This is Part Two of Allen and his mother’s trip to Uganda. Lask week we left off with them ending their day of traveling via Jeep to lions, elephants, leopards, flamingos and more. They were headed to a “huge hotel that was apparently built for the queen when she came over to visit the country that they had colonized.”
Mom and I had a couple of coffees and then got on a boat that took us down the Nile River from the source. Mom and I both have now been on the end of the Nile River and the beginning. Back in the 80s Mom and Dad came to Egypt to visit me, and we took a boat down the Nile. The boat we were on this time had other travelers on it, so we were able to meet some people and take some really great pictures of all the animals that congregate anywhere there is plenty of water. They congregate together; it makes it really interesting to see how they allow each other to take turns at the water. There were hundreds of elephants, hippopotamuses everywhere on the ground, and in the water, there were crocodiles, all kinds of birds, water buffalo, and more.
The first people we talked to were the first Americans we found on our entire trip. The husband happened to be a landscaper from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and his wife was an English lady who now lives with him in Jackson Hole. I asked him what he was thinking about the season to come in the landscaping world and the economy and how he was going to handle this new world that we’re living in. He said, “I no longer care about any of that. I just sold my business to someone in town, so I am now going to become a professional traveler.” That man is living my dream. We stayed in touch and emailed each other, and I warned him when he told me that next time you’re in Jackson Hole to give him a call that I would. He said, “Please do” so we have a friend there that I’m sure our next trip out to Jackson Hole we will have some dinner with.
One thing he told me as we were talking about the ways of the world in the landscaping business is the coolest thing he’s seen that’s come out lately is something called a smart hat. The landscape worker can wear this hat and when a customer comes out to ask a question such as something about the plant material or how to fertilize and take care of the plants with fungicides and whatnot, the smart hat will give the worker the answers he needs so the bossman doesn’t have to get called or have to come in and answer those questions. I don’t see us reaching that level of technology at Garden Works but I’m glad to know that somebody is.
When the boat ride was over everybody had enough pictures, Mom and I joined Emmanuel in our Jeep and as we’re slowly heading back towards the next lodge for another beautiful evening, again, Emmanuel got a call, abruptly stopped, turned around, hauled about 20 minutes and we found a tree with a baby lion cub, sitting on a branch all by himself. Emmanuel asked if we were in a hurry to get back, and we both said, “no way, let’s watch this and see what happens.” Emmanuel said where there’s a baby there is a mother and most likely there will also be a nanny as somebody has to hunt, and they never leave the cubs alone.
He said if we had enough patience, we would be able to spot at least one full-grown lion, possibly two, and maybe some more cubs. This tree with the cub in it was about 80 yards from where we were parked, and with our binoculars and telescopic lenses, we watched around that tree for an hour and a half and took some great pictures of the cub but could not see any of the adult lions. When suddenly I saw what looked like a piece of paper floating across the top of the grass, Emmanuel said “that was not paper. Where did I see that?”
I told him to look right in front of the green bush that was between us and the tree where the cub was, and he said that was the back of a lioness arm, she had flipped over to digest on her back. Apparently, when you see your dog lying on his back with his paws up in the air he knows that digestion happens better when they’re on their spine. The cub finally made his way down the branch, and when he did, it upset the apple cart, and suddenly out of nowhere, three cubs appeared, and two lionesses stood up. They had been between us and the tree the entire time and as hard as we were looking, we could not make them out due to the camouflage that they were gifted with.
Emmanuel and I had an interesting conversation about camouflage, and I remembered an article I read in the Atlantic magazine about 10 years ago about where people have gotten with camouflage. They have just about gotten it to where a person can be invisible as long as there is a backdrop for them. You should look up some of the crazy stuff that’s happening in the world of camouflage, but no one gets it better than animals in the wild.
That afternoon, after two or three more hours in the Jeep, we wound up at the next lodge. We had a very full day as we crossed over the equator once again and saw a few more lakes that were craters that were just really water instead of salt mines. They were really beautiful to see, and the vegetation was a little lusher as we had gotten up a little higher in altitude. When we got to the lodge, we were introduced to the owners, who were a Scottish couple who moved there 25 years ago after deciding they didn’t want to brave the Scottish winters anymore and they didn’t like the jobs they had so they decided to try a new life. She was the gardener and had done a beautiful job planting all kinds of perennials and tropical plants around, and he was more of the handyman and had done a great job with the lighting at nighttime around the lodge.
We watched an incredible sunset and were lulled off to sleep knowing that tomorrow was going to be a big day searching for chimpanzees in the deep forest. I’ll stop this week’s article here so we can talk about the chimpanzees next week. It was one of the coolest parts of the trip so I will save that.
In the meantime, Mimi and I are preparing the nursery for what looks like an early spring and getting our yard right for the MRA Tour Of Gardens, which is coming early May. We had one of those days when our ideas for the projects that we wanted to do in our yard all came together, and one late afternoon when I guess the skies were smiling on us and gave us our answers. Now we can get to work and get this stuff done and get the plants in that it’s going to take. I know the YouTube video that I put up on our website and that shows up on your emails is a lot. But if you want to see the pictures that generally come from this article, you will start the video at nine minutes and 11 seconds and stop the video at 13 minutes and 31 seconds. I will post some pictures on our website with this also, in case you don’t want to look at the 18-minute YouTube video. Until next week.
