Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
which contrasted with the dark cliffs that walled the river, while the graceful palms of the
tropics and the wild plantains perfected the view.'
Baker's journey had been fraught with difficulty. Already frustrated at his relative fail-
ures when compared with his contemporary explorers, he had faced hostile tribes and a
civil war that had blocked his path and caused many months' delay. The area he would
name Murchison Falls was the fault line between the Nilotic Lwo and Acholi tribes, as
well as other Sudanese groups and the Bantu-speaking Bunyoro, all of whom were en-
gaged in battles for land and cultural primacy. This land of disparate people was almost
impossible to navigate safely.
In the early 20th century, when Uganda had become a British protectorate, Murchison
Falls became something of a magnet for travellers consumed by the idea of seeing Africa
in its rawest state. Winston Churchill came hunting here, searching for big game, and
was as impressed by the falls as Baker had been a generation before. Word must have
spread, because soon other world leaders and luminaries were making this a regular
haunt. Roosevelt found wilderness here to surpass the American West, Ernest Hemingway
crashed two planes in the park in less than a week, and the film stars of the early Holly-
wood era were drawn to this unspoiled landscape. Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hep-
burn filmed
The African Queen
here in 1951 - though, by all accounts, it was not an ex-
perience Hepburn was keen to repeat.
The park was gazetted as a game reserve under the British in 1926, becoming famous
for its wildlife. Host to twenty thousand elephants, as well as thousands of rhino, lion,
buffalo, and all the varied forms of African antelope, it became the glint in the 'pearl of
Africa', so much so that, in the 1950s, the Queen Mother had a bungalow built here espe-
cially for her safaris. This golden age, however, was not to last. During the Ugandan Civil
War, Idi Amin plagued the region with his militias, and finally renamed the park Kabalega,
after the famous king who had battled with Baker here. War drove away the tourists and,
when Amin ascended to the leadership of Uganda, he closed the gates to foreigners. After
this, the park was ravaged. What had been a place of bounty quickly became decimated, as
conservation activities in the park ceased, making its wildlife easy prey for poachers. By
the end of Amin's rule, in 1979, elephant numbers had been reduced to just over a thou-
sand. During the turbulent 1980s, when the country lurched from one leader to another,
the slaughter continued unabated; a succession of military factions occupied the park, and
started to eat their way through the wildlife. By 1990, fewer than two hundred and fifty
elephants and a thousand buffalo survived, the hartebeest and kob herds had plummeted
to around three and six thousand respectively, rhinos and African hunting dogs had been
hunted to local extinction, and giraffe and lion were on the brink of going the same way.
Since then, fortunately, the tourists have gradually started to return, conservation activity
has begun again, and populations are slowly starting to grow.
