Easter Special

4Days/3Nights Easter wildlife Adventure.

Celebrate this Easter season in special way with Kjong safari ltd in Murchison Falls National  Park’s which  has hosted a number of celebrities and legendaries like, Britain’s Queen mother, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Located in the northwest of country with the Victoria Nile journeying through from Lake Victoria the source to join the Mediterranean Sea. The Murchison fall park  is the country’s largest national park is named after one of the largest falls on the river Nile is home to large population of buffalo, elephants and several species of antelopes, the Rothschild giraffe and the elusive lion and leopard. The launch trip on the river Nile is a nice way to watch the aquatics such as the hippos, crocodiles and both the aquatic and terrestrial birds as you make your way to Baker’s rock to watch the waterfall make their way through six meter cleft while plunging from a forty meter height. Staying at Either Paraa safari Lodge for Luxury option, Fort Murchison for Midrange and Red Chilli Rest Camp for Budget safari Option.

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Per person sharing in Double/Twin Room and depart from Kampala on Good Friday

Safari option/Number of person	2 person	4 person	6 person
Budget	$665	$490	$435
Midrange	$900	$725	$665
Luxury	$1035	$865	$810

Trip includes:

Transportation by a 4wd vehicle with service of English speaking Driver/guide
Fuel

Accommodation in a standard rooms on full board for Luxury and Midrange safari Option and Bed only for Budget Option.

Lunch while on transit

Bottled water in the car

Two game drives

One boat cruise

One visit to the Rhino

Visit to The Murchison falls

However, the package excludes: expenses of personal nature like: Visa, drinks, laundry, tips to local guides, telephone, porter fee while trekking, personal insurance, and tobacco.        

Meet Zimbabwe's vegetarian crocodiles

Nyanyana Crocodile Farm is home to over 50,000 Nile crocodiles.

CROCODILES are some of the most feared predators in Africa, ruthless reptiles renowned for tearing their prey to pieces before swallowing hunks of meat raw.

But in the baking sun at Nyanyana crocodile farm on the shores of Zimbabwe's Lake Kariba, feeding time has a surreal edge as the beasts nibble lazily at bowls of vegetarian pellets.

Besides being cheaper than meat, the diet of protein concentrate, minerals, vitamins, maize meal and water is said to enhance crocodile skin destined to become handbags or shoes on the catwalks of New York, Paris, London or Milan.

"We don't feed them meat any more," said Oliver Kamundimu, financial director of farm owner Padenga Holdings.

"It actually improves the quality because we now measure all the nutrients that we are putting in there, which the crocodile may not get from meat only," he told Reuters in an interview.

Four hundred kilometres (250 miles) northwest of Harare, Nyanyana is home to 50,000 Nile crocodiles and is one of three Padenga farms around Kariba, Africa's largest man-made lake.

The company has 164,000 crocodiles in all and started feeding pellets in 2006 at the height of an economic crisis in Zimbabwe that made meat scarce and very expensive.

Initially, the pellets contained 50 percent meat but that has gradually been phased out to an entirely vegetarian diet.

"We have moved gradually to a point where we reduced the meat to about 15 percent then to seven percent and where we are now there is zero meat, zero fish," he said.

"It's a much cleaner operation and the crocs are getting all the nutrients they want from that pellet."

Fed every second day, the crocodiles are largely docile and lie asleep in their enclosures as workers walk around casually cleaning up leftovers.

Hermes, Gucci

The crocodilies are slaughtered at 30 months, when they are about 1.5 metres long and their skin is soft and supple.

Last year Harare-listed Padenga sold 42,000 skins to tanneries in Europe, especially France, where the average skin fetches $550.

Ninety percent of the leather becomes high-end handbags, Kamundimu said, while the remainder makes belts, shoes and watch straps for some of the biggest names in world fashion.

"When you hear names like Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Gucci - those are the brand names we are talking about," he said with a satisfied smile.

Having survived economic collapse and hyperinflation of 500 billion percent in Zimbabwe, Padenga then had to deal with fallout from the 2008 global financial crisis, and economic contraction in the euro zone, its main market.

However, while appetite for crocodile meat cooled in Europe and Asia, super-wealthy European shoppers shrugged off recession and continued to snap up crocodile-skin items, Kamundimu said.

"When you look at people who buy handbags for their wives or daughters that cost $40,000 a piece, even when the euro zone problems came, they could still afford to buy," he said. We didn't feel a decline."

 

Uganda’s Embassy in Washington DC has partnered with National Tour Association (NTA) in North America to boost tourism in Uganda.

“Uganda’s share of North American tourism market is set to expand following the partnership with the National Tour Association (NTA), a leading player in the travel industry in North America,” Oliver Wonekha, Uganda’s Ambassador to the United States, and  Stephen B. Reacher, NTA’s Public Affairs Advocate at Uganda Embassy, Washington, D.C said.

Wonekha noted that although Uganda has some of Africa’s best tourist attractions , the number of tourists from North America visiting the country hasn’t matched this potential, a recent statement issued by the Embassy said.

She, however, noted that after emerging from a difficult past, Uganda has seen increased investment in tourism infrastructure such as hotels in cities and game parks, access roads, boosting security in and around the tourist attractions.

She said the Embassy is working together with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities; Uganda Tourism Board (UTB); Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Association of Uganda Tour Operators (AUTO) to increase the country’s visibility as a unique tourist destination.

Wonekha also said a surge in American tourists to Uganda will also positively impact on other sectors of the economy.

“For instance, with 30 percent of American tourists also in search for investment opportunities, the volume of investments from the United States to Uganda will result in new investments in various sectors. She also said the recently launched East Africa Tourist Visa has already gained appreciation across the travel industry as an important milestone in the region’s tourism.

NTA is a leading business-building association for professionals serving customers travelling to, from and within North America, with a membership of over 1,500 tour operators who buy and package travel products to over 600 destinations around the world, and has unprecedented access to business-to-business networking in the travel industry.

Mr. Steve Reacher said the partnership will enable North American tour operators, airlines and other players in the travel industry to work closely with their Ugandan counterparts so as to market Uganda as a favorable destination for North Americans. He also noted that Africa is the most misunderstood continent—its diversity in terms history, cultures, peoples, and available opportunities. However, those who travel to Africa gain a completely new understanding of the continent, and always want to include Africa on their travel menu.

In November 2014, Uganda is scheduled to host the 39th Annual Congress of the Africa Travel Association (ATA) in Kampala, an opportunity for Uganda to showcase her tourism potential, and for local tour operators to develop partnerships with their counterparts in North America.