Semliki Safari Lodge Vacation
Any visit to Uganda without visiting Semliki National park with its Semliki Safari lodge is incomplete. Here on this page, I will give you my detailed visit to Semliki Safari Lodge. With my work of tour and travel guide, I was always contacted by my bosses to escort the visitors and that is when I could get the chance to see all I’m writing on this site.
When I was a small child, old movies of African tented safaris filled my head with fantasies of a wilderness paradise that seemed lost to time. Years later, with these memories pushed into the depths of my mind, I am sitting in a large, mustard yellow tent, wearing a lightweight white robe beneath cottony white mosquito netting, feeling like the African princess I always wanted to be. 
It was a privileged to visit Semliki Safari Lodge in Semliki Game Reserve in Bundibugyo Uganda. My tent’s doors are draped, open wide, letting a light breeze flow in from the savannah outside. I walk barefoot across the soft khaki carpeting and Persian rug in my tent to rest on one of the two large chairs on my balcony. From here, I can see savannah trees giving way to damp forest and then mountains, but nothing else. No roads or cars, no other tents cloud the view or interfere with my sense of complete and total solitude. The songs of hundreds of birds, punctuated by the calls of colobus monkeys, fill my ears. If I climb down the stairs and leave the cool shade of the high thatched roof that protects my tent, the sun lays itself across my back like a wool blanket. As heavy as it feels, this heat is not oppressive: it feels like life working its way into my skin. Delicious passion fruit juice that was served to me in the main lodge. I had read the Bradt Guide and was prepared for what it calls “the most luxurious bush retreat in Uganda,” but it was only moments until I realized that Semliki Safari Lodge was greatly underestimated by this statement. Semliki’s main building is built on the site of an old hunting lodge. When it was gutted in the early 1980s, its materials were saved and later used to construct the new building. The old stone and wood from the hunting lodge, as well as the carefully selected traditional African carvings and batiks decorating the walls, give the open-air room a sense of belonging in its savannah location. The lodge was not built against its location; instead it was designed in partnership with its natural surroundings. I spend many hours of my first afternoon by the pool at Semliki Safari Lodge. It has its own thatch-roofed building, complete with a lounge area and pool table. Set into a stone deck, the pool’s tiles are the same color as the sky and the surrounding trees are perfectly reflected in the smooth water until I can no longer resist the urge to dive in. The heat melts away, my body is instantly refreshed and I feel like a kid for long, happy moments. When I get out, towels are ready for me and I can dry off and lie down on warm, white and soft lounge chairs. One of the lodge’s employees, dressed in a colourful t-shirt of traditional cloth, brings me a cold beer and I am ready to soak in the sun. After a while, lunch is ready and I walk up the stone path back to the main lodge, hungry from my swim. The meal is family style, with large plates of avocado, fish cakes, cucumber sauce and freshly-baked Mediterranean bread. While I eat my fill, my glass of cool water is never empty, no matter how much I drink. I also meet the enthusiastic managers of Semliki Safari Lodge, an American couple with a background in wildlife conservation and public health. Their knowledge of the human and animal life surrounding them perfectly complements the lodge itself. They have made personal efforts to connect with the communities and environments that they are submerged in. With projects that bring health care to surrounding villages and a system that trains young Uganda Wildlife Authority workers to become well-paid tour guides and safari drivers, they have developed ties with their staff that go beyond simple attempts at community-building and eco-friendship. On top of that, none of my questions about wildlife go unanswered. From the controversy of elephant speciation to local languages and traditional remedies, someone is always available with a fascinating explanation. The managers gently convince me to take a night safari ride through the reserve, so I leave the lodge around 8pm. A Friend and I are the only ones in the vehicle, riding on the raised back seat of a topless land rover. Although I’d thought the night might be cloudy, the evening’s mist has cleared and the stars coat the sky. Orion, Subaru and Venus shine through the Milky Way as it spreads out over our heads. Red, flashing eyes of the Uganda Kob catch the spotlight in the bush. Some of them run from their own shadows as the light passes, others stop and stare at us, still and somehow more elegant at night than during the day. We see mongoose as we quietly listen for the calls of lions, but the only sound is the soft peeping of the Kob as they alert each other to our presence. When we arrive back at the lodge, I am chilly and my warm tented bed welcomes me for a good night’s rest. During my first night, I hear a leopard growling in the riverine forest near my tent. The sound thrills me: I am awed and afraid at the same time. But I feel safe; I have already heard that the big cats wander through the wildlife reserve after sunset without causing trouble for anyone. Breakfast in the morning is whatever I want: biscuits, juice, eggs, sausages or tomatoes. I sit and read on the open lounge for a while, basking in the air flowing from the nearby mountains. After a bit, my friend and I go for a 2 kilometre forest walk. On the walk, we cross and re-cross a small river on hand-made bridges that seem to be natural extensions of the forest. Our guide points out a chimpanzee nest, a woven, leafy bed high up in the trees. We watch troupes of red-tailed monkeys and the black and white colobus as they clamour through the forest. The day’s heat is diluted through the canopy above our heads, but we are ready for a swim in the pool by the time we get back.Our swim is cut short by an awesome display of funnel clouds in the sky, followed by torrents of rain. We hide out on spacious sepia-coloured couches in the main lodge, reading and drinking African tea, watching the storm’s clear progress over the forest and into the mountains. When the storm lets up, we go to our banda for a nap. Dinner on our second night in Semliki Safari Lodge is a beautiful surprise. A table for two has been set out for us, with wine and a blazing fire that melts the surroundings into darkness, making us feel that we are deep into the African bush. We never requested this, but because we are the only ones here, the managers have arranged a way for us to take full advantage of our privacy and the solitude of the forest. We eat quietly, listening to the birds and insects around us. I ponder the fact that I’ve never been treated with such care and enjoy the lightness it brings to my mind. There is no check out time at Semliki Safari Lodge, so I am free to relax in the morning. We take another safari drive, this time under the covered land rover. The usual suspects of safari life greet us: warthogs, kob and baboons react to our noisy vehicle. Our guide shows us plants that cure coughs and the places where forest elephants come to shake melons out of palm trees. We trek across the countryside, climbing through marshes and over thickly-brushed hills. I realize that the drive is as much fun as the wildlife. It feels like being the first person to brave this territory, since no one else is in sight and the roads are nearly invisible. My only sadness at Semliki Safari Lodge comes when I have to leave. The two days I spent there felt like weeks of enjoyment and I was at peace in my little tented home. Semliki Safari Lodge is the only lodge in Uganda that is a member of the prestigious Safari Camps of Africa, and rightly so. The big picture is in the details, and nothing large or minute goes unnoticed in this beautiful Ugandan paradise.And for that matter i call up on you that if get time,never forget to visit Semliki Safari Lodge in your life time.
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