If you have never been to Uganda rather been in Uganda but never got the opportunity to visit the incredible Lake Mburo National Park and lake Mburo, then you have to think twice, wait, come to think of the beauty and wonderful unforgettable experience in the wilderness you are missing out! Well, it’s never too late for such and adventure and it’s needless to say you will not only like it but will fall in love with what you see there.
Lake Mburo National Park is always visited on a tour by tourism enthusiast who want to adventure and witness what they see on TV or read in newspapers and yes, they get it very right, all you need is right there, in one place. Other visitors probably stop when driving between Kampala and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
Our writer, Emuk Benjamen (tourist enthusiast) embacked on a journey to the wilderness and what is only left to say is he had unregreatable experience in the wild and shares his story here.
It was Wednesday morning when the trip to the magical Lake Mburo National Park and lake Mburo happened but hey, it wasn’t an easy one, actually not as such difficult as one might think. It all started with a drink on Tuesday evening at Skylight Hotel in Mbarara city.
I was sure I needed only one or two Nile Special beers and yes, at first I had one and I told myself I needed another just when the first bottle was half way done, I really needed to control myself since I had the trip to Mburo the next morning but I don’t remember what happened, was it because of the incredible vibes I was having with the team I moved with that got me carried away with excitement or I just needed to quench off the thirst with Nile Special? One thing I still remember is that I ended up sipping more than 7 Nile Specials.
For sure Nile beer alone wouldn’t be an issue but the real problem was when a friend offered me Uganda Waragi, only four glasses took me to another world but even while I was there I knew I had to be in the wild come Wednesday and yes I managed to make it up there, of course with a help of my colleague Julius Businge who made sure his shouting woke me up.
The journey to Lake Mburo is one you wouldn’t risk to forget, the incredible experience with the park’s zebras, hippopotamus, impalas, warthogs, common elands, African buffalos, Oribi, Defassa, leopard, hyenas, topi and reedbucks and over 350 bird species will keep your mind re-assuring you that Uganda is indeed the pearl of Africa.
According to Ms. Allen Kenzarwa, a private tour ranger guide, the Park contains much woodland as a result of not having elephants to tame the vegetation.
“In the western part of the park, the savanna is interspersed with rocky ridges and forested gorges while patches of papyrus swamp and narrow bands of lush riparian woodland line many lakes, “said Kenzarwa.
Much of this park’s rich beauty and different animals and bird species have been over talked about. The main purpose of this piece is to give you directions, location and letting you know of the different routes to and out of the park.
To begin with, Lake Mburo is one of the smallest savannah national parks and underlain by ancient Precambrian metamorphic rocks which date back more than 500 million years. Located Kiruhura District in the Western Region of Uganda, about 30 km (19 minutes) east of Mbarara, the park is 228 kilo meters /142 minutes away from Kampala and 250km to 300km (155 to 185 minutes) from Bwindi. The drive from Kampala takes about 5 hours and the drive from Bwindi is approximately 6 to 7 hours.
If you have to access it from Entebbe International Airport (EBB), the distance is about 46 kilo meters approximately 29 minutes from Kampala. From Entebbe and with the help of your local tour operator; you will be arranged for a pick up from the airport or hotel and to the park as part of your safari package.
Eventually, the tour operator will help you book domestic flights though it is quite rare to find visitors rather tourists fly to Mbarara, the closest town to Lake Mburo National Park. Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) told Kampala Sqoop that a couple of scheduled flights can be booked directly through Fly Uganda and upon reaching Mbarara, the 90 kilo meter or 56 minutes road trip takes about 2½ hours.
Look, there are two roads that will help you reach Lake Mburo National park, branching off from Masaka – Mbarara road. One of these will help you access the sanga gate 37km east of Mbarara, and the other will help you to enter via the Nshara gate which is 20km from Lyantonde and 50km to Mbarara.
If you are not using a tour company, alternatively, you can be able to access the park by using public means and have to board a bus to Sanga town and then get a private taxi or the boda boda rider to take you to Lake Mburo National Park. An important point to note here is that you have to use a four wheel drive vehicle since the roads are not that good most especially during rainy season.
And depending on the tour operator you choose to use, they should be able to enable you try out variety of activities while at the park and without any excuses.
Taking a look at Lake Mburo.
Lake Mburo forms part of a 50km-long wetland system linked by a swamp. Once covered by open savanna, this supports the healthy population of Buffalos, Wathhog ,bushpig and hippopotamus that find their happiness in the water.
Lake Mburo is also known as the perfect place to view acacia-associated birds with Rwonyo spot being a extremely a great zone to see the mosque swallow, blackbellied bustard, bare-faced-go away bird and Ruppell’s starling. A handful of birds is recorded essentially the southern ground hornbill and black throated barbet.
Below is a brief history of Lake Mburo National Park;
Lake Mburo National Park was originally gazetted in 1933 as a controlled hunting area and upgraded to a game reserve in 1963. The region was settled by Banyankole Bahima pastoralists who traditionally herd Ankole cattle, and still do. The residents continued to graze their cattle in the reserve, a situation decried by western conservationists, who termed them ‘invaders’ in 1981, but were expelled from their land after it was upgraded to a national park in 1983.
The Obote government’s upgrade decision was intended, in part, to weaken the Banyankole, who supported anti-Obote rebels.
It came at the time of the Operation Bonanza massacre of 300,000 people during the Ugandan Bush War. As the evicted pastoralists were not compensated for lost grazing land or assisted with resettling, many remained hostile to the upgrade. The rangeland outside the park was subsequently subdivided into small ranges and subsistence farming plots.
In 1985, the second Obote regime fell and the previous residents of Lake Mburo re-occupied the park’s land, expelling park staff, destroying infrastructure, and killing wildlife. Less than half of the park’s original land area was eventually re-gazetted by the National Resistance Movement government in 1986.
Within the park there are still culturally significant locations, such as Rubanga, where sacrifices were once made to the gods, Ruroko is where the semi-mythical Bachwezi lived, and Kigarama was where the pages (servants) of the king used to stay.
Predators in this park include lions, leopards, hyenas, genets, civets, jackals and serval cats, and since 2015 there is a population of Rothschild giraffes.
The protected area was considered a ‘lion conservation unit’ by the IUCN in 2005, bearing in mind that lions no longer occur in the park since they were eliminated by the indigenous people in the 1980s, there were reports in early 2015 of a single lion roaming the areas of Miriti, Kashara, Warukiri and Rwonyo. Because this was considered problematic by the local residents, a solution offered was to translocate the lion to the zoo.
At the same time, park management floated the idea of reintroducing lions to the park. The lion roaming the area reportedly attacked and injured three people, causing a large crowd of the enraged community to hound the animal with stones and sticks. The Uganda Wildlife Authority made the decision to kill the animal, as the community was angry and the situation had become dangerous. This deadly lion was reported to have migrated from Kagera Game Reserve in Tanzania.
A problem facing grazers in the park are the changes in habitat occurring over time. Most areas which were formerly grassland in the park have changed into bushveld or forest as the invasive native shrubby tree species Acacia hockii has colonised these areas. The acacia in turn is protecting other bush and tree species, which are growing faster and thicker. This afforestation is forcing animals into the surrounding ranches and private land, causing them to be resented as pests.
Kenzarwa also added that, “Uganda has tried to organize these areas into controlled hunting areas for sport, but land owners complain the money this generates is being spent on community projects such as schools, health centres and roads rather than addressing individual challenges resulting from problem animals.
The procurement of an excavator for habitat management, different wildfire regimes, fencing, trans-locating excess animals, wildlife ranching for the hunting industry, community tourism, licensing more sport hunting companies and increasing quotas may alleviate this; the local community is permitted to uproot acacia for firewood, but this has proved ineffective. Hyenas and bushbuck in particular are considered problem animals.”
Make time and explore Uganda and Lake Mburo National Park and Lake Mburo should be in your list of places to visit. This article is brought to you by the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities (MTWA).
