October 9, Uganda Independence Day! 65 years old.
The Bwindi Imp. F. has more than gorillas. We spent today on a hike to a waterfall through the jungle.
We met at the same location as the gorilla seekers, only later in the morning and met our ranger/guide Martin. He had been working with the gorilla trackers that found our group yesterday, and was assigned to us today to take us to the waterfall. The usual hazards apply; avoid the elephants, don’t slip, keep your pants tucked into your socks.
Off we went. As you can see from these pictures, “trail” can be a generous term for this route.
The plants were huge, the slopes were wet and steep, and the wildlife scarce. We found one animal and our streak of new animals continued.
After a mile and a half, we descended a steep bit, turned a corner, walked over the slippery boardwalk, and through a narrow passage into the waterfall.
The waterfall was almost completely hidden from outside, and almost no sound came out. It was a very neat experience.
After pictures, we retraced our path for about 200 yards (and up the nasty steep bit) and forked off for a different trail head where we would await our ride.
Here are some pictures of the difficult part of the trail on our return from the waterfall.
Yes, it was steep enough to call for hand. Easy class 3 with exposure.
Some more giant plants and we were done.
The tour company signed us up to plant trees, so we planted a couple in the back area of the lodge we are staying at. We are the first to do it so perhaps it is a trend. Here is a sad looking ficus tree. We hope that in 5 years it will be 15ft tall like the others in the area.
Tomorrow, up for 5am breakfast, 5:30 departure, 2 hour drive to Kisaro to get on a small plane, 2 hour flight to Entebbe, and then on to points east on larger planes.
Kristine here. I asked Martin if this was considered an easy trail and he chuckled and said Yes.. I have decided that easy means, a short distance, like 2 miles, medium, like we did yesterday 4-6 miles and who knows what hard is. So, beware if you come, an easy trail is not always easy. But you can always hire a porter to carry your backpack and push or pull you up a hill. Or just give you a hand when needed.
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