Pool Party!

So we got off a little later than expected from Lake Nabugabo because we had to wait for the roads to dry before we set out. We were hit with a very violent thunderstorm the night before we were set to leave. It was so bad that I was the only tent-dweller who toughed it out through the storm-  I actually didn’t wake up until near the end of the storm- McKenna sleeping skills at their finest.

We were pretty excited when we arrived at our accommodations in Seeta, a burb of the capital Kampala, since they turned out to be a very nice hotel with a pool!! The weather here is extremely hot and the sun is very intense so the pool was an enthusiastically-welcomed luxury. At Seeta we had lectures at the hotel and visited Mabira Forest. Mabira Forest is called an “empty forest” because it lacks nearly all animals. This is because under Idi Amin the forest was largely cut down and used for agriculture. Although it was eventually re-gazetted as a forest and much of the trees have recovered, few of the animals have returned. The best part of the forest was a huge parasitic tree. This is a type of tree looks like a vine surrounding another tree that eventually surrounds the host and kills it while the parasite grows large. This tree was a particularly dramatic example of that. I hope you can appreciate its size from the clip (edit: couldn't post it- too long to load).