Did You Know That Lions Climb Trees?

Yes they do! Next stop, the Ishasha Tree Climbing Lions!!

And the charming, rustic, extremely eco-friendly Ishasha Wilderness Camp. From a "bucket shower" to a flushing eco-friendly toilet - it has most of the comforts of home and so much more!

This luxury tented camp is located next to a lovely river with 10 spacious canvas tented rooms, each with a private veranda overlooking the river.

There's a lovely open-air dining area with a thatched roof where they provide delicious meals, freshly prepared with local ingredients.

And a lovely area, riverside to enjoy an outdoor fireplace or even have sundowners or dine 'al fresco' there with the river racing past where you might even spot their local "Henry the Hippo"!

The only negative about this part of our Ugandan adventure was the fact that we only had one night here... definitely recommend more time at this lovely location!

And then there were the famous tree climbing lions... wow! Definitely one of my highlights for this fabulous journey.

Our next adventure here was having one of our vehicles get stuck in the mud... the decision was made to move us all into one of the vehicles, in a very cramped manner, I might add, while the second vehicle attempted to move the stuck vehicle out of the mud. Pretty exciting as night was coming quickly in the wilds of Africa!

Fortunately, they sought help and got 'unstuck', we had another lovely sundowners cocktail evening and then on to our next adventure the following morning. There were so many unbelievably great photo ops with the sky in Africa and this was one of them!

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Ishasha Wilderness Camp and the lovely tree climbing lions, but hopefully, we'll all be back sometime...

En route to our final destination, we had the distinct pleasure of stopping by to meet a very unique, enterprising individual by the name of Deo. He's an extraordinary man who is so incredibly brilliant without any formal education. His focus on the preservation of animals, specifically elephants and lions, and his environmental focus were incredibly inspiring.

You see, his village had experienced great livelihood losses from these 2 animals but he also has the foresight to realize how critically important they are to Uganda and the tourism business. The elephants were trampling their crops, homes and people while the lions were eating their goats and cattle and threatening their families.

Deo was incredibly resourceful realizing that the best method to keep the elephants from trampling their crops and livelihood was by creating this very deep ditch that they were unable to cross safely.

He further has started a charity to raise money to build housing for their goats and cattle to protect them from the lions. Just look at some of his beautiful family living life to its fullest. His creativity and ingenuity is incredible considering his background and lack of any formal education. He's such an inspiration!

My final chapter in our Uganda journey will continue next week and I hope you're enjoying it as much as I had experiencing it and reminiscing about it with these writings...