During the remaining days of our journey we wanted to explore the very south of Uganda. One of the reasons to go there was that Georg wanted to check the possibility to do Gorilla trekking in the “Bwindi Impenetrable National Park” instead of Rwanda which is just an hour’s drive away. Rwanda had recently increased […]
Uganda part V – Going South
Maybe “Going South” is not an appropriate title for this part, maybe “Chimpanzee trekking” would be more appropriate which would completely ignore that fact that we were also trying to find the “tree climbing” lions … Let’s just see how it goes. After Murchison Falls we decided to continue to the south of Uganda into […]
Uganda part IV – Murchison Falls
Our next destination was Murchison Falls where all the water of the river Nile has to go through a narrow gorge of just a few meters. On the map it looked pretty far away and when talking to some other travellers they said that it took them two days to cover the distance. And it […]
Uganda part III – Kidepo Valley National Park
So we managed to get there, the Kidepo Valley National Park which is the most remote park in Uganda. You are sure to be off the beaten track here if something like that even exists anywhere in Uganda. And it is also very beautiful as Kidepo Valley was voted Africa’s third-best wilderness park in […]
Uganda part II – Up to the North
Yesterday we arrived in the Nile River Camp (http://www.camponthenile.com) after sunset when it was already dark. So with the first light it was exploration time. The camp is obviously located in a very nice spot above the river Nile. The tents were slightly away from the main building somewhere in the jungle. From above you […]
Uganda part I – An idea and its execution
I have talked a lot about having a plan here and there. And if that plan didn’t work out for some reason there was always plan B and sometimes even C. Sounds all totally fine and how you should approach things. Really? Yeah, sure. But every rule has its exceptions. This blog is about this […]
Wild Cost and back – Day 14
After saying goodbye to our friends we were going wild! We were flying to the “Wild Coast” in Eastern Cape. Beside the fact that this is a very nice area it was also done to reduce the time required for tomorrow’s flight back to Cape Town. Huch! “Cape Town”? That already sounds like the end […]
Bateleur’s Nest – Day 13
The reason why there is quite a delay with new entries in the blog is that since we have left Madagascar the internet connectivity in the lodges is non-existing or very bad. I am sure nobody would come up with the idea that I am getting a bit lazy … which is maybe 0.0138% true. […]
Going back to South Africa – Day 11+12
Today was the day when we turned around and are on the long way back towards Cape Town. The first part was to fly back to Tulear where we had entered Madagascar before. But before we could fly there we had to take the boat from our lodge in the Masoala park. And even before […]
Masoala Park – Day 9+10
The lodge were we were staying during our time in the Masoala Park was around 40 km away and only reachable by boat. And there was a further restriction on getting there: It was only possible to depart until 11’o clock as otherwise the sea was normally too rough. Since our hotel was only […]
Getting Wet and flying north – Day 8
After one week of dry weather it was time to change things. The Masoala National Park where we were heading to is a rain forest with a heavy emphasis on rain. In fact Georg was telling interesting stories from his last visit where the water was even finding its way to the beds. And since […]
About Detours and Baobab Trees – Day 7
The initial plan for today was to travel on the iconic Fianarantsoa-Côte Est railway to the east cost of Madagascar. Unfortunately this train had broken down some weeks ago and therefore was not running at the moment. So we had to find something else for today. What else would be more suitable as a replacement […]
Lemurs and a long drive – Day 6
Our plane was in very good mood this morning when we arrived at the airstrip. The reason for that was that it had local company. Planes registered in Madagascar have 5R. Two had joined and they were exchanging their stories. Our day was divided into two parts. First we would fly to an airstrip […]
Mines and other stuff – Day 5
Today was our first no-fly-day meaning we didn’t do any flights today. Instead we had a couple of ground based activities planed. The first one was visiting a sapphire mine in the close by city of Ilakaka. On the way to the mines we were walking through the streets where you could buy lots of […]
Arriving in Madagascar – Day 4
Packed and ready to go for Madagascar! So we already had to say goodbye again to King Mswati III, his 14 wives and Queen mother Ntombi. Today we were flying for close to 4 hours over water. So we got some instructions of how to operate the life raft in case of emergency and […]
The way to King Mswati III – Day 3
The day started with an emergency repair attempt. The “mobile phone holder” of our pilot Gorge was not reliable holding anymore on his belt. And loosing it was not an option as without this phone our journey would be in real danger. We would be basically grounded. So a group of really talented people started […]
From Mekothlong to Semonkong – Day 2
Any doubt that it might be cold in our houses during the night had been completely unjustified. The fire in the evening heated up the interior to a perfect level and every bed had something like 10 blankets. I only used 3 of them and it was perfectly warm. We slept much better than in […]
A long way to Sani Pass – Day 1
Today we started our journey towards Madagascar. No more theoretical talks. Practical execution was the game. And we had quite a distance to cover in the air as our first stop, an airstrip Heimville on the South African border of the Sani Pass was more than 1200km away which would translate to approximately 4 hours […]