Our First Day in Entebbe

Rainy Morning

I sleep like the dead. John and I head to breakfast at 10:30am. There is a thunderstorm with heavy rain. The weather report says it will clear up by noon. My fingers are crossed.

The rain stops. The breakfast has very generous portions. I also have a glass of milk. It tastes different than ours: fresher, sweeter.

From our vantage point, I watch the birds and John watches the distant planes at Entebbe airport.There is a subtle smokey smell in the air.

Entebbe Botanical Gardens

The sun comes out and the temperature is in the 20s. We grab an Uber and head to the botanical gardens. We decide to hire a botanical and agricultural student named Bright to guide us through the park. For $15 US, it is well worth the money. He knows not only about the plants, but also the birds, animals, insects and fish.

Bright points out a crab spider. There are also lots of dragon spiders around dangling above us in their webs. He shows us termites and says that they fry and eat some of the termites. I wouldn’t mind trying that.

There are lots of birds. Kingfishers, a fishing eagle, hornbills and a bird that steals clothing if you are silly enough to leave it unattended. A large Marabou stork walks along the shore of Lake Victoria. No one eats the Marabou stork because its meat is poisonous.

Lake Victoria is the source of the Nile River. Bright says that the two main edible fish in Lake Victoria are Tilapia and Nile Perch. He says that most people prefer the Tilapia because the perch are predators. When the genocide was happening in Rwanda dead bodies were thrown in Lake Victoria. People catching the perch found fingers, rings and body parts in the stomachs of the perch.

Bright points out Jane Goodall’s Chimpanzee Island in the distance. Fifty six chimps live there. In the gardens he points out a lone red tailed monkey that escaped from the zoo.

We see a baby monitor lizard sunbathing on a rock. It gives us a hard done by look and walks away. Bright shows us the hole in a tree where a python used to live but it left because of too many people visiting the gardens.

The original black & white Tarzan movie was shot in these gardens. The steps from the movie are still there.

Bright points out so many plants which he had us touch and smell. There are so many bright poinsettias around. He shows us the mimosa plant which closes when you touch it. Click here for a short video of the mimosa closing.

He even shows us a plant that is named for it’s flower which looks like a Dutch Man’s Pipe. John gives it a try.

I am so glad we chose to do a tour with Bright. We would have missed most of the special things in the gardens.

We take an Uber back to the guesthouse.

Evening at the Guesthouse 

We meet Bosco, our guide from Enchanted Uganda Safaris just before supper. He will be our guide/driver for the next 13 days on our private tour.

I’m amused by the family of hornbills that have a nest on a nearby tree.

We have supper and make it an early night to bed because we get up at 5am tomorrow to start the tour.