New Year with the Karamajong

On New Years Eve, we left Kidepo National Park after packing up our campsite and drove South, thinking we would stay a night in Kotido. When we arrived in Kotido and assessed the food and lodging situation, together with how well the kids were doing on the drive, we decided to push on toward Moroto. Like the drive into the park, the drive out of the park and throughout Karamoja was just as gorgeous, with many stunning rock formations to stare at in awe.

We made it to a backpacker site where our friends were also staying and were quite pleased with our decision to push on. Kara-Tunga provided a wonderful resting spot with comfortable accommodation and good food. We decided to sleep in one of their safari tents with beds rather than use our own set-up. We crashed into bed that night, waking only to the sound of others cheering in the New Year. We knew we had an adventure ahead of us the next day and needed our sleep, so we didn’t bother to stay awake until midnight.

The founder and manager of Kara-Tunga is a generously-spirited and introspective man who arranged our activities to kick off the New Year. With a German father and Karamajong mother, he is passionate about bridging cultures and highlighting the beauty and richness of the Karamajong, a tribe often overlooked or scorned by fellow Ugandans for their continuing attachment to their traditional ways. With both his head and his heart, and a clear-eyed vision for his business and his people, he organizes responsible tours for visitors to experience the culture and traditions of the Karamajong. He paired us up with Thomas, a guide who took us to his own family - part of the Lotome clan - in Lobeei village.

As we approached the village, we saw a group of people singing, dancing, and jumping, which Thomas told us was a spontaneous celebration for the New Year. We watched the celebration while our presence seemed to bring more people, curious to observe the novelty of a mzungu family. While Pax seemed oblivious to the attention, poor Leo was a bit uncomfortable with the many eyes pointing his way.

I was pulled into the circle to dance and jump with the celebrants, then they broke up and began to show us around their village.

Thomas walked with us, introducing us to his family and explaining different customs, the roles different people play in the village, and the uses of various materials in everyday life. We were warmly welcomed and thankful for Thomas, who could translate our interactions. His sisters made us a meal and served us on a tanned cowhide. The boys inhaled the rice, beans, and potatoes and started to feel a little more comfortable after our meal and away from the crowd. They spotted a kitten hiding under the grain store and tried to catch it. After our meal, a couple of boys of Leo’s age brought over some bottle caps and a pebble, showing him how to play a game. He visibly relaxed and enjoyed himself, then started to get more curious. He wanted to know about their tools and how things worked. I was struck by the simple beauty of our surroundings, with the natural textures so eye-catching, particularly juxtaposed to the bright colors of their dress.

Thomas helped us express our gratitude for his family’s hospitality and bid adieu, as we loaded ourselves in the car and headed far off-road, where we would find the boys and men - the cattle kraal.

Kidepo National Park

Driving into Kidepo National Park, is a treat unto itself. Long before the park entrance, coming in from Kitgum, you feel yourself more silent and reverent at the beauty of the plains and mountains. The landscape of Kidepo (Uganda’s most remote park) is a stunner, and visitors are often rewarded for their long trip to the northeastern corner of Uganda with wonderful wildlife sightings. The last time I was in Kidepo, we saw lions tearing away at a buffalo carcass and I saw more new birds than I could keep track of. It was also a childless trip, with a stay at the park’s fanciest lodge, so clearly this was going to be a different experience.

We pulled into the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s main campsite, thinking we would stay somewhere close to a food source, but the only place to camp was directly by the entrance with neither a view nor privacy. After lunch, a rest, a wee, and making payment, we drove off to compare the more remote campsites and landed on the one said to be frequented by lions, and we settled in, occasionally standing on the large rock that provided a wonderful look-out and gave the boys an exciting place to play with their monster trucks.

We stayed at this campsite for three nights, with the company of some rangers when darkness came and with some friends joining us on our second day. We heard lions roaring from a distance each night and each day we hired a ranger to help us look for them, but we had no luck. We had to make due with stories about lions, told to us by the rangers, who said the lions were occasionally found sleeping in the shade huts set up on the campsite.

When out here in the wilderness with kids, I admit to a constant, background state of anxiety. Many would think it would have something to do with Africa’s top predator potentially looming about, but I trust the guidance from the rangers when it comes to the big game. Instead, I’m often alert to other potential sources of injury - ants nests, thorns, cliffs, lightening storms. At one point, Leo and I stood atop the lookout rock, talking to another visiting couple, when a swarm of bees quickly surrounded us. We ran down the rock and thankfully they didn’t follow us, but my mind started to work out scenarios and options if they had wanted to attack. The most pressing health and safety issue may have been the sun, which shone relentlessly. We enjoyed the crisp evenings when the sun went down and treated ourselves to some marshmallows.

The game sighting were not spectacular this time around in Kidepo, but we left knowing this is part of the safari experience. Out here in the wilderness, nothing is guaranteed and your best option is to be grateful for the beauty that does present itself to you. We still saw elephants, jackals, giraffes, kudu, vultures pecking away at a buffalo carcass, and even a bat hanging in the campsite latrine. And the landscape, of course. That is no small thing.

Aruu Falls

After waking up at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, we packed up the rig and opted for the easy breakfast option at Kabalega diner, before hitting the road toward our final destination of Kidepo National Park. We took a short break in Gulu, where we picked up lunch, and took it with us for a picnic at Aruu Falls. The plan was for a short, pleasant lunch with a view before driving on to Kitgum, where we would pitch our tent in the gardens of Acaki Lodge. But, our stay at the falls was extended, simply because they were too inviting not to explore. Leo kept begging to go in the water, but we had not brought any extra clothes down the steep and slippery path to the falls, so I kept telling him no.

He begged to at least put his feet in.

Fine. I agreed. Your feet.

Soon, his pant legs were rolled up and he was in up to his knees. Well, I didn’t want his pants to get wet, so I told him he might as well take them off. Then he was wading in deeper, nearly up to his waist, and his shirt would soon get wet, so off that came, too. Of course, his little brother couldn’t just watch all the fun without joining in and soon we had 2 kids in underwear/diapers and I had my pant legs rolled up, assisting Pax in climbing over the slippery rocks.

We didn’t regret it. The sun was scorching and the water was refreshing. We had more than a scenic view for a picnic. Instead, we had a small, but fun adventure.

While navigating the rock path on the way back to the car, Leo demanded to know when we were coming back.

Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

Over Christmas 2019, we crammed our Land Cruiser as full as it could be and drove around Kenya for a month, with a 1-year old and 4-year old. It was epic and it was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done in my life. Only now, Leo was hooked on camping and begged to go again. So, For Christmastime 2020, we lowered our expectations and set off once again, this time staying within Uganda and this time limiting ourselves to only being gone for 2 weeks. This time, however, there was a fresh excitement because we had endured the insanity that was the year of 2020, including the many intense COVID lock-downs in Uganda, which did not allow private citizens to even drive out of our compounds. Uganda was also facing an election where the young musician, Bobi Wine, faced off against long-time President Museveni.

We headed north. Destination: Karamoja. Our first stop along the way was Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, where many good and excellent people care for and protect a rhino population that they hope one day to re-introduce to Uganda’s national parks after they were nearly poached to extinction. Upon arrival, we were greeted at the campsite by a family of warthogs. We set up camp and the boys explored the site on their bikes, running across a herd of ankole cattle with their epic long horns.

Leo and I then went on a nature walk with a ranger, first spotting some African hoopoe birds playing the grass and showing off their mohawks. The ranger pointed out all kinds of nature facts along the way, but this was not a rhino trek, so we didn’t count on seeing the rhinos. I had been to Ziwa several times before and had the privilege of spending time with the rhinos, so I didn’t think we needed to set out to see them this time. But we were lucky. We came across them in our walk and our ranger took us as close as we could get. These rhinos have a team of rangers with them 24/7 for protection. It was a special treat to see them during this visit.

After the walk, we made dinner with the warthogs for company and roasted marshmallows for dessert. The boys took a dip in their basins for a quick wash, then changed into pjs and we tucked ourselves in to our rooftop tent.

Kibale Forest and our camping trial run

For my birthday weekend, I desperately wanted time in nature. I had heard about Silver, an ex-poacher who has turned into Uganda’s foremost butterfly expert, and I wanted to track him down and take a butterfly tour. Since it was only a couple of weeks before we were due to set off for the month-long trip, we figured we would combine my birthday weekend with a camping trial run. I arranged the tour, we finalized our packing, and we set off on Friday morning for the edge of Kibale Forest at a very special place called Sunbird Hill.

It’s a good thing we did this trial run. We learned so much.

While my tour and time away in nature for my birthday was absolutely exactly what I had in mind and I loved every minute of it, our camping test-run was a bit of a different story. Again, we learned so much.

Primarily, we were reminded just how much work it is to camp - to set up, take down, take out, make dinner, clean up, etc. And doing this with two young children who want to play in our precious water and investigate every small thing we had carefully selected and packed was a bit of a nightmare, not to mention finding a way to climb a ladder with a sleeping baby in my arms to put him to bed.

We learned that the kids absolutely cannot stay clean and, therefore, neither can we. So we realized that we either take more clothes or just let the kids be naked as much as possible. We tend to opt for the later choice, which is admittedly nothing new, but that also has consequences with a 1-year old. On the plus side, I saw my first dung beetle.

After finally getting the kids into bed the second night, Eric and I had a very serious discussion about whether we can really survive a month-long camping trip with kids so young. “They won’t even remember this!” we told ourselves. So we went back to the basics and asked: “Why are we doing this, again?” Ah, yes. We are doing this to spend time together as a family, to have fun, to play and be happy together. So once we had re-established our goal, we re-evaluated our set-up and our itinerary. What can we do to help us have more fun and minimize the “NO STOP DOING THAT!s” and the “DON’T TOUCH THAT!s” and the plethora of 4-letter words muttered under our breath.

We learned there is really no need to be hard-core. There is no need to be entirely self-reliant. Let’s loosen up the reigns a bit and allow ourselves to order meals if we need to, hire out our laundry to be done if we need to. I had also predicted the hardest part of the trip would be the long drives, so I originally worked out our itinerary for short drives, with just 1 night at most stops. But with all the things to set-up and take down, we realized that we can do longer drives (It was about 6 hours to Kibale, with a stop for lunch), and we should stay no less than 2 nights at each place. If we are to stay just 1 night, we decided we should get a hotel and order meals.

We also learned how grateful we are that we decided to get the tent annex that zips around the bottom of the tent to make an extra room (heretofore fondly referred to as the “safari barn”). We thought, at the time, that perhaps it was a bit too much. Were we just being those typical Americans who have to have everything BIG and luxurious? The hardcore overlanders rarely have annexes. But after a lot of thought, we figured we would use it enough now and in the future to make it worthwhile and we are very glad we made the investment. It provided a lot of privacy, a place to get out of the sun and rain, and a place to put our stuff at night.

So the plan is still in action. We are still going. Whether this is going to be epic and amazing or miserable and super difficult is still to be determined. Likely, it will be all of the above.

In the midst of this test-run, I escaped the campsite and the kids for most of the day on Saturday while tromping about through the delicious Kibale forest.

It was my birthday and what I wanted most was time in nature without children. I came for Kibale’s incredibly diverse population of birds and butterflies and any other small and spectacular fauna, and I was not disappointed. My guides and hosts were incredible. They have studied the species around Kibale closely and they know so much. They are doing important research, even finding new species all the time, so I knew that even with all I saw, it was just a taste of what this incredible forest has to offer. I felt honored to walk along beside Silver and Nick, learning from them along the way, so we ended up eating my birthday cake together!

butterflies

birds

Hairy-breasted barbet

Black bee-eater

Copper sunbird

Collard sunbird

White-spotted flufftail

Yellow-breasted apalis

insects, reptiles, and amphibians

Most people find their way to Kibale forest to trek the chimpanzees. This little corner of Uganda is home to one of the world’s densest populations of primates, the chimpanzees being the most popular. Most people stomp right on by the other, more subtle fascinations of the forest. But I’ve often had the experience that when you begin to notice one thing in nature, you will be shown so much more. And so, as a birthday bonus, I had a glimpse of the chimps - humankind’s closest relatives. Happy birthday to me!

It’s clear that Kibale has much more to offer and I do hope it won’t be long before I’m back. I will go straight back to Sunbird Hill, where Julia (the owner) and her team work with a passion to share their love and knowledge of the flora and fauna with the locals and visitors alike. I had only a glimpse of the swamps - enough to call me back to explore them more thoroughly. In a country that caters so much to tourists coming to see the big game, most guides know a few simple facts about the popular animals and not much beyond that. But now I’ve found a place where kindred nature-lovers move forth with all senses open and look beyond the surface to the abundant richness below that can be infinitely known and loved.