Visiting Uganda and Rwanda

It was 1976 when I first paid serious attention to the East African Country of Uganda. The Entebbe incident, was all over television. A daring rescue mission was performed by Israel to free hostages on the hijacked Air France plane at the Entebbe Airport. The dictatorial regine of Idi Amin was responsible and everyone had heard of him. That removed Uganda from my “must-see places.” (A recent must-see thriller is “The Last King of Scotland” about Idi Amin that held me glued to my seat.)

Rwanda was a completely different situation. The first travel operators started running trips to see the Mountain Gorillas of Rwanda (Abercrombie &Kent, comes to mind), perhaps 15 years ago. The gorilla permits were too expensive for ex-Marine (husband, Steve) and myself at that time and then came the Rwanda genocide in 1994. That took care of visting the Mountain Gorillas.

That was then…this is now…and an e-mail arrived from Pat Dewil, Director of Call of Africa about a 15-day lodge and tented safari in Uganda and Rwanda visiting the Mountain Gorillas, looking for Wild Chimpanzees and hoping to see the famous Tree-Climbing Lions at Queen Elizabeth National Park in October 2006. Pat is based in South Africa and had been our guide on a luxury trip to South Africa years ago. He has over 25 years of experience, is a licensed Zimbabwean guide and both ex-Marine and I have unbounded trust in Pat.

Pat’s e-mail stated that he was going to lead only 8 people on this trip, and four spots were already filled (this was October, 2005)…were we interested? He assured us that both countries were safe and we did some fast thinking:

- The gorilla permits were still expensive; but

- we weren’t getting any younger and following the gorillas on foot wasn’t a stroll in the park with muddy, uphill terrain, at altitude.

Okay…we were in…and time to make plans…

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