African Safari 2019-Chimps, Gorillas, and the Migration Day 6

Day 6:  Drive to Queen Elizabeth Park

Yep, still soaked.  QE Park is at much lower elevation, and supposed to be much warmer, so hopefully they’ll dry later.  After breakfast, we began our drive south to QE Park, with the roads deteriorating as we got closer to our destination.  Along the way, we passed the equator with a stone marker identifying it as such.

Upon entering the park, we soon spotted our first animal sighting, the waterbuck.

 

This was soon followed by a warthog family,

cape buffalo,

 

and some elephants.

Our hotel, the Mywani Lodge, is perched on a peninsula between two large lakes, Lake George and Lake Edward with great views of Lake George. The far side of Lake Edward is the Democratic Republic of Congo (which we want to avoid). From the hotel lobby as well as the decks of our respective rooms, one can see large elephant and buffalo herds on the far banks of the lake.  

After a delicious lunch, we were escorted to our tents, at the far end, the last 2 tents, typical for us (although this time Jeri and I had the penultimate tent, still pretty far from the main lodge).  Don’t cry too much, though, we have a king bed, a/c, and a ceiling fan.  There are also warthog family 

and a slew of mongooses that live on the hotel grounds with the bulk of their time spent in front of our cottage/tent. 

We put out our wet laundry and met Ismael for a game drive for the afternoon.  The game drive was slightly disappointing, with much lower density and diversity of animals.  We saw several waterbucks, two of which gave us a 20-minute head-butting match

Warthogs,

And a large number of birds.

and Vervet monkeys

  

Made it back just after dark for dinner. Our wet clothes were dry as a bone, and clothes that we washed ourselves when we first got into our were nearly dry.  You gotta’ love heat and low humidity. Tomorrow, an early morning (up at 5:30) for a hopefully, more productive game ride before breakfast.