Page 24 - Jan-March 2024 Edition

|Travel Feature
BY PAMELA WRIGHT

HONEY BEAR BUSHCAMP

“THE CAMP IS NAMED AFTER AVA
GARDNER’S CHARACTER IN THE
BEAUTIFULLY AWFUL 1953 FILM
MOGAMBO”
If one were to say “Come to Honey Bear Bush Camp, you’ll have the worst sleep in your
life…” the marketing people would have a heart attack. It could be reworded. “Come to
Honey Bear Bush Camp, and after spotting the leopard skulk through the bush near your
tent, lie awake listening to hippos grunting and grazing right outside your window. And
then, just as it gets quiet, snap awake again to the Hyena sniggering as they walk through
camp. And then, and then, and then …don’t fall asleep because lions.” That would be
more accurate.

Those of us who are lucky enough to live here in Uganda know that there is that lovely
deep silence just before dawn. That heavy, dark, cool silence when all is still and the
duvet is just the right weight and you feel suspended, cradled somehow. Then that
stillness, that predawn velvety calm, is punctuated by a single White Browed Coucal.
That’s enough to kick off the dawn chorus, and there’s no way you will sleep through it. Off
go the Egyptian Geese, the Hamerkop, and the cacophony of the hippos – again – as
they trundle back to the safety of water for the day. You’re wide awake again, better get
up and enjoy the day.

Honey Bear Bush Camp is one of two new camps in the Wildplaces portfolio, joining the
well-known collection of Clouds, Semliki and Apoka. (The other new one, Papa’s Camp,
opened in November 2023 on the south bank of Murchison Falls National Park. More on
that later).

Savvy people say: “Honey Bear? That’s not an African mammal. That’s not even a real
animal”. And the savvy people would be right. The camp is named after Ava Gardner’s
character in the beautifully awful 1953 film Mogambo. Also starring Clark Gable and

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