safari

I haven’t gotten around to telling you all about my safari. Let me do so now. It was awesome. The drive of the first day wasn’t so great. We left the site late for various African reasons and headed west with Moses one of the workers. At one point in Kampala I looked out the window to take in the scenery and found a sheep staring at me. That was a bit disconcerting. Even more so since we were moving at a good clip and it remained staring at me from 3 feet away. That’s when I realized a boda with 2 men were carrying the sheep down the road. At least it wasn’t a chicken this time. We planned our first destination to be Moses’ house to eat dinner with his family. Very nice people. Especially since they waited for 4 hours to feed us. Construction in Uganda really slows traffic. And we crossed the equator. And the guys saw zebras while I slept. Oi. Finally arrived in Ibanda around 10 instead of 6. They fed us a feast of food and introduced us to the entire family. Then we slept in a hotel for about 5 hours. The attendants asked us twice if we were sure we needed 2 separate rooms.

6am we got up and started driving towards queen Elizabeth park. Western Uganda is beautiful. We actually found mist so thick that we worried we might miss the turn-off. Awesome after being drenched with humid heat for several months. When the mist did part, tea plantations stretch for miles over actual hills. Tea bushes are a strong emerald color, even without the sun hitting them. Banana trees grow in small forests. Gorgeous. Bryce isn’t one to stop on a road trip, but we pulled over several times to take pictures. Hills, hills, and more hills. Then, as I looked between the trees for the hillside next to us, it wasn’t there. Instead a flat plain several hundred feet below us stretched out to the horizon. Perfectly flat. We descended the final hill and drove down the road, passing people pushing bicycles with 4 or 6 stalks of matoke. Insane. We saw monkeys and herds of water buffalo which are quite rare. Usually you only see solitary males.

We turned down the dirt road with a sign and immediately found out that American washboard roads cant compare to washboards in Uganda. Bryce’s whole body vibrated from holding the steering wheel as he tried to miss all these little duck-birds and the large potholes. Finally found the actual park entrance and hired a guide. then we had to go find the guide who was coming back from another trip with tourists. He took us to another part where he had shown others a pride of lions.

We saw the lions. We found the momma lion as we drove 10 feet from her shady sleeping spot. We stopped to take pictures and she reared back on her haunches ready to pounce on this metallic thing which interrupted her nap. Wild lions are big. And actually wild, you can see it in their eyes. I have seen lions in a zoo, I became bored because that was the look in their eyes. Boredom and apathy. But these lions didn’t look like that at all. our guide kept saying “take photos fast then we go” in a high pitched voice like he was scared of this situation. We also found a young lion in a cactus tree. We stopped to take photos of that one also. It didn’t look like it wanted a fight, but rather that it really wanted to get away but couldn’t figure out how to move quickly from its perch in the cactus.

We also saw crested eagles and warthogs and impalas and random birds. Like the spotted mouse bird. That’s when Bryce decided to call me mousy. I must say that is a first. I don’t really consider myself mousy. Then the guide took us to the village inside the park so we could have a boat ride. We surprised him when we refused to have a boat ride, our excuse was that we build boats, why would that be such an attraction to us? Oh, and I watched a little kid beat Bryce at cards. Not once, but several times. I had to get pictures of that. the fishing village lives next to the group of hippos. They look kinda like rocks out in the water which randomly open a large mouth with funny teeth.

Oh, I got a good burger at the park lodge. I saw it on the menu and decided to take the risk. Risks are sometimes richly rewarded. I tried not to show my enjoyment too much since Bryce looked very envious at my rich reward. We sat there listening to the groups of mzungus talking amongst themselves. We tried to guess their nationality but honestly we felt very uncomfortable being around them because of the way they acted towards the Ugandans serving them. Nothing exactly bad, but we could see the superiority complex playing out in their body language. Also listening to them plan how to fix Ugandan problems with western ideals sounded ludicrous to our ears.
That night we stayed in fort portal at a small hotel. The bar upstairs was names the parrot bar. Guess why? Two large gray parrots live in a cage next to the door squawking loudly. Annoying birds. At least they shut up for the nighttime. Bryce and I found decent pizza for dinner then went back to the parrot bar for drinks, cigars, and pool. I’m still horrible at pool. But losing at pool seems less problematic when smoking a cigar.

Next day we drove back to Kampala and Entebbe. More construction. Kinda funny seeing the process of putting in culverts? Under the road everyone is driving on. Bryce and I don’t have the same reactions to anything. Take our reactions to returning to the site after a 2 day trip. Bryce felt “refreshed”. I felt revived enough to feel the impending doom of returning to the site. Bryce and I just don’t work on the same tracks.