UGANDA: KIDEPO NATIONAL PARK, DAY 1

 July 23, 2025

We woke up at 6:00 a.m. and ate breakfast at 6:30. Breakfast typically consisted of our choice of eggs, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, cereals, toast, juice, and hot chocolate (for Ella, who was obsessed with it and had it almost every day of our trip no matter how hot the weather was). 

By 7:00 we were on our way to pick up a national park ranger named Zachary who had been assigned to accompany us anytime we were in the park. We passed by a large herd of Cape buffalo, one of Africa's "Big Five" game animals.

They reminded me a lot of a herd of American bison.

We had to go through this river to get to the military base where we were picking up Zachary and then again at the end of the day to drop him off:

Ella, as always, took it all in stride. She is a great traveler.

The military barracks are the upscale version of the thatched roof huts we had seen on our drive to Kidepo NP the previous day.

The rangers in the park are responsible for patrolling the park, anti-poaching operations, wildlife monitoring, and general safety issues, particularly near the South Sudan border. They carry big guns, or at least our ranger, Zachary, did. 

Here we are at the base, photo courtesy of Zachary. On the left is William, our wonderful guide who had been with us for several days by this time.

These are Ella's photos of a waterbuck. Waterbucks love water and are never far from it, hence their name.

Ella also got some great photos of hyraxes, a fat, short-legged, furry animal that looks a lot like a giant guinea pig but is not a rodent. There was an extended family of rock hyraxes having a reunion on some large boulders.

This is a bush hyrax, identified by its smaller size and white patches above the eyes.

Ella also got some great shots of an African grey hornbill.

This looks like a mating pair:

Zebras have a thing about crossing the road in front of safari vehicles. We have experienced this in numerous African countries. I think they are show offs. "Look at me!" their slow walk screams. "Have you ever seen anything more gorgeous than my stripes?"

William asked us if we thought zebras were white with black stripes or black with white stripes. That is a good question.

The overly long face of the hartebeest reminds me of the Habsburg Jaw, the genetic deformity caused by centuries of inbreeding in the royal houses of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs.

Is this a hartebeest skeleton? It looks like it might be.

Pumbas, aka warthogs, are ubiquitous Ugandan roamers.

Ella got charming glamour shots. I am surprised by how long the hair on their back is. It is a lot like a horse's mane but goes the entire length of the body.  In some ways, it looks like a stringy comb-over.

Too bad we humans don't get along as well as this Cape buffalo and giraffe who were hanging out together in spite of their differences. (Or maybe they were just tolerating/ignoring each other.) 

This baboon could be any teenager staring mindlessly at a screen.

The highlight of the morning was coming across dozens of vultures crowding on and around a dead Kob antelope, the perfect Vulture Buffet. We had never seen such a display of greed and hostility in the animal kingdom before.

They kept coming, hopping clumsily through the tall grass, until there were as many as 100 fighting for an opportunity to pick at the carcass, which appeared to be newly dead as it was still in one piece. Their harsh cries created a cacophony that drowned out all other sounds. One by one they shoved their way to the center where they could stab the body with their beaks, shielding their spot with their broad wings. It was total chaos.

They stabbed at the eyes, the cheeks, the soft spot behind the front leg. Sometimes they stuck their heads so far into the gaping wound that their heads came out covered in blood, looking like a sloppy dye job at the hair salon. It was incredibly grotesque and strangely fascinating at the same time. 

Something startled them and they flew away, but almost immediately started back with their awkward hopping gait. It took less than a minute for the carcass to be blanketed in snarling predators once again.

We've had a few of what we call "National Geographic Moments" prior to this, but this encounter may beat them all for sheer drama.

Look at those bloody heads! The usual color is the grey color like the vulture on the left.

Ella's got a few photos that show how ugly and barbaric these creatures are:

 Later on and in a different location, we saw a white-headed vulture, which looked like an overdressed old woman with an abundunce of wrinkles, overdone make-up, and dyed graying hair. (Ella's photos) 

A few more sightings in the morning included a jackal (Ella's photo). . .  

. . . and a hartebeest trying to ignore a pair of snuggling zebras: 

Ella's close-ups show that the zebras have been rolling around in the red dirt:

Another great moment came right before lunchtime when William and Zachary spied something growing on a termite mound off the side of the road. They got out to investigate . . . 

. . . and came back with the most humongous mushrooms I have ever seen.  Zachary told us they are edible and make a great stew. We double-checked with our mycologist son, who agreed. As you can see from Ella's photos below, Zachary was pretty happy to be taking these home!

I don't think I've ever seen a mushroom with a taproot like this!

Bob, of course, was always looking for birds. Occasionally I got a decent view of one, like this white-browed coucal. . .

. . . but usually it required Bob's or Ella's long lenses to get decent photos, like these four of Ella's of a Ruppell's starling . . . 

. . . a black-winged kite . . . 

. . . a hamerkop . . .

. . . and a broad-billed roller perched in a sausage tree:

By the time we returned to the lodge for lunch, the van was fully camouflaged with the local mud. (And every morning when we got into it for the first time, it was immaculately clean.)

The bouncing, jarring, twisting, lurching motion of the jeep as it maneuvered through the gouged potholes and over the hardened ruts was just about as much as my stomach could take, and so I decided to hang out in our tent-cabin in the afternoon rather than risk losiing my lunch on another drive. I took a shower but lost hot water right after I put shampoo on my hair. After I got out, the power went out. I walked up to the lodge and told them, and they got it restarted.  About 30 minutes later it went out again. I finally figured out that the external portable battery I was charging was the culprit. 

I have since told Bob that I am no longer up for staying in places that lose power if you plug something in. Why do they have sockets if you can't use them??? Anyway, I spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing and sweating in our hot, humid quarters. Meanwhile, Bob and Ella were out on another expedition with William and Zachary. Their goal was finding a leopard. They failed, but they saw a lot of birds, which made Bob happy and which Ella tolerated.

At one point they were following a van that almost tipped over in some mud, but their jeep did fine. However, when they went through the same mud on their way back, they got stuck. William used all of his driving skills lto try to get out, then Zachary got out and pushed, then Ella and Bob helped push, then they put rocks under the wheels for friction, but nothing worked. Another vehicle came along and the people riding in it helped push, which STILL didn't work. Finally, that second vehicle drove around our vehicle and pushed it backwards, nose to nose, out of the mud pit. After that, William was somehow able to make it through (maybe a faster start?) and out. 

Back in the tent, I was watching a lightning storm move in and wondering where my beloveds were. Of course we had no cell phone reception, and so I just had to worry, one of my best talents. It was a great relief when they finally showed up.

We enjoyed our dinner together . . . 

. . . and crawled into bed in our (hot, stuffy, claustrophobic) tent.

  

For more (and better) animal photos, see Bob's post about Kidepo National Park here.