I spent a weekend in Murchison Falls National Park.

The rooms of the lodge are so expensive that some people would rather build a house than stay there for the night. However, to me, they are worth every penny.

As Phil Collins would say, with less regret, they represent another day in Paraa-dise.

Sheer luxury Pulse Live Uganda

It all started with a smooth ride to Masindi district, which is 177 km from Kampala.

As you turn off the smooth main road leading to the north, your ride will suddenly be roughened up by a gravelly road fetching up to the Murchison Falls National Park.

Immediately, upon entry in the park, my friends & I were assaulted by an airborne armada of Tsetse flies. They bit us hard as a punishment for not rolling up our windows.

Ouch!

As we approached Paraa Safari Lodge, we decided to take a lunch detour to a discreetly deluxe restaurant called Red Chili.

It was populated almost exclusively by Europeans.

Oh, I forgot to mention: I was travelling with two Chinese friends.

So as my Asian invasion and I walked in, the said Europeans looked up at us with resigned curiosity. Then they promptly got back to their meals.

The food was a delightful mix of international & continental. And I am afraid I drank a little too much.

So I went to take a leak. But I almost got lost since the sign above the toilet replaced the word ‘Men’ with the word ‘Hunter’. I soon realized that, in early human times, that description suited me.

I suspect that, in the women’s toilet, the word ‘Gatherer’ was deployed for a similar reason.

Later, we were back on the road & driving across the rolling wilderness of Murchison Falls National park while Baboons and the odd solitary wildebeest looked on.

Some of the animals you'll find at Murchison Falls National Park Pulse Live Uganda

To get to Paraa Safari Lodge, you must get on a small barge that floats you across a small river as your car remains parked & protected on the port you have departed from.

During the river crossing waterbucks, Bushbucks are visually served up for tourists’ bucks as giraffes, warthogs, antelopes, buffaloes, Jackson’s Heart-beasts, Uganda Kobs, Elephants and other animals in a kaleidoscopic array are found on land.

There were numerous hippos which were bathing & sunning themselves with the abandon of someone in an outdoor Jacuzzi. We were told that they are vegetarians & yet weigh at least 3 tonnes! One of us asked if the lions or other big cats disturb these massive creatures.

“No, they will flatten a lion!,” the game ranger stated as images of a lion serving as a trampoline while the hippo jumped up & down on top of it like some overeager wrestler came to mind.

Chapati-sized Lion anyone?

Surely a vegetable diet gives our Hippo friends more bounce to the ounce.

The author had a blast Pulse Live Uganda

Incidentally, the Jackson’s hartebeest is a favorite of the lion. That’s because it has a minute-long memory span. So it can be running away from a lion one minute, the next it's ‘chilling’ with the same lion after having forgotten that it’s on the lion’s menu. Thereafter, the lion pounces on it with a diner’s relish.

To be sure, this African antelope suffers from short-term memory loss and so forgets where it has been every five minutes.

This means it can be pursued by lions off some patch of land as it races unmolested to safety.

Five minutes later, the slate of its memory is wiped clean.

It thus returns to the same spot it almost got eaten at with the air of someone saying, ‘wow, I’ve never been here before…let’s see what it’s about.’

And boom!

The lions strike again, this time the Hartebeest is lunch to lions which subsequently take naps while saying, "That Johnson Hartebeest sure is dumb and delicious."