Murchison Falls, Reformed Poachers, and Rhinos

 

September 1, 2024

Murchison Falls, Reformed Poachers, and Rhinos

 A truly remarkable day today!  A couple of days ago, while on the Nile, we had gone upstream and had been able to see Murchison Falls from below: 

Today, after getting up at 5:30 AM, on our way out of Murchison Falls National Park, we visited the top, and what an experience.  The entire Nile River flows down a waterfall and through a gorge just 7 meters (about 21 feet) wide.  The power of it is incredible.  Here’s a view from the top: 


And a video showing the force:

You can barely see the outline of the gorge through the mist:

We were soaked!  A bit to the side, you could see downstream: 

It rivals any waterfall I’ve seen!  We then began our drive back to Entebbe which will take two days.  After a couple of hours, we stopped at a village completely populated by former poachers and their families.  The Ugandan Wildlife Authority has worked with reformed poachers to help them form successful farms and villages and has reduced poaching considerably.  We were met by some members of the village; some of the children shyly posed for us: 

The kitchen hut was very basic: 

There were chicken coops: 

They are able to grow rice:


 They have a very productive apiary, and earn some money selling their honey: 

They are almost completely subsistence farmers, however, with government support.  The penalties for poaching are severe, with long terms of imprisonment.  The park rangers carry weapons, and if they see a poacher with a weapon, they are authorized to shoot to kill!   The villagers do a lot of dancing for their entertainment, and they put on a dance performance for us.  Some of the hip movements resemble the hula: 


Our destination for the evening was the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary.  Poaching had completely eliminated rhinos from their country.  An NGO has worked to bring them back, and a number of years ago they started with seven Southern White Rhinos, some from Kenya and a couple from US zoos.  The population is thriving, although slowly, and they now have 42 rhinos in the sanctuary.  When they hit 50, they’ll begin to repopulate the national parks, and they really need to have the poaching under control.  They have a (very) basic lodge in the sanctuary, and we checked in there for the night.  At 4:00 we had a briefing about how to behave in the presence of the rhinos, and then began a rhino trek on foot into the swampland where they live.  It was truly awesome to be right there with them.  We found seven, and while photographing I dropped my camera into the swamp.  It didn’t survive.  All the photos from here on will be with my iPhone.  We spent an awesome hour in the presence of the rhinos, and then went back to the lodge for dinner.  Here are a couple of photos, the one with me showing just how close we were to them: 



 Tomorrow, we have a swamp walk for birding at 5:30 AM, and will then finish our drive to Entebbe where we have day rooms at the hotel until our flight to Kigali, Rwanda in the late evening.

Comments

  1. xctravelerSeptember 3, 2024 at 7:13 AM

    I think this is the second trip where you have lost the use of your camera. Viewing on web your picture quality shouldn't suffer. You are awfully close to those rhinos with no protection, I would be very concerned, but I'm sure it is thrilling.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rwa442September 3, 2024 at 7:39 PM

    Amazing sights. Those rinos look spectacular, but you did get a bit close! The power of the Nile is impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ralph P. LockeSeptember 7, 2024 at 3:30 AM

    That is an astonishing water flow, in the Nile. Reminds me of Niagara Falls (Canadian side), which can be very scary. Great that the rhinos are slowly being repopulated, and the poachers stopped. I hope the govt. is doing more and more to help villagers figure out the best crops to plant and so on. Not least with the challenges of global warming....
    --Wonderful to see the villagers dancing, often showing really intense and coordinated physical movements. The tall young guy in the first video seems like a showoff, even though his actual movements are not that demanding. Every community has one or two such, it seems! (Sometimes, in a synagogue, he can be put in charge of organizing the Thursday-evening men's group.)

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