• Category Archives uganda
  • Kenyan Feast

    This is Juma our cook for the first leg of the tour.

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    These are the primary ingredients for most of our dinners.

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    We are on a rotation to help cook, which means chopping up the veggies.

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    Here are some of the dishes we get for dinner.

     

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    These are cooked green bananas in a tomato sauce.

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    This is chipata, which tastes a little like strudel.

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    This is a traditional Kenyan stew.

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    Here’s the cooked spinach.

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    This is ugali which is a corn flour “bread” that you eat the stew with after forming it into a little scoop.

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    Like this.

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    Juma is a great cook and we were not going to lose any weight on this trip.

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  • Uganda Lake Walk

    We went on a village walk today which took us to a lake. 

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    First we started through the tea plantations.

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    These are the flowers of a tea tree.

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    They would grow into tall trees but to make them harvestable they are kept short. They only pick the top 2.5 leaves, and they can do this every week or so depending on the amount of rain.

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    Many women carry heavy loads on their head in Africa.

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    Along the walk there were a good number of dragonflies which help to keep the mosquitos down.

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    There are all different kinds, more than we have pictures of as most of the time they are in the air.

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    There were many butterflies fluttering about.

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    As well as spiders waiting for something to flutter into their webs for lunch.

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    And whatever this was.

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    Down by the lake were many birds taking a break from fishing.

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    The views were amazing, Uganda is very green with all the tea and banana plantations.

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    The village kids were collecting water to take up the hill.

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    We had to cross a makeshift bridge to head towards the village. No one fell in.

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    Most of the homes are just simple mud and thatch.

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    This family was preparing fish for drying.

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    Lots and lots of fish.

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    It took him about 20 seconds per fish to scale and gut.

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    These were the ones waiting.

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    It was also the harvest season so the corn was being dried out.

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    Some bananas were also harvested. They pick them green here too and let them ripen. They are a little smaller than the ones we get in the grocery store.

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    The family also had goats with a couple of babies.

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    This house was reinforced by more sticks to allow it to be bigger. It also had a steel roof which doesn’t require the constant upkeep like thatch.

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    Their kitchen is simple with a small fireplace and food for cooking.

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    Outside were more insects like wasps.

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    They also grow peanuts. See all the peanuts?

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    Of course not because they are underground. They dig them up then leave them out to dry before collecting so they don’t weigh so much.

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    There were more butterflies around too.

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    There were some really large flies that would bother us, but not nearly as bad as the ones in Australia.

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    If only more birds would be around then perhaps there would have been fewer flies.

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    Although with more birds we would have likely seen fewer of the big insects like these grasshoppers.

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  • Crater Lakes

    There is an elephant in this picture. Maybe more than one. But one that we noticed. The very first African Elephant we saw.

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    He is trying to hide behind the tree.

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    There are animals on the far side of this lake too.

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    Kerri thinks it’s two wolves.

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    Hunting a moose.

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    Matt insists that the far side of the lake is not Canada.

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    Next to this lake is definitely elephants.

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    Lots of elephants.

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    Of various sizes.

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    With babies.

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    Of various sizes.

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    The babies are clumsy and funny.

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  • Chimpanzees

    Chimpanzees live in the forest eating figs.

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    They are hard to see from the ground when they are up in the fig trees eating.

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    But with binoculars you can find them.

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    But mostly they were just busy eating and didn’t care about us.

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    The males were done eating for the day and were down on the ground sleeping much closer to us.

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    And grooming each other.

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    There were old ones.

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    And younger ones.

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    They were mainly lying around trying to take a nap after a busy morning of eating.

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    They were interested in what we were up to as well.

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    But not enough to do much more than yawn and lay around.

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    It really is a lot of work being a chimpanzee.

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    They have really big mouths.

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    It can look scary but it is just a big yawn.

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    Still we would not want to ever be on the bad side of a chimp.

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    More likely just join in the nap session.

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    Or just relax in the forest as it was pretty hot out.

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    The facial differences are quite interesting and the guides can tell who is who.

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    Most have a good temperament.

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    Like this guy.

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    There is one that you have to look out for. This is not him.

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    This guy was mainly yawning often.

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    These two were grooming almost the whole time we were there.

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    They groom all over, even behind the knees.

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    Their nails stay quite short with all the climbing and walking around.

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    Their nails look cleaner than ours sometimes and they are walking around in the dirt most of the time.

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    This chimp was easy to identify because he had a damaged eye, or a cataract. We couldn’t tell from where we were.

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    This ones eyes were fine and look around at all the stuff going on, including all us tourists.

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    This female had a red bum because she was ready to mate.

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    This caused a fight between the males which was very exciting. Sorry for the lack of videography skills.