SAFARI! We had a blast on our safari this weekend. We left at 7am on Saturday morning, but were very surprised to see our travel guide outside our house at 6:40. Ugandans are NEVER early, and rarely on time. Half of us were still in the shower and eating, so we had to tell him to wait for us. All 8 of us students then got into a sweet safari van, equipped with bucket seats and a roof that extended upwards so that you can stand in the van while on your safari and look at the surroundings. I got the back of the van, which ended up being a moderately poor decision because it was a VERY bumpy ride! We were told that the ride would last only 6 hours, but it ended up taking us 10 hours! Many roads were unfinished and consisted of dirt that had been eroded by rainwater. When there were cement roads, there were extremely inconveniently placed speed bumps spaced out at an awkward distance from each other. (Ugandans here apparently like having 5 speed bumps 1 foot away from each other). Needless to say, I had a pretty gurgly stomach by the time we ate lunch!
Right before we entered the park, we ended up crossing over the EQUATOR! First time in the southern hemisphere for me so we definitely made sure to stop at the road marker and get pictures! On our way into the park we passed by a big elephant and got super excited and stopped to take pictures. Little did we know we'd get much closer to more elephants later on in the trip! We ended up staying in a hostel in the middle of the park, which had pretty nice accommodations, an outdoor restaurant/bar nearby, and lots of mongooses (mongeese??) roaming the area. In the morning we began our road safari at 6:30 am. We saw warthogs, water buffalo, antelope and elephants. Around 1 we went on a boat safari and saw tons of HIPPOS! (Also an alligator). Right as we were about to turn around we saw a family of elephants standing on the shore drinking/bathing so we rode up right next to them and watched them for a while. I got some beautiful pictures that I will have to post on here when I get back home! At night we went on another safari drive because we wanted to see some lions and leopards, but unfortauntely we did not see any. However we did see 2 crested cranes (a really pretty bird that is the national bird), lots of antelope, elephants, and a really pretty rainbow. Part of the time I got to sit up on the top of the safari van (sorry dad, but i figured i could tell you now that you know im safe :-p)
the next morning we went on a walking tour of the land, led by an armed tour guide. we saw a massive cloud of bugs over the water, a hippo, and lots of birds that got boring to look at after a while. on our way out of the park in the morning, we had 3 elephants standing in the road blocking us. again, more sweet pictures.
i'm getting tired of typing for now, so more later!
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