Weekend in QENP

I’ve included some photos from the weekend spent at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. Reportedly the queen will visit that park as part of her visit to Uganda for Chogm which is upcoming (www.chogm2007.ug). The country has a well-organized park system, though I think it’s less visited than Kenya or Tanzania. We stayed at a hostel - which was cheap - but spent dinner and evenings at the Mweya Lodge - which charges over $300 per night. They serve western food, but the highlight of the dinner was a hippo that walked up next to the dinner patio to eat grass – not a rare event according to our guide.

The dark thing in a tree is a chimp that we found after 3.5 hours tracking through the mud. These chimps are habituated to humans from years of being studied by researchers, otherwise they would be nearly impossible for a guide to track with a bunch of tourists in tow. Otherwise there’s a caveful of bats and an elephant, of course. It’s a beautiful park. Since we frequently see images of these animals on TV and in books, the photos don’t come close to conveying the experience.