Dirks fabulous adventures in Uganda: Kidepo Valley game drive, hot springs

The weather was still not so good in the morning but we still enjoyed the fresh air and the grazing deer during our breakfast. After a couple slices of toast bread, coffee and a fresh fruit platter we set off for a game ride. Some tracks were still pretty swampy so we headed for the ones that didn’t seem to be so wet. I liked this rather chilly, wet and foggy morning ride through that beautiful Kidepo Valley even though there seemed to be not too many animals around except for a big herd of buffalos. We curved around the hills and rocks where lions love to rest but obviously not when it’s raining. All of a sudden we spotted some ears on top of a hill, so we stopped to check what we had just discovered. Yes, it was a lioness and her puppies. We watched them for a while until they came closer. We soon realised that the lioness was on the hunt for a group of hartebeests. But the herd was alert and ran away. The lioness didn’t give up and seemed to soon be rewarded for her patience as the herd suddenly ran back towards the lioness. The herd somehow could not decide on running away from her… maybe they feared that some other lions encircled the them and thus couldn’t decide on running away from the lioness… so they ran back and forth for a while. We were very thrilled eventually witnessing a lioness chasing deer just in front of us but then the herd ran away again, this time farther away so the lioness gave up, went back to her puppies and and disappeared with them. It was still a very cool adventure though after which we headed back to the lodge for lunch.

In the afternoon we met with an armed ranger as we had planned to drive to the hot springs up north, alongside the border of South Sudan. The ranger explained that there are poachers and smugglers from South Sudan around who might shoot once in a while. The rangers were also allowed to shoot back in self-defence. When we asked what they would do with an eventual dead body, he replied that they leave it there as it was very difficult to bring them back to the Sudan. Anyways, we spotted some zebras and impalas and after we passed a fenced gate that was guarded by the Ugandan military we drove through a dried up river bed. We then spotted a group of ostriches even though the birds were quite far away. The ranger asked us if we wanted to go off the path to get closer but mentioned in the same time that we were not allowed to do so. We told him that it was ok to just see them from the distance and continued our way to the hot springs. We stopped at a beautiful place and talked about the problems in South Sudan for a while. We then walked a few meters through very thick, soft and green grass that reminded me a bit of chives and soon arrived at a surprisingly small hot spring. The water temperature must have been around 40°C but it was drinkable. A bit further away we saw another hot spring which was a bit bigger than the first one. There were traces of sulphur swimming on the surface that showed the volcanic origin of the springs. The hot springs were not very spectacular but the place was very beautiful, surrounded by mountains bushes, palm trees, acacias and other plants. After a while we went back to the car and drove back to the lodge, past the ostriches, deer, buffalos, zebras, eagles and other colourful birds where we had a Nile mixed with coke as there was no Sprite available. Later we had lunch, this time at the table outside the kitchen. We were a bit concerned as our German friends were not around when it got dark. They went early in the morning to hike a mountain. It was a bit far away and the roads were muddy. Nelson called their guide and he told to be on the way back home. They arrived quite late and told us about their straining hike and an Ethiopian people that once left their country and settled down up in the mountains. We were happy to see them safe and sound and soon went to bed as we were a bit tired after the long drive.

the weather was still not so good