Are you planning for Self Drive in Uganda visiting most of the tourists attractions like National Parks and game reserves here are some of the tips you need to know before you plan this holiday.
- Before going to Uganda
Before going to Uganda, we had to first make preparations and vigorous consultations from a range of tour operators in Uganda but its only nature adventure Africa safaris limited we found as being a trustworthy, committed and a reliable company from the rest operators.
We wanted to do a self drive safari in some of the Uganda’s national parks that’s, Murchison falls national park and then Rwenzori mountain national park and we were interested in camping.
Moses one of the Uganda’s experienced tour consultant gave us some tips about how we could enjoy our self drive safari in Uganda, since his company has a lot of car types, he urged us to first hire a vehicle that was fit for our safari and in this case we hired a safari cruiser with eight seats and a 4×4 wheel drive, he added on that since some parks are located deep in hilly areas and in tropical environment that receives rain fall a 4×4 wheel car was the suitable one. We sent him money to book us permits for the different parks and all the camping equipment’s
- Driving license
But this wasn’t enough, another advise we got from Moses was, since a self drive safari involves tourists driving themselves, we had to carry our valid and up-to-dated driving license from our home country that certify our driving experiences to avoid being arrested by traffic police for having broken Uganda laws. Therefore we all carried them to avoid inconveniences.
- Arriving in Uganda & visa acquisition
On arriving to Uganda, before proceeding anywhere, we were requested to acquire visas from the airport which we got at $50 per person which was valid for 30days; this was only the authorization document that proved our legality of staying in Uganda for such an estimated period we were to spend in our safari. Moses gave us the car we had hired after signing an agreement with him.
- How to drive in Uganda
Since in our home country we drive keeping right, Moses told us that in Uganda it’s the opposite and therefore we had to drive while keeping left, he gave us a chart showing all the road signs that were put on the Uganda roads and some of the driving policies, he discouraged us from over taking unless otherwise, he even limited us from driving during night hours while in game parks to avoid making accidents as a result of knocking wild animals that can result into a penalty.
- Where to go
In this case as narrated earlier, we were to go to Murchison falls national park and Rwenzori mountain national park though Uganda has got about ten national parks distributed in the four regions of southern, western, eastern and northern with the zoo being established in the central region.
We were to do a game drive at Murchison and mountaineering at Rwenzori mountain, as one of our colleagues had committed to do a driving role to all the destinations, for us we were busy in our open roof tops peeping around the city and the major towns along the routes we used to the parks as we were taking photos wisely plus using our binoculars.
Having spent around 6hours on the way to Murchison which was our first destination, we reached at the park headquarters for reporting and also to be showed where we had to camp from.
After lunch, we went for a game drive which we enjoyed for 3hours, in the process; we watched leopards under the tress, large elephants, buffaloes, warthogs, antelopes, cheetahs, lions and herds of hippos down the River Nile streams. In the evening we went back to our camping ground at Paraa.
Some of the equipment’s that we were advised to hire for nature adventure since we did not have them for camping included, torch, gas cooker, Jerry cans, plates, knives, stock of food and all the utensils, tents, sleeping bags, soap and drinking water just to mention but a few.
The next day we used Masindi road and we traveled to Rwenzori mountain national park in Kasese, this is somehow a long journey but we managed to reach the park in time.
Since we were to climb the snow capped mountain, we also hired gears from the local providers around the park, these included, snow shoes, sticks and heavy jackets. We hired porters from there at $15 USD per person who carried our items to the peak.
This took us 5days while climbing and we used to camp around the demarcated areas on the slopes of the mountain, since we had our food, we used to cook from there and this gave us a spectacular view of the flowing rivers from the top of the mountain as a result of the melting snow.
But as we were closer to the peak, the cooler it became and this made us all to put on our heavy jackets to cope up with the normal human body temperature.
We reached the margherita peak on a high tension, at the top; we viewed DR.Congo which is the neighbouring country to Uganda in the western harm, in the forests as we were climbing, we even saw the rare horned chameleons here.
This was a hectic activity and therefore it required people who were physically fit like we. We spent an overnight at the peak and early the next day in the morning, we descended with our porters who were too faithful to the fact that they never stole any item from us.
We signed out of the park after collecting all our equipment’s and even giving back the materials we hired from the local people. We used the fort-portal Mityana road which was the shortest route back to Kampala. This was a fantastic self drive safari since we got driving tips from an experienced tour consultant Moses from 4×4 Car Hire Uganda.
