Still in Entebbe
Last night was an exciting one for the neighborhood dogs, and a somewhat restless one for me. With the jetlag, the 3AM howling, and my thoughts about the trip to Kibale, I didn’t get much sleep. However, I did enjoy a cool, restful morning reading a couple of papers and dozing in my room.
At noon Richard and I drove to a small store to buy a few groceries to tide us over for the next couple of days. I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that everyone speaks English. I found myself thinking in Swahili as Richard chose vegetables from the small stall outside the shop.
After a simple lunch of fresh bread and cheese, we visited the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, just down the road from JGI.
Originally a home for orphaned wildlife, UWEC has grown considerably over the years, and is a really impressive facility.
Ian with the vervets in UWEC.
A troop of vervet monkeys cavorted and groomed near the small cages that originally housed several chimpanzees, before they were moved to Ngamba Island Sanctuary in 1998.
The nine or so chimpanzees that UWEC currently house enjoy a rather nice moated habitat with trees to nest in and termite mounds for experimenting with tools.
Trying to extract termites with a wand.
We saw several interesting species, including shoe-billed storks, white rhinos, serval cats and patas monkeys; all of which were quite active and in very good condition.
The Shoebill - one of the most elusive Ugandan birds can be seen easily in the UWEC.
All in all, we were very impressed, and were pleased to see many visitors, Ugandans and Westerners alike.
Tomorrow I will visit the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary.
Ian
:: Check out our Entebbe photo gallery
