I keep thinking about blogging about my trip to Uganda, but I keep struggling with deciding which pictures to use, or whether to do a day-by-day write up, or whether to just tell a few of the stories from the trip. I still haven't decided, but I'm a tad bit frustrated that "Uganda!" is still on my list of things to write about. So, I think I'll just do a bit at a time. It may be a little of the day-by-day style mixed with some of the special moments or just a series of photos with lots or little writing. Today, I'm ready to take on the safari!
Number 4, I think, on my list of 101 things I want to do in my lifetime is "Go on an African safari with Allen". When I saw that a safari was on the itinerary for our Ugandan mission trip, I was thrilled. Then I realized I couldn't check it off since Allen wasn't with me. I have until the end of this year to decide if it was close enough that I was on the safari with my trip roommate -- Ellen (isn't that close enough?)
We headed out from the hotel super early because we wanted to get to Queen Elizabeth National Park early, but it was a four hour drive to the part we were heading to. Along the way, we passed through such beautiful scenery -- tea plantations, jungles where gorillas live (but we didn't see any), and vast stretches of dry savanna. We saw zebra and antelope along the way, and, as we approached the park, we were greeted by a troop of baboons.
We stayed on the PCM bus driving through the park. We saw elephants, but often Driver Emmy would notice the animals after we passed them. He would stop the bus and reverse it. The loud BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of the bus backing up usually scared off whatever we noticed in passing, so it was tough to get great pictures on that part. Driving, we saw a few elephants and a couple warthog. I saw the back half of a leopard resting in the shade of a tree, but it was gone when we backed up to see it again.
We made our way down to the river and got on a boat for the best part. The boat tour got us close to many different creatures: crocodiles, hippos, Cape buffalo, and a variety of birds. We also passed some Nile monitors, more elephants, and some more Uganda kob.
One of the hippos we saw was only a day old -- the guide had seen the mother giving birth the day before. As large as a baby hippo is compared to me, it was tiny compared to the rest of the hippos!
After a few hours of exploring the Kazinga Channel between the lakes, we got back on the bus and headed back to Mbarara. On the way out of the park, we saw many more elephants -- some passing right behind the bus -- and more baboons.
At the end of the day, we counted some of the different animals we had seen. I'll save the birds for another post, but we saw wart hogs, hippos, Uganda kobs, topi, antelope, waterbuck, Cape buffalo, zebras, African elephants, bottom half of a leopard, olive savanna baboons, Nile crocodile, and monitor lizard. We also saw vervet monkeys at the first hotel, and some kind of bat hung from the power line near the other hotel. Since I'm a little bit of a bird-fan, I'll post those separately.
For every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains
and the creatures of the field are mine.
~ Psalm 50:10-11
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