Safari!

Started on September 23...

Perched in a cushioned blocky wooden chair on the front porch of Carpe Diem Guesthouse overlooking Lake Victoria in Entebbe, it’s 7-ish on a cool, misty morning as I drain my cup of French press coffee.  Birds twitter and there’s an occasional rooster down below.  Every once is a while a Hornbill flies overhead cackling raucously at the world below.  They are so noisy and obnoxious that people have been known to cut down trees to keep them from roosting nearby and they’re loud enough to drown out any competitor. I'm back to "just me," but with fresh memories of a beautiful three weeksTravis, Brett and Brett's girl friend, Molly.

They flew out last night and I’m glad we waited until almost the end of my time here to have our visit, because it would have been even more dreadful to put them on a plane had I much more time left in country.    They got the full Uganda treatment with the exception of taking public transport.  Thank God for that – because even private pushed the limits of most sane peolpe.

I picked them (as the Ugandans say) from the airport September 4^th and we spent the first night in Entebbe. It was pure magic seeing them arrive that night and the beginning of a dream come true.  I’ve been on a countdown for the last 6 months! And I have to say they looked spectacular even exhausted after 24 hours of travel.  So we hit the hotel and got down to the business of beer pretty fast.  Then their first run at mosquito nets.

The next day we got a hire back into Kampala via  a detour to tour an organic farm and bio-gas installation. Although that was Brett’s idea, it was a great introduction to Uganda for everyone else and sparked a lot of conversation about sustainability of resources and life in Uganda for the rest of the trip.  It gave real-world significance to the Heifer Project.  (Check it out if you're looking for a different way to do Christmas and want to change a life.)  We met some new friends (see below), collected some seeds, and saw how the manure from two cows provides cooking gas and lights for this whole installation.  Cool...

New friend

The next night they were introduced to my life away from home by staying at the Annex, sharing a shower, bath and city noise.   Figured I should so this gently before they hit Gulu - after all there was still hot water...  Moses, our intrepid Language trainer and tour operator picked us on time at 6AM the next morning and we set off to see the wilds of Africa – starting with a some baboons along the road and a family of five Rhinos at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and moving on to chimps later in the day. 

Yep - we're really that close

 What a gift it was to see Uganda through the fresh eyes of those not jaded by too many “it-is-finished-spoiled-not-there” explanations for almost everything. It was a loooong day.  We hit the top of the falls at Murcheson Falls in late afternoon to gape at the Nile as it tumbles and plunges 65 feet through a 6-foot crevice and into what’s know as the Albert Nile.  Spectacular to say the least.  Think we won't be rafting this one.

Chimp - watching is watch him

 

Top-of-the-Falls

I’m glad we had a stellar day, because by the time we arrived at our grim lodging for the night we were almost too tired to care.  I had to let go f the idea of a "gentle" introduction to the realities of Uganda...  This place made the Annex look like Four Seasons.  The cold water hand-held wand-shower was barely a dribble, none of the fans worked, only one outlet worked to charge multiple cameras and phones and stomach trouble had found some of us already. I’d been informed that the place was “nice,” so it was a rather rude shock – and this from someone who's lived here for two years and is "used" as they say. 

Someone had put an almost empty beer bottle on a counter as we entered the place and before we could get back to the door to get the rest of our luggage a Goliath-sized cockroach already had its butt in the air as it peeked head first into the bottle.   Brett put a    It take a long time to full a hippo.  This portion of the Nile is hippo-central: they laze around in cool  water during the day and waddle out to eat about 88 lbs of grass at night.

The next day, somewhere during the excitement of people piling out of the car to see wild-things my hand was slammed in the car door, breaking the middle finger, but more on that later.  It was it own adventure worthy of another blog installation.   How I managed to break only that particular finger I don't know - the whole hand was in the door.  I'm just lucky that way I guess...

After that bit of excitement on the heels of the first night in the little house of horrors, we opted for some luxury the following night.   The kids had hit the jet-lag wall and come into full contact with heat, dust, bugs and – the realities of travel in the third world and none of us were in the mood for a possible repeat of the roach hotel.   We'd spent a wonderful afternoon (in equatorial sun...) on a barge cruising up the Nile and watched a man catch the biggest fish (Nile Perch) I've ever seen in fresh water.  Paraa Lodge was right up the road offering good food, pools, cold beer, full-time electricity, hot water and ice for the finger.  We went over budget and took it!  Aaaahhhh...

It had rained during the night, so the next morning offered everyone first hand experience with the roads I've been complaining about for two years.  We watched as a big army truck nearly  fell over and had to get pretty creative to get our own 4X4 out of the mire.  The next two days were full tilt (no pun intended) as we rode on the top of the vehicle to see everything the park had to offer:  Boks, water buffalo rooting in a deep mud-bog, 
 

Mud Monster

wart-hogs prancing with their prissy flag-like tails, giraffes (including a rare siting of a mama nursing her baby), elephants,  and an amazing close-up-viewing of a lion stalking a huge herd of Boks, their defensive maneuvers rivaling the most sophisticated choreography.  No kill - she lost interest and walked leisurely up the road in front of  four safari vehicles and wide eyed tourists any of which she could have had for lunch.

The park was truly spectacular though marred a bit by new oil drilling which has begun to disturb the elephants. Our sightings were distant and we searched to the bitter end to find their new haunts, but they had moved deeper into the wild areas and away from the new oil-company roads.  On the way back to Gulu though we had a great surprise when we whizzed by a big bull munching on a bluff two feet from the road.  It happened so fast, we asked our driver to back up, which he did slowly and reluctantly, because elephants are famous for charging and crumpling vehicles that startle them.  By the time we crept back, he was long gone, but to get that close was still a thrill and all-in-all our Safari was a complete success.

If you'd like to see the pictures posted thus far,  go to my face book page.  More will come later.  And stay tuned for the "Mad Italian with the Electric Saw."  You can't make that stuff up...