Amazing safari and reality check

The last 3 weeks have been truly amazing! Martin arrived and we've had the time of our lives...

Started with giving Martin a true cultural knock-out by introducing him to Kampala. The busy city does not always show itself from the most charming side and it sure takes some time getting used to all the people calling out "mzungu" where ever you go!

We spent a day in Entebbe by the beach and then finally on Monday the 5th of May we left Kampala to start our real adventure!

In a 4x4 we drove off to the very west of Uganda, with our super friendly driver Robert.

A pit stop on the way by the equator, Martin on the north side - me on the south!

After 13 hours on the bumpiest roads ever we finally reached Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. I guess it says something about the infrastructure in this country that it took us 13 hours to travel about 300 km. But the landscape was truly scenic and we passed by tropical forests, beautiful lakes and local villages.

On our private terrace at Buhoma Community Camp in Bwindi NP.

Early morning the next day our Gorilla trekking started! We were in a group of 5 people, 1 ranger guide and 2 armed rangers. It was extremely hot and we walked for 3½ hours in challenging terrain, before we finally reached our goal. And I tell you - it was worth every drop of sweat and aching feet and not least all the 500 dollars!! AMAZING creatures...

We visited the Habinyana group, which is the biggest habituated family in Uganda with 24 individuals. We saw 19 of the worlds 700 gorillas! Estimated 400 gorillas live in Uganda and the remaining 300 in Rwanda and Congo. Can I stress the need for conservation enough?!

Below, the dominant Silverback and a young gorilla.


The next day we drove on to Queen Elisabeth National Park. In the afternoon we enjoyed the best river cruise ever! We just felt truly blessed with happiness being surrounded by so much beauty and impressive animals. It was 39 degrees C and clear blue sky :)



All around the boat, hippo's appeared out of the water! Definitely a new favorite animal!









Just gotta love that ass... :) And those wonderful flapping ears!

African fish eagle

We passed by a local fishing village. Here some kids who were very happy to see us! Just a few meters away from them, hippo's, buffaloes and crocodiles were luring in the water... crazy. We were told that it is not rare that hippo's kill locals who get in their way in the water...



In the late afternoon the fishermen head out on the lake. Here they spend the night and return in the morning with their catch. Tuff life - and dangerous.

Spent the night on Mweya Peninsula which is just incredible beautiful! The accommodation was very basic, but who needs luxury when you are having the time of your life anyway...? All around this place wild warthogs are wandering about. Pumba sure seams to be a friendly creature!

Pumba and I

The next day started with an early morning game drive. Before we even drove off we saw a hippo walking by our guest house... On the game drive we enjoyed lots of elephants, Uganda cobs (antelope which is only present in Uganda), buffaloes, a chameleon, monitor lizards, African fish eagles, pretty birds and a beautiful lion with its pray!



Uganda Kob





Grrr... :)


Lioness with her pray (in the right corner of the pic). The pray was still alive, probably so that lion cubs can "practice" the art of hunting and killing. Cruel but that's wildlife!

In the afternoon we arrived at Kibale National Park and went on a Chimpanzee trekking! So many chimpanzees! I was happy to finally see my main species of interest for my project!


Chimp trekking



Spent the night at Fort Motel in Fort Portal - the most luxurious stay during our time in Uganda! It was soooo sweet (especially for me who have by now really gotten used to sleeping with cockroaches). Nice view over the Rwenzori mountains, who separate Uganda from the Democratic republic of Congo.
After that we spent 2 days in Murchison Falls National Park. Here we enjoyed the amazing water fall, the most powerful natural surge of water in the world!
In Murchison falls we experienced our best game drive! My favourite experience for sure was all the giraffes! The most astonishing animal on the planet, if you ask me :)

Peaceful...

Helloooo....

Beautiful pattern... These are Rotschild's giraffe

We saw a huge family of lions - impressive sight!

And lots of elephants - these two males truly were enjoying life :) Never get tired of looking at elephants interacting with each other, amaaazing...

I guess male elephants are no different than male humans...? Comparing their manlihood...

In the afternoon we went on a three-hour boat trip up the Victoria Nile. Here we saw lots of hippo's, buffaloes, elephants, eagles, birds and huge crocodiles! The experience got a little too exciting for us though, when the rain came along with thunder and lightning! We remember hearing that being on water is not great when lightning is literally all around you... I was planning what to do if it did hit the boat... would I be able to reach the lake shore before a crocodile enjoyed me for lunch?? And then on the shore, would I meet a buffalo...?

Croc!

Charming :)

The next day we left the west of Uganda and travelled back to Kampala. On the way we stopped at a Rhino sanctuary! Uganda’s last white rhino was shot in 1982 and no black rhino's have been observed since 1983! A truly sad story of how poachers managed to erase this impressive animal from the country... This sanctuary is an attempt to bring back the rhino's to Uganda. Here 6 rhino's live in a protected area, guarded by rangers 24 hours, who actually follow them by foot day and night. We drove for 40 minutes in the park and then walked the final part and then we stood face to face with 6 impressive rhino's! There are 2 other rhino's in the country and they live in the zoo in Entebbe. Let's pray this project is successful and that rhino's soon can roam freely in Uganda's national parks again...


We got back to Kampala late in the evening and immediately felt the urge to get out again :) So the next day we took the ferry to Ssese Islands! Beautiful green tropical islands in Lake Victoria, where we just spent our days enjoying the beach and relaxing in the sunshine. Wonderful!


Our "private" beach! Below Martin on the beach infront of our island home. Most amazing view and right on the beach. We like...



I was cuddling with a cute puppy and an adorable baby vervet monkey! These two are best friends and after a while they relaxed and let me be their surregate mother for a while...





"I really like these feet...Comfy..."


I managed to catch a nasty food poisoning and was terribly sick on the ferry off the island. Spent the day on a clinic getting antibiotic IV and even though my stomach is still not yet fully recovered, I soon felt better and could enjoy the last days shopping in Kampala.

The last day in Uganda we finally managed to go to Ngamba Island to see MY chimpanzees! It was the best chimp experience ever :) Talked to the vet on the island and got a tour inside the clinic and the facilities. Saw all of the 42 chimps and got an update on how they were doing. They look so human-like it is almost scary :) They are after all our closest living relatives, sharing 98,7% of our DNA.







I hope the pictures speak for themselves, because it is impossible to express in words the experience we've had the last 3 weeks. Everyone should see this for themselves, because no picture, book or film can ever compare to being there. The specific smell of the gorilla's, eye contact with lions and meeting with the local people. I think meeting the people and seeing the local communities is actually the thing that made the most impact on Martin. So much beauty and so heart aching poverty...



Gave us a healthy prospective and appreciation for what is important in life. Africa always does that to me. Brings me back and make sure my feet are placed firmly on the red earth and ensure me that I do not need a Gucci bag to be happy or café Latte to survive...

With lots of love
Martin & Carina

Animal welfare project in Mbuya

So much has happened since I wrote last time. The internet in my room has been down and the one at the internet café's are so slow I didn't want to waste time there...

I am glad to say that I have now finished in the lab! Amazing feeling when I isolated my final DNA yesterday :) Now I am free to enjoy this beautiful country! Tonight I am going to Entebbe to pick up Martin – couldn’t wish for more! Finished with lab and seeing my loverboy and starting our adventure in this country!

Last weekend I had a really interesting experience with Uganda Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (USPCA), that I wanted to share on this blog.
USPCA is a non-profit organisation, that is working to promote humane treatment and welfare of animals in Uganda.
The first thing that strikes you as you enter the gate to this place is all the dogs! So many sad creatures are kept here, after being saved from a life on the street or from mistreatment of humans. They conduct pet sterilization/castration and rabies vaccinations in local urban communities free of charge, vaccinate and give deworming treatment.

Complete chaos...

They also work with local and national government, law enforcement and agricultural industry. A lot of focus on humane transportation and slaughter of livestock. As you can imagine the conditions here are far from the ones in Scandinavia…
They also focus on informing local communities and schools about animal welfare.

The vet working in this place, Dr. Berna Nakanwagi, was really nice and is very interested in receiving volunteers, vets and vet students! So anyone who might be interested, feel free to contact me. I had a great time (and I'm hoping to find time for more). I was there with vet students from Makerere Uni and when the vet realised I had done spays before, she made me in charge of teaching the other vet students... oh my! :) She left the room and we got to work. The other students had NEVER done spays before (some had seen others doing it), so at times it was quite a challenge. They struggled with how to make sutures and how to hold the equipment which surely made me sweat a couple of times! But they did very well, considering circumstances (and hey – I’m not a teacher), and they even said they had learned a lot. They now refer to me as Dr. Carina… funny! In all a very good experience both for them and me!
Here is a really good chance of doing some important work and getting good experiences for vets... :)

Dr. Berna instructing Joshua and Caro

Before doing the spays we went down to the local community, where free rabies vaccination and deworming treatments were given to the locals pets. So many cats and dogs carried in the most awkward positions! Most of them terribly skinny. But here very few people were well-fed, so of course the animals have to settle with whatever is left over…

Dr. Sam, Dr. Caro, Dr. Carina & Dr. Joshua ;)

Love me, love me... I was getting some real TLC (tender love & care) post-operation

Now I have to finish packing all my things. Today I am moving out of Dag's Postgraduate Hall and into the guest house at the faculty of Vet, where Martin and I will be staying when we are in Kampala. So last hot shower for now... At the guest house there is only cold bucket showers... Will be interesting to see how Martin finds that ;)

The next couple of days we plan to explore Kampala and surroundings and on monday we are travelling to the west of Uganda for a week for some real Safari adventures! Can't wait... Tuesday we are going Gorilla Trekking! So now I hope to explore the real reason why this country is called the Pearl of Africa...!

All my love

/Carina

Third world science

Before I write about all the fun I’ve had this weekend I feel I have to share some of the experiences from the lab this week.

I’ve just received a mail from a dear friend who wrote that it was nice to see that there was actually a real laboratory. Well yes, this might be a less developed country, but the university is pretty well equipped. HOWEVER this week has really reminded me, daily, of the fact that I am in fact in Africa :)


Jamilla & I

The electricity has been going off several times. One night it was off all night long and in the morning none of my incubated colonies had grown. I guess I’ll just add failing electricity to my “possible sources of error”. Failing electricity does sort of put an end to the PCR machine and all autoclaving activities. Another daily reminder of my African experience is that there has been no water in the lab. During my first couple of weeks there was water, but the pipes were broken so we had to empty into buckets. Now however, whenever you want to wash your hands, you actually have to go to another room. Sometimes the quick solution is just using ethanol…

I also spend a lot of time recycling. All very eco-friendly I guess. Recycle petri-dished (I must confess I have bought over 500 plastic ones though), pipette tips, all sorts of tubes, containers… This combined with autoclaving and making agar and broths really takes a lot of time… And as mentioned, all these activities are on hold while electricity is out :)

Ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit. Electricity failure really only occurs a couple of times a week… The last time Hellena, a master student, was running a PCR and when everything just stopped she just sat down, sighed and said “this is third world science”… Hence the title to this blog :)
Tony working with this samples.

Jamilla is also doing research related to "my chimps". We plan on going to Ngamba Island together, maybe next week... Here Roger is helping out with the many samples.

I don’t know if I can blame electricity, autoclaving or water failures, but I have this week spent a lot of time in the lab. Both Wednesday and Thursday I was there for no less than 12 hours!

My research is really going in the right direction! When I told John (my professor in DK) about how the project proceeded, he said “so there you proved, that high profile science is possible in Africa”. Well that was before my PCR failed, but I’m still optimistic about finding the solution. I am afraid though, that freezing and thawing and going through many temperature changes have damaged my equipment…
The antibiotic resistance profiles are going well and I have now isolated 20 ESBL-suspect colonies.

I started todays blog by mentioning a great weekend! It sure has been good. After all the hard work, I finished in the lab at 6.30 pm. Friday and in the evening Sylvia and I went to Garden City to a fancy Indian restaurant. Garden city is a really nice shopping mall, in style with the malls we are used to in the western world and here I for the first time in a month, I didn’t feel like the only pale Mzungu in the world!

Sylvia tried her first prawns ever! She really liked it and was also positively surprised towards raw vegetables. She has been looking very funny at me when I have been enjoying my raw foods at home :) This meal was definitely the most expensive I’ve had yet. Great food and fresh passionfruit juice came to a cost of 57’400 shillings = 33 dollars = 172 DKK for both of us. It was definitely worth it :)Afterwards we went to the cinema and saw Street kings. Violent but definitely worth seeing…
Today, Saturday, we went shopping in the low price markets! What a jungle! Had a nice lunch and then I went to the lab.

Today's lunch!

Had a fun afternoon in the lab with Jamilla, Tony and Roger (above pictures are from this afternoon). Tomorrow we are planning on taking the evening off and going out for Pork. That will be really nice I’m sure.

That was all from me in the third world today :)
I hope I’m not only sharing “bad” stories. I always feel so sad and disappointed when all you hear about Africa is sad and terrible stories about how things are not working. It always makes me think, why don’t they ever report about all the good things?! And here I am, almost doing the same? But hey, its just part of the charm!

I miss home, but I truly do love it here…