The day the baboon stole our lunch!

OK I admit it, this particular trip isn’t 100% work with no play - although I must admit that I feel so blessed to have such an amazing job that I wouldn’t complain too much if it was all work. Having Tim, Rozzie and Natalie around this week has meant that I have taken some down time to enjoy being family again, and it has been a really special time for us all.

After 3 days exploring projects and places in and around Kampala, Tuesday saw the 4 of us embarking on the 5hour drive to Murchison Falls National Park. The first 4 hours were pretty straightforward –leaving the city behind and finding the gaps between towns getting bigger and bigger, and the road getting straighter and straighter as there seemed to be no reason for it do anything other than go directly from one point on the line to another.

After 4 hours we reached Masindi – the gateway to Murchison Falls National Park – and that’s about all it can boast really. A pretty non-descript town and the point where you make sure you have enough fuel for the time in the park, and then wave goodbye to tarmac and embark on 42km of dirt road until you reach the actual entrance gate.

Theoretically those 42km should have taken 1 hour, and in actual fact they only took about 1.5 hours, thanks to the skillful driving of our wonderful driver Hakim. We’d been driving about 20 minutes when we came across a truck laden with freshly cut sugar cane that had got stuck right across the single track dirt road, and was well and truly going nowhere fast. It was one of those situations where you know there is nothing to do except sit it out – no alternative route, no tow trucks, just lots of locals giving thoughts on what to do, and one frustrated truck driver trying to dig the road up enough to allow the wheels to get some traction and escape.

After 30 minutes of watching the inaction from all angles, Hakim decided enough was enough and he wanted to get us to Murchison. And, with all the skill that he has when it comes to driving (and he has a lot), he managed to manoeuvre our vehicle through a space that really didn’t look big enough, over muddy ditches that had floored the truck, and back onto the road.

And so we got to Murchison Falls – named after some very impressive thunderous waterfalls at one end of the Park, who in turn were named after Mr Murchison who was president of the National Geographic Society at the time that they were discovered by a Mr Baker – explorer commissioned by the NGS back in times gone by (end of history lesson – I stopped listening to the commentary on our boat ride after that!)

Having gone and checked out the Falls from the top, we went and checked in to the lodge where we were staying – very pleasant but clearly in the ‘off-peak’ season: we are the only guests, and the electricity only works from 5.30 – 7.30am and 7.30 – 10.30pm! But it has a pool, and is very pleasant, surrounded by beautiful grounds, with lots of small-scale wildlife to keep us entertained eg lizards doing press-ups (no joke), weaver birds competing for best nest, and an orchestra of cicadas.

Today (Wednesday) was our full day in the park, so we went off on a game drive in the morning. Hakim enjoyed the drive as much as we did, especially the moment when we found the giraffes – his favourite animal. We were really lucky to see loads of animals including elephants (plus babies), lions, giraffes (plus babies), warthogs (plus babies), hyenas, buffalo, hippo, and countless species of antelope (plus babies). Then there were all the different birds from bee-eaters to weaver birds to kites to hornbills to storks and eagles. And all in a land that was bursting into new life as the rains are just starting, and the dry brown is being replaced by verdant greens and succulent shoots on the plants; a very special time that we all enjoyed very much to say the least.

In the afternoon we went on a boat ride and saw more wildlife from a new perspective. That was fun, although the boat we were in did sit very low in the water and Frederick our boatman did have a tendency to let the engine cut out just as we were getting close to hippos (with their babies), or crocodiles. Fred would be enthusiastically telling us about some bird in the distance, and I’d be watching the nearby hippo or crocodile slip silently underwater, and spend the next bit of time wondering where the danger creature had gone, and if it was checking out the underside of our boat! But as you’ll have realized, we all came back safely and maybe I should give Fred more credit for knowing his job properly and being more in control of the boat than sometimes it appeared!

To end, the story that accompanies the title of this blog, as I suspect this is a story that will get bigger with every telling – so this is the true account!!

Between game drive and boat ride there wasn’t time to return to our lodge for lunch, so they had packed us up a boxed lunch each and we instead spent the free time at the much closer, very nice, and too expensive for us, Paraa Lodge. We availed of their free internet, had a soda each, and just chilled out, before eating most of our packed lunches.

Rozzie had left some of her lunch to eat after the boat ride, and it was sitting in a box on the seat between her and Natalie at the back of the MPV that we were travelling in. After lunch we drove down to the area where the boat rides go from. We had 20 minutes to kill, so Hakim parked in the shade, and we just rested in the car with windows and doors open due to the heat.

Picture the scene: Hakim had gone off to chat to some fellow Ugandans, taking the keys with him, Tim was in the front passenger seat, I was on the middle row, Rozzie on the back row, and Natalie standing outside by the single back door (one of those sliding ones that is level with the middle row of seats). We are all chatting when Natalie mentions a baboon is coming closer. Then it changes its mind and Natalie looks away but when she looks back it is coming closer again.

At that point she gets in the car and shuts the door, and Tim shuts his door. Hakim has the keys so we can’t close the windows, but to be quite honest it all happened so quickly that I don’t think we’d have had time to do anything anyway.

Suddenly the baboon is on the bonnet of the car, and seeing Tim in the passenger seat goes across the windscreen to the driver side, and in through the window!!!!!!! Tim is out of the car faster than you can say ‘get out’ and Natalie isn’t far behind, thus opening the middle door and providing an escape route for the baboon who is slightly alarmed to find himself inside a car with mazungus!

Not as alarmed as Rozzie and I who are trapped in the car as the baboon is between us and the door. The baboon looks at me, and I can’t remember what I do, but all I am thinking is ‘Rozzie is trapped in the back and I don’t know what to do but I really don’t want to upset this baboon or it could all get nasty’.

Thankfully the baboon decided he didn’t want to take me on in a fight (read into that what you want), and then, possibly prompted by Rozzie’s scream, decided to leg it out the door – but only after he had grabbed the box with Rozzie’s food in it from the back seat.

He was out the door with the box before the scream could bring any Ugandans running (although they did appear quite quickly after the event), and our final view of him was as he sat in the distance enjoying some potato crisps and homemade pancakes!

So, next time anyone goes to a wildlife park and sees a sign that says ‘keep windows closed’ – my recommendation is to follow the instructions. Thank you Lord for keeping us safe, but I’m happy not to test out the friendliness of any more baboons! Can definitely recommend Murchison Falls National Park as a destination in Uganda though – a wonderful few days away.