grace of a ballerina, before falling like a sledgehammer on to its prey.

“Even when dead, a lungfish can bite at intestines, so the bird has to crush its head,” explained Johnnie.

Macabre and bizarre, his theory seemed implausible, but it wasn’t surprising. In Uganda, a land continuously revealing new secrets, I’d learned nothing is beyond the realms of possibility.