Thirteen Days in Uganda

Our 13-day safari was planned for Brenda to be the only shooter; Uganda has several unique species she wanted to hunt. I’d always wanted to visit Uganda (the Pearl of Africa), but never planned to take a rifle, as elephant hunting there was part of the past, not the present, and likely not part of the future – anytime soon. Roosevelt hunted through this area in early 1910 and at times our footsteps likely weren’t far from his. W. D. M. “Karamojo” Bell hunted here extensively during the same general period, taking his nickname from the Karamojo area. Idi Amin, the Butcher of Uganda, ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979 and the storied Raid on Entebe occurred here in July 1976. Lots of history!
We hunted from multiple camps, one on the west, one to the north and finally on the east side (Karamojo region) of the country. The camps were far enough apart that we flew between them, rather than driving Africa’s storied dirt roads. Saved a lot of time and wear and tear on our bodies.
Lake Albert is 2000 square miles and forms part of the boundary between the west side of Uganda and the Congo. Our first camp was

there, high on a bank of the eastern shore, overlooking the lake. Brenda shot Uganda kob, Nile bushbuck and a few other animals at this camp.
After only two days, we packed up and flew to the far northeast corner of the country, just outside Kidepo Valley National Park, passing over Murchison Falls on the way. Near our second camp, the South Sudan borders Uganda on the north and Kenya is its neighbor to the East. Idi Amin used the Kidepo Safari Lodge, built on the side of a mountain inside the park – and we toured it, as it was being restored. Brenda shot a nice Nile buffalo from this camp and we saw elephant in the national park.
To hunt all of Uganda’s unique game animals, you really need to hunt from three different camps. After three days in the second camp, we were off to the third, Pian-Upe in the Karamojo region, a couple hundred miles northeast of Lake Victoria and the major cities of Entebe and Kampala. During the seven days we hunted there, Brenda shot two species of reedbuck, an east African waterbuck, an east African eland and a Jackson’s hartebeest. What a wonderful safari in Uganda.