Kidepo National Park

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A 13 hour road trip took us from Entebbe in the south west to Kidepo National Park in the north west.

Injured lion hovering round the others, and being ignored.

He will slowly die as he is unable to feed himself.

The law of nature

To an Out of Africa resort – game walks, game drives, swims in a pool made as if for The Garden of Eden and these are self explanatory

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Grand Katurum Lodge – built under orders of Idi Amin and never completed.  One of the best vantage points in Kidepo it stands like silent, somewhat ominous ghost
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Uganda’s National Bird

Uganda

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Ankole cattle

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Crossing the Nile

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Roadside food – Rolex – delicious

24/09/2016

Uganda- 40 mill landlocked people with Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, DRC, Rwanda and Tanzania as neighbours.

Entebbe, on the shore of lake Victoria – the largest freshwater lake in the world and the source of the Nile river – is a bustling thriving city with a pulsing energy that you can’t ignore – colour, noise, apparent chaos – and yet not

Burra burras, cars and pedestrians all use the road as if it’s theirs – but there is, if one observes carefully, a respect of each other and a gracious courtesy that is quite different from the gritted teeth courtesy I’ve seen in other places.

Travelling as I am with two serious photographers my trusty iPhone has stayed well tucked away – I shall hopefully tag us in to great photos shortly

Back to Uganda – depends what eyes you use: ‘western eyes ‘ may see chaos, danger, poverty, deprivation, hard labour, hopeless…
The Ugandan sees opportunity, community, dignity, pride.

Schooling accessible to everyone and they are all taught their recent unhappy history
Medical services are available throughout the country
I’m told extreme poverty is almost non existent ,
AIDS treatment Gov sponsored so numbers decreasing rapidly :
Serious crime very low – rape minimum. sentence is life; death sentence is common
Illegal Possession of a gun is also a life sentence – so no one will touch them even if they find one in the street 😀

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Subsistence farming

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“We have peace in our hearts” is how one Ugandan “friend” described it to me

So if I haven’t bored you yet I’ll post about our 13 hour road trip

A stunning country – come and visit 😜

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https://youtu.be/41JjxxTk3Ko&rel=0

 

https://youtu.be/f978UFW_tew&rel=0

[photographs by Neville Jones, me (video on my iphone!) & Karen Weskob]

Breakfast

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So unpretentious and made with so much kindness – I had forgotten how special the black smile and heart is – all my ‘friends’ here are graduates in interesting degrees – working in a resort that has one guest; me – imagine the boredom factor – with dreams and hopes for the country’s future that inspire.
They are enthralled by my new binoculars and know every bird by sound
Blessed and humbled and grateful for what we have – we forgot or I do, how much I have, till I revisit.

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