UGANDA 2025: MABAMBA BAY

 July 19, 2025

Our first activity in Uganda was a trip to Mabamba Bay (perhaps more accurately called by some Mabamba Swamp), but first we enjoyed a very nice breakfast in the lodge. We had a beautiful view out the windows. The lodge is located on 40 acres of indigenous forest adjacent to the Mabamba Wetlands, so it is a prime location for birding enthusiasts.

I don't think Bob finished breakfast before he was outside with the other birders and their cameras, and Ella was not far behind him. The were photographing two black and white hornbills.

Here is a closer shot. Bob had put together a camera and lens for Ella to use on this trip from some of his extra equipment, hoping she would join him in his bird photography habit and to give her something to do. She seemed to enjoy it. She is in the blue shirt on the far left, and Bob is two people in from her in blue shirt and dark pants. 

These two photos were taken by Ella:

UGANDA 2025: DOHA TO ENTEBBE TO NKIMA FOREST LODGE

 July 18, 2025

On arrival at the Entebbe Airport, we knew immediately we were not in Qatar anymore. We walked down stairs to exit our large jet.

Ella took her first steps on the African continent. (Qatar is considered West Asia.)

Instead of being met by a large golden teddy bear, we were greeted by a gorilla.

The airport bathroom met us giggle . . . 

. . . as did the sign over the baggage claim area:

UGANDA 2025: DOHA, QATAR

 July 17, 2025

Qatar is a tiny country in the Middle East that pokes out like a thumb from the Arabian Peninsula into the Persian Gulf. It comprises 4,471 square miles (slightly smaller than Connecticut) and has a population of about 3.2 million (slightly less than Connecticut).  Unlike Connecticut, 80% of its population is centered in one place, the capital city of Doha.

We arrived ini Doha at around 6:00 p.m., and by the time we got through immigration, it was beginning to get dark, which means the city was beginning to come alive. Our guide, Dharma, was a man in his early 40s from Nepal, of all places. He was friendly but very difficult for us to understand and misinterpreted many of our questions.

Doha is a visual paradise, and it quickly became apparent that the city is all about architecture. One of the first things we saw was Stadium 974, built in 2022 for the FIFA World Cup. Its name comes from the fact that it was built with 974 shipping containers.

Our first stop where we actually got out of the vehicle and stepped into the sweltering heat was the National Museum of Qatar, opened to the public in 2019. 

UGANDA 2025: A TRIP WITH OUR GRANDDAUGHTER

 July 15-17, 2025

In 2023 we took our oldest granddaughter Savannah on a trip to Colombia. She didn't get to choose the destination. We were already planning a trip there, and when we learned she was interested in the country, we invited her to join us. She was 16 years old and made a great travel companion, so we decided to take her younger sister Ella on a trip when she was 16. Because of the advanced planning, she got more say in her destination. In 2024, a year before we intended to travel, we asked her where she would go if she could go anywhere in the world. Without hesitation, she said "Africa!"

It didn't take Bob long to start exploring where we could go in Africa where he and I had not been before, and he decided on Uganda. Uganda?? Really??? Well . . . okay. Like Colombia, it straddles the equator, and we all survived that trip. How much different can it be?

A lot, as it turns out. Here are just a few significant differences:

-  While their populations are almost identical, hovering around the 53 million mark, Colombia is about 4.74 times larger in total area than Uganda. 

- Colombia has a richer, more developed economy. ($7,914 GDP per capita vs. Uganda's $1,073 GDP per capita)

- Uganda has a much younger population, in fact, one of the world's youngest populations with 43.5% of people under age 15!

- Uganda is landlocked while Colombia has both Pacific and Caribbean coastlines.

Before our trip, I knew very little about Uganda, other than that it was ruled by the brutal dictator Idi Amin during my teen years. Of course, I also had known little about Colombia other than that it had been the home of the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar who was particularly active during the 1980s and 1990s.

Gee, those both sound like great countries to take your granddaughters to, right?

GERMANY: HITLER'S MUNICH

 May 25, 2025

Our very last joint activity on our family trip to Germany was a guided tour of Hitler's Munich. But before I get to that, I just have to throw in this photo of a silver lion that we passed in the Old Town square. Munich has several statues of lions, once a symbol of Bavarian strength. Besides the Old Town Square, they can be found flanking the entrance to the Munich Palace, on the top of the triumphal arch, and at the Lowenbrau Brewery. My high school mascot was a lion, and I'm a big fan of the books The Wizard of Oz and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, both of which prominently feature a lion, so I am always drawn to statues of lions. This one looks powerful. I like it!

Munich is considered the birthplace of the Nazi Party (aka National Socialism or NSDAP), and a visit to Munich is not complete without seeing a few of the sites involved with the Nazi Party, especially in the 1920s and 1930s.

Our first stop on the tour was the Hofbrauhaus, a historic beer hall that started as a supplier for the Bavarian court. 

Our guide took us up a long stairway . . .

. . . to this dining hall. It was here in February 1920 (so early!) that 30-year-old Hitler, the propaganda chief of the National Socialist Party, announced the party's official program to a gathering of about 2,000 people. Seventeen months later, on July 29, 1921, he was elected to be the head of the Nazi Party here.

GERMANY: DACHAU

 May 25, 2025

We visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria in 2012 and Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp and Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland in 2019, so we assumed we were more or less prepared for a visit to Dachau. However, I learned that you can't actually be "prepared" to face horror on the scale of a concentration camp.

Historians believe over 1.1 million people perished in Auschwitz during its less than five years of existence, 800,00 to 925,000 Jews were gassed in Treblinka in just over a year, and 90,000 to 120,000 people were killed or died from the horrific conditions at Mauthausen during its seven years of operation. In contrast, "only" 41,500 or so people died in the Dachau concentration camp and its extensive subcamp system, and that was over a period of twelve years. Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka existed primarily as extermination centers--the "final solution to the Jewish problem." Mauthausen started as a labor camp, but eventually became an extermination center as well. Dachau was a prison camp--a place in the beginning for the Nazis to intern their political opponents; then groups regarded as criminals such as Jews, Romani, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses; and finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded.

We arrived in the city of Dachau by train, and I was kind of surprised that there was a city--I had only heard of the camp. A map at the station highlights "Historic Old Town," "Dachau Palace," and  ways to experience nature near the town of 50,000. The last thing on the list is a "Place of Learning and Commemoration"--the concentration camp.

We had a private guide who showed us a map of the major concentration camps in Germany itself--most of which I hadn't heard of--along with the subcamps and Aktion T-4 centers. There are so many.

Grafeneck, where our grandfather was murdered on May 21, 1940, is on the map.

It was gloomy and rainy at Dachau, appropriate weather for the experience.

The Dachau concentration camp was opened by Heinrich Himmler in 1933, the first concentration camp established by the Nazi Party and the longest to be in operation, from March 1933 to April 1945 when it was liberated by American forces.

GERMANY: MUNICH

May 24, 2025

Munich, the third-largest city in Germany (after Berlin and Hamburg), has a population of 1.6 million and is the capital of Bavaria. However, strolling around in the Old Town area (below left), we didn't feel like we were in a huge city as there is a lot crowded into a very walkable area. 

The most dominant building in the Old Town square is the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus,  or New Town Hall (below right).

 It is called the NEW Town Hall because it replaced the 14th-century OLD Town Hall (seen below) in 1874.

The New Town Hall has an impressive 400 rooms.

But what it is best known for is its mechanical Glockenspiel, which twice a day uses 32 life-size figures to re-enact scenes from Munich's history. See my four-minute video of part of the action here.