9-Passenger Charter to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Leads to Our Treehouse Tents
Flying in a 9-passenger plane over Eastern Africa's savannahs,
jungles and mountains was fun and enlightening for many reasons.
AirServ, the charter organization, subsidizes its many humanitarian aid
flights by doing custom flights like ours. The pilot was an Afrikaans
(South African of Dutch heritage--for those who've not read Power of One...)
fellow in his early 30s and allowed Diana to sit in the co-pilot seat.
Calm for the actual flight, she did question later why he was reading maps, not holding the steering wheel, and did he really know the way to Bwindi.
We all really enjoyed the experience to, from and in Bwindi, particularly our
treehouse-tents at Buhoma Homestead.
Please also see
Lewa,
The Mara,
chimps,
gorillas,
pygmies,
giraffes and elephants..
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| We
met our pilot and plane at the side of Entebbe Airport in Uganda. |
AirServ
Charter Flight sends highly- trained pilots into war zones to deliver food & medicine. This sign clearly tells fighters there are no weapons on board. |
Diana is in
the co- pilot's seat, anxiety etched on her face before the flight, but was fine after take-off. |
The rest of the gang enjoyed our flights. |
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(Above L)
The short, grass airstrip at Kayonza was fine to land 10
of us. (Above C) A truckload of local workers stopped to watch our arrival because there are few planes that fly in there regularly. On the return trip the pilot had to ferry half our party to Mbarara then go back for the rest. The hard dirt airstrip at Mbarara is long enough for a 10-person plane to take off. Ever cautious, Diana checks out the route for this process (Above R). |
(Above) Our drive from
Kayonza to Bwindi took 1 hour on dirt roads with few villages on the way. |
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| The lushness
of the area around Bwindi told us we were nearing a rainforest (Above). |
Bwindi is
truly tough to walk through but we won't appreciate that till tomorrow! |
Buhoma
Homestead is a series of tent-lined treehouses. Their meals were the best of our trip! (Above) |
Each tent
sleeps 2 to 4 people (Above) and is "en suite" with bathroom. We did need to turn on the hot water for 5 minutes before a shower. |
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| We all had
fabulous views from our tree houses (Above). |
On top of the
trees in front of our treehouse were these beautiful flowers (Above). |
A colorful
butterfly pauses to greet us at our tent door (Above). |
The whole gang
sits down for lunch before we begin what we think is a short walk to Bwindi Village. |