#5 Introducing My East Africa … but first some Great Blue Turaco birds

May 7, 24

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Ep 5. Introducing My East Africa … but first some Great Blue Turacos

[00:00:00] Today on episode five, I’m going to be talking to you about East Africa, specifically my East Africa. As I talked about in episodes one and two, I live on the edge of Kibale Forest and I spent most of lockdown walking. Every day I tried to go for a walk, connecting with nature, watching a butterfly for a minute, noticing a new kind of insect. It really kept me grounded.
[00:00:38] You know, living in the moment – mindfulness – some people call it, was really powerful. And so I often go for a walk, usually in the morning, and I want you to come on some of those walks with me and discover the simple things in life. I can hear the village today. Sometimes I can hear hornbills.
[00:00:57] Sometimes we hear the parrots overhead. But first, let’s listen to the great blue turacos. Here’s a little snippet from a moment when I came back home recently. I hope you enjoy it…
It’s wonderful to be back home after a couple of weeks in Kampala.
I was walking around last night, emptying the car. It was about eight o’clock so it’s dark and I could hear a flapping of wings. It’s a bit unusual so I was trying to think what big bird could be up in the tree next to my house and Julia said, “expect a lot of activity next to your house tomorrow because the figs are ripe.” And I walked underneath the tree a couple of times, kept hearing these wings flapping, couldn’t work out what bird it was.
[00:01:49] And then I realised it was a bat!
[00:01:54] There’s a particular bat that flies in and out of my house at night, but it’s catching moths, but this must have been a fruit bat. And now, if you listen carefully, you can hear ripe figs dropping through the canopy.
I don’t know if you heard that. Oh, what a lovely welcome back!
So I’ve got a fig tree and a spathodia tree.
[00:02:26] Spathodia has the most incredible dark orange flowers and they fill up with water so birds come in and drink from them. I’ve got the most amazing photograph of an African grey parrot, sitting in the compound one morning (and I’ll have to put it in the show notes) drinking water as it was flying into the forest.
[00:02:53] So this morning I’ve woken up to lots of bird activity. Oh, there’s nothing better than getting home and waking up to the dawn chorus the first morning. It talks to my soul. And there’s so much going on this morning and I couldn’t process it all. I wanted to remember every second and I made myself a cup of coffee, looked into the forest and there’s a tree (a rather boring-looking tree, all the leaves have come off). It’s totally nondescript, it’s just a bunch of bare branches, but it’s in the sunlight, and there are four great blue turacos just sitting there sunning themselves. So it’s a morning of big tropical birds.
We’ve got the bird that made a lot of noise just now, the black and white casqued hornbill.
[00:03:51] I’ve also seen the great blue turacos, I know that the Ross’s [turacos] are around as well, and a couple of barbets. Hmm, is that hairy-breasted [barbet]? Yellow spotted. I’m going to have to consult the book.
[00:04:17] Red chested cuckoo.
Oh yeah, I came back to chimps last night! Heard chimps screeching from afar. Could be the famous Ngogo chimps, as immortalized forever, now by Netflix documentary, docuseries rather. Then, I also heard a tree fall down, usually evidence of an elephant, but can’t prove that last night…
Hello, my name’s Charlotte Beauvoisin, author of Diary of a Muzungu, and you’re listening to the East Africa Travel Podcast.
[00:04:53] Welcome back to my home at Sunbird Hill. It’s mid morning, and you might be able to hear the hornbills in the distance. We’ve had rain this morning, and in fact I was trying to record, but the rain was just too loud but as the rain has stopped and the sun came out (well it came out briefly anyway). It was wonderful to hear the birds coming to life, trying to make up for those lost hours where they just had to hide from the rain.
[00:05:23] And it’s been a beautiful morning for birds. Yes, in the last hour or so I’ve seen a snowy headed robinchat. It landed on my balcony, don’t know who was more surprised, the bird or me, as we eyeballed each other. And I’ve just seen a Malachite Kingfisher right next to my house. A tiny little kingfisher, bright blue and orange with a long tail and orange beet like a spear.
Thanks for listening to the first episode. I’m dying to hear your feedback. Tell me what you think of what you’ve heard so far, and whether you like the sound of what I’m trying to do with this podcast
[00:06:06] Let me know if you’ve got any questions.
Who should I talk to in future episodes? Where shall I go?
What kind of travel advice are you looking for? And if you like birds and wildlife and conservation issues, what kind of topics shall I investigate for you? And just to remind you, please check out the show notes for every episode. There are links to my social media, blog posts, and all kinds of interesting links.
And in case you missed the first couple of episodes, I was talking to the Nnaabagereka, the Queen of Buganda Kingdom. She told me all about her experience tracking the gorillas in Bwindi. I really enjoyed talking to her.
Next up, in episode four, I talked to Rob Walker, who is a well-known British TV sports commentator. He’s famous for his coverage of athletics, snooker, all kinds of sports, the Olympics, and if you missed that one, I’m sure you’ll really enjoy it because he’s bursting with enthusiasm about Uganda as a tourism destination.
And if you’re wondering, what do a queen and a sports commentator have in common? Well the answer is, Uganda and the natural world. And I’m going to be talking to all kinds of guests on the East Africa Travel Podcast. Some of them are experts in their field. Some of them are just visitors, who are just excited about Uganda and East Africa.
Today on episode five I’m going to be talking to you about East Africa, specifically my East Africa, some of the places that I’ve visited and a few that are high on my wish list.
[00:07:56] The idea of this episode is so you get to understand where I’ve been and how I can help you and where I can advise you. I’ve been writing from Uganda for 15 years. I have my blog, Diary of a Muzungu, and I also write for other travel publications. I’ve written for Fodor’s, I update the Uganda and Rwanda chapters of their Complete Guide to the African Safari. I write a guide to gorilla tracking in Uganda and Rwanda for Horizon Guides, a British publisher. I’ve also written for Uganda Airlines magazine, for SWARA Magazine in Kenya. I’ve written about gorilla trekking for an airline magazine in Zambia. So I have quite broad experience and I work with conservation organisations, tour operators, lodges and so on and write all kinds of stories for them and give advice to people via my blog.
[00:08:57] First off, before we get into East Africa, I just wanted to ask you, have a think, how many countries are there in East Africa? I think you might be surprised.
I live in Uganda and I’ve traveled extensively across the region. Uganda is actually a really great base because we are bang in the centre. We are surrounded by Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan, so it means if you visit Uganda, you can actually travel to all of those countries by road.
[00:09:41] Needless to say, you can fly there as well, but as a volunteer and a freelancer, I’ve funded nearly all my travel, so I tend to go on public transport.
The first country I visited after Uganda was Rwanda. I was invited there to write a review of a lodge. I specialise in Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya because those were the easiest and cheapest places for me to travel to, and also because we have the East Africa Tourist Visa, which means that international visitors can get one visa for $100 and travel to all those three countries. Well, that is the way it worked until recently when Kenya waived the visa system and introduced a digital tax instead. I’ve written about and will put a link to it in the show notes because it’s a bit of a moving target. We’re not quite sure how that’s going to pan out.
[00:10:42] But anyway, currently, if you want to come to Uganda as a tourist, you can get a single entry tourist visa, or, you can get an East Africa Tourist Visa and you have unlimited travel in and out of the countries for 90 days. But if you leave what we call the East Africa Tourist Visa Zone, then your visa is nullified, so if you went to Tanzania or Burundi or South Africa during that period you’d have to get another new visa to get back into Uganda.
[00:11:10] Does that make sense? Another reason for not flying is that the flights are so expensive. If you’re somebody who lives in Europe or the States or have traveled there, you’ll know how cheaply you can fly (and you might assume that you could do the same in East Africa but you cannot).
[00:11:31] It costs about $350 dollars to fly to Nairobi from Entebbe, Uganda’s main airport, and I’m not sure now, but we used to say that it was the most expensive flight per kilometre in the world. And the flights are still pretty expensive, and domestic flights are expensive as well, hence another reason why I’ve traveled by road.
[00:11:54] Bus travel is extremely cheap but not all that safe. If you do travel by bus, go on a big bus kind of coach. Don’t travel in the matatus, the taxis. They are notoriously dangerous and overpacked and everything else. I always go for the most expensive option that I can afford – the bigger bus companies – not just any old bus company.
[00:12:16] The whole issue of tourist visas keeps moving, so if you ever have any questions, please feel free to look me up on my blog, Diary of a Muzungu, or my social media, because I know people who know the answers, who are up to speed if I am not. Anyway, enough of all that boring visa stuff!
How many countries are there in East Africa?
[00:12:41] You might be surprised to know that there are now eight. Yep, in 2024, we have eight countries.
When I moved to Uganda, there was Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi, but now we have South Sudan, we have the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the latest country to join is the Federal Republic of Somalia.
[00:13:13] Oh, tree! A big tree fell down in the forest. There’s a lot of rain this morning so if a tree was rotten. That extra heavy rain may have just made the whole thing crumble.
Over the coming episodes I will be looking in detail at each of the different destinations in East Africa. But let’s start with Uganda.
[00:13:43] Why do people come here? The number one thing that people know Uganda for are the gorillas, the mountain gorillas. So that is one of the key attractions, and often people will come on safari at the same time. So you can do game drives, you can go chimp tracking. Uganda is an up and coming destination, but it’s incredibly popular.
[00:14:11] Everyone who comes here tells their friends about Uganda. A lot of people come back, a lot of people like me stay. It’s the tropical weather, people are super friendly and well I’m going to do a standalone episode all about Uganda but just to say it’s a safari destination but it has the primates as well so here you can see what we call “the Big Seven” that is the Big Five, and gorillas and chimpanzees.
[00:14:39] Although Uganda is quite a lot bigger than Rwanda, Rwanda has a really slick marketing machine, and of course it’s known for the gorillas, because the gorillas live in an area shared by Uganda. Rwanda and the DR Congo, but the gorillas in Rwanda cost $1,500 for a permit, so a lot of people opt to see them in Uganda where it’s approximately half that price.
[00:15:07] You can also track the gorillas in the DRC, but because of the political instability, they’re not always available to book. Having said that, you can go to track the Grauer’s Gorillas in the DRC, at the southern end of Lake Kivu in Kahuzi Biega National Park in the DRC.
[00:15:33] So, there are different options for seeing gorillas but generally, in East Africa, when we talk about gorillas, we’re talking about the mountain gorillas of Uganda, Rwanda (and DRC sometimes).
So if Uganda is a safari destination, it’s also an adventure destination. We have the Uganda Cycling Trail that covers the whole country. You can go abseiling at Sipi Falls and go on the zip wire at Mabira Forest and also Lake Bunyonyi. We have religious tourism. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Uganda Martyrs?
Uganda’s capital, Kampala, is a crazy busy city. It has fantastic nightlife. I have friends from all around the region and they all say Kampala is their favorite place to party. We have a wide range of restaurants, we have some high end hotels, and yeah, I always get excited when I go to Kampala! But it is hectic. The traffic can be awful. Traffic can be awful in Nairobi as well, but they do at least have some new roads.
Nairobi of course is the big hub of East Africa. Every time I go there it seems to have mushroomed and it reminds me of London, where I lived for many years.
Those are a couple of the things that you can do in Uganda.
[00:16:58] Kenya is a vast country by comparison. It’s a bigger economy, it’s more developed in terms of tourism. I love traveling there, not only because there are so many beautiful places to visit but also they’re ahead of us in many ways, so I get inspired and get ideas about things that we can develop in tourism here.
[00:17:17] Of course they have the coast as well, so in Kenya or Tanzania you can go on safari for a week or so and then have a beach holiday. The beaches in Kenya and Tanzania are just incredible. They seem to go on forever. We’re talking white sand beaches. Diani in Kenya has won best beach destination in Africa for something like five years in a row.
[00:17:41] Mombasa, Watamu, Kilifi, they’re just indescribable.
Rwanda in the interior of East Africa, Central Africa, is very green, very hilly. It’s called the Land of a Thousand Hills. If you travel there, you’ll spend your whole time driving uphill, downhill, round the corner, back round the other corner, and thrown from one side of the car to the other.
[00:18:10] I drove with some Rwandese friends from Kigali down to Bujumbura in Burundi once. The roads are very good, but it was up, down, round, up, down, round, for hour, after hour, after hour. So Rwanda is a small country, but the Rwandese are really on point with their marketing so you might think it’s a much bigger country than it is, but there’s plenty to see and do.
[00:18:38] Nyungwe Forest in the furthest corner is another beautiful rainforest. And you can see a big troop of habituated black and white colobus monkeys. You can track chimps. You are not guaranteed to see the chimpanzees, but they are habituated, which means that you have a fairly good chance. There are some fantastic waterfalls there and beautiful birding.
Lake Kivu, which borders the DRC, is a lovely, tranquil spot. I like it because you get a glimpse into the Congo and the border between the two countries. It goes down the middle of the town, so one part of the town is Gisenyi in Rwanda and the other part of the town is Goma in the DRC.
[00:19:27] It’s an interesting place because you’re in Rwanda but you often hear Congolese music and so if you wanted to experience the Congo without actually crossing, you can. That’s a tip for you. I really enjoy visiting Rwanda because the country is so organised and so clean. But at the same time, I love coming back to Uganda because Ugandans are relaxed and welcoming and love life.
[00:19:52] Rwandans, by contrast, are a bit more reserved. Another thing I really like about Rwanda is it comes across as a much more traditional culture, so you really feel like you’re travelling and you’re in a different country. Women wear a lot more traditional cloth, like kitenge fabrics. They often have baskets on their heads, beautiful ‘peace baskets’, a basket with a lid; it’s woven and very colourful.
Everyone speaks Kinyarwanda. Not very many people speak English, which is the official language, or French, whereas in Uganda, most people wear western clothes all the time, and a lot of people speak English, so it’s easy to get by.
[00:20:41] Back to Kenya. My first trips there have been on the bus, a very long bus journey from Kampala to Nairobi. It’s about 14 hours. I’ve also been on the train from Nairobi to Mombasa: the Standard Gauge Railway train. It’s a really good experience. You have to book it – ideally – a few months in advance because it does get booked up.
[00:21:03] It’s only three hours from Nairobi to Mombasa. Compare that with 10 hours on the bus or 24 hours on “the lunatic express.” I will share a link to that story in the show notes. Everybody warned me not to go on the Lunatic Express. They said it would break down and we would get dumped in the middle of nowhere!
[00:21:23] Well, it didn’t break down, but it was 10 hours late leaving Nairobi Station. We travelled on the Lunatic Express in the last few months that it was operational before the Standard Gauge Railway was launched. It was really a trip back through time: very old carriages and a real sense of history. We were served tea from an old silver teapot.
[00:21:48] I ended up spending weeks researching and reading about the Uganda Railway, as it was called, the railway that was built by the British to connect Uganda with the coast going through Kenya. It’s a fascinating piece of history. It birthed Nairobi. Nairobi as a city didn’t exist until the railway was built.
[00:22:12] It’s phenomenal to think that in just a hundred years, Nairobi has come from nothing. Just bare land. And now it’s this sprawling metropolis.
Tanzania is arguably the best known safari destination in East Africa. I say Tanzania’s got the top spot because it came out on top in a 2024 survey by Safari Bookings, and I’ll put a link to that story in the show notes.
[00:22:41] Tanzania is a vast country. You might know Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. Very popular with climbers. Arguably too popular. Sometimes there’s a bit of a queue to climb up the mountain and if you do want to climb Kili, I’ll be having an episode in which I talk to a guide friend of mine, Tanzanian, who’s climbed over 200 times.
[00:23:07] Not everyone summits, especially if you rush it because you may get altitude sickness. I’ve had altitude sickness. It is really horrible. Tanzania is also famous for Zanzibar, Spice Island, beautiful destinations, fantastic beaches. Stonetown is famous for the architecture and the fish market. Glorious spot.
[00:23:32] And of course we have the Great Migration of the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara, that cross border area shared by Tanzania and Kenya.
These are just a few of the destinations that we’re going to be discovering together in the coming episodes: Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and Tanzania. Well, those are the best known tourism destinations in East Africa (so far anyway).
What about Burundi? Well, I really enjoyed going to Burundi. I was there in 2012, kind of unplanned, really. I was in Rwanda and wanted to reconnect with my friends who own a lodge in Kinigi. And they said “sorry, we can’t meet up tomorrow. We’re driving down to Burundi.” And I said, oh, okay, then, and put the phone down, a bit disappointed that I wasn’t going to see them.
And then I thought, oh my god, they’re going to Burundi. They’re driving. Maybe they’ve got room in the car for me? So I quickly called them back, and I said, “ooh, any room in the back?”
My Rwandese friends all used to go to university in Bujumbura, so we drove down together and I stayed with their friends and I had the loveliest week.
[00:24:46] They took me all around the capital, down Lake Tanganyika to a resort that was really quite tropical; it reminded me of the West Indies. Beautiful sand beach and the whole of Lake Tanganyika – or at least the sections I saw – vast sandy beaches. I also enjoyed the food in Burundi. It’s similar to Rwandan or Ugandan food in the sense that there’s a lot of carbohydrates, but not just the steamed matoke we have in Uganda, but deep fried and roasted and a variety of fish like sambaza fish. I really enjoyed that and then some French beers and French type of bread, so it’s more a kind of fusion cuisine.
I really enjoyed Burundian food and a very relaxed vibe, less developed in terms of tourism and people didn’t like it if I took photographs, so I had to be a little bit careful. I remember looking at a bridge and wanted to take a photograph of it and the security guard came up to me and he said “what are you doing?”
[00:25:54] “I’m taking a photo.” And he said, but why? “Because I’m a tourist.” And then he said, but why? He didn’t get the concept of a tourist.
I’d love to go back to Burundi, but it’s been a bit unstable.
A lot of people speak French so I found that interesting. Quite an interesting combination, francophone Africa, a French take on Africa, but I think it’s a really interesting destination and I hope to revisit soon.
[00:26:24] The Congo! I haven’t been to the Congo. I have been up to the border from Uganda side and from the Rwanda side, but it’s not the easiest country to travel to. It means getting another visa and if you cross at Goma, you can only cross to see a couple of activities: the gorilla tracking, which is often on hold; Nyiragongo volcano. If you’re going to do either of those activities, you can get a visa, but entry into the country isn’t all that easy. There’s a lot of corruption and there’s a lot of requests for bribes. That has put me off going, I have to say, especially being a volunteer, but being a white person, being a muzungu, people are just going to assume that I have pockets full of cash.
[00:27:14] So I have to be prepared for that, mentally and financially. But I’m very intrigued about Rubavu, for instance. It looks like an intriguing destination. It’s on Lake Kivu and one day I’ll go to Kinshasa. I would love to go to Kinshasa.
South Sudan. I have friends who are doing some research up there in Kidepo.
[00:27:38] Kidepo Valley National Park is in Uganda, but then there’s Kidepo Wildlife Reserve in South Sudan. They have a huge animal population, but of course the country’s not that stable, so not that many people visit yet as tourists, but some people do. It’s not completely off limits, and of course we hope that in time, it will become more stable, and we’ll be able to visit more easily.
[00:28:02] Last but not least: the Federal Republic of Somalia. Somalia has a huge coastline going from the border of Kenya up to the border of Djibouti and the beaches look absolutely sensational. Again, it’s not what most people would think of as a tourist destination, but if you are very adventurous, you can go there.
[00:28:28] Well, there’s more to discover, isn’t there? So there you go.
You’ve been listening to the East Africa Travel Podcast with me, Charlotte Beauvoisin, author of Diary of a Muzungu. Don’t forget to check out the show notes for links to everything that I’ve been talking about in this episode.
[00:28:43] And, what do you think?
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