Dirks fabulous adventures in Uganda: Entebbe, botanical garden, Uganda Wild Life Education Centre

This was supposed to be the last day of this safari. Nelson had planned to go to the botanical garden and then to the zoo. Ok, why not, I thought, hopped into the car and off we went. A guide was already waiting for us at the entrance of the botanical garden. Then we started our walk through that park that was created over hundred years ago by some Englishmen. It was a fantastic area with lots of immensely huge and old trees. Some parts reminded me heavily of the jungles I’ve been to when I went for chimp trekking. There were even lianas hanging from trees. Fantastic! Our guide told us that one of the Tarzan movies (the old ones with Johnny Weissmüller) was partly shot here which I could not verify but one could easily imagine such a thing. The guide showed us a true spider village with plenty of spiders. I didn’t know that spiders were social animals. We’ve spotted many monkeys and birds and fantastic flowers, bushes and trees. It’s really a terrific garden.

Later we went to the zoo where we had to wait for an old friend of Nelson’s. He just came from feeding some of the animals and asked us to join him to finish the feeding tour. So we hopped on the pick-up and off we went. We first had to geed the feed for the animals. Twigs, pellets, fruits and vegetables before we went to feed the giraffes. I knew they were tall but when one gets closer to them one realises how tall they really are. They knew the car and that there was food around so they came very close and bent their long necks to get some feed. Some got a few pellets in their hands and fed the giraffes. Some even took a banana in their mouths that was immediately grabbed by the giraffes which looked very funny. After a while we continued our feeding tour and went into the enclosure of the rhinos. Some brave ones even jumped off the car and touched the rhinos, of course only in company of a guide as rhinos can be very dangerous. After that we went for lunch at the zoo and met again with our guide to continue our tour. Next station was feeding of the otters, then feeding of the crocs. Then we got to meet Charles, a two or three year old African Elephant who was found somewhere in the water by a fisherman after his mother was killed by some poachers. Charles only survived because one of the keepers lived with him day in, day out for a couple of months and feeding him all day. The keeper’s now like the elephant’s mother and follows him wherever he goes. They went for a walk when we saw them and Charles kicked a football. We got to touch and feed him and tried to play football with him. Amazing. Then we went to feed the shoebill, a very strange huge bird that belongs to the family of storks. One had to look to the ground, shake one’s head and do a funny sound to say hello to him. When he repeated the same one was ready to go closer and even touch him. Without this procedure he might attack (which happened to me when I was in the Zoo in Zurich just before I left Switzerland. Luckily there was a sheet of glass between us which protected me from his beak). Then we continued to the enclosure of the chimps who were very excited, ran around and screamed like crazy. I was busy taking photos all the time when – all of sudden – something dripped on me. When I checked and looked upwards I saw a monkey peeing on me which seemed to be very funny for everyone around. As it didn’t smell at all (or I smelled so funny myself that I couldn’t smell a difference) I didn’t mind and continued taking pictures. Some of the bananas that were fed to the chimps fell into the moat around the enclosure. The chimps tried to fish them out of the water, some even using twigs which was very interesting to observe. After the chimps we went to the lion’s gate and our guide asked if anyone wanted to hand-feed the lions. I stepped forward immediately, grabbed the gloves and a piece of meet. It was very cool to see the lions that close. There were certainly bars separating me from the lions so it was absolutely safe.

Wow, what a cool day! I didn’t think that this was going to be such an interesting fun day at the botanical garden and the zoo but Nelson surprised us another time. Back at the hotel it was time to say good bye to Nelson, who would drive home now. He was such a good guide and friend all the time and I’m gonna miss him. If you ever plan to go travel to Uganda, Nelson’s definitely the man to be booked!

Thank you very much Nelson, hope to see you again some day!

a spider having a snack