Sunday, June 12, 2011
Stefanie on Safari! (I [Stefanie] have taken over posting and so the titles will no longer be lame dates. Though I am eternally greatful to Niccole for keeping the blog going up until this point)
Hello world! It’s been awhile, but I have a good excuse. This weekend I went on a safari! Another item crossed of my non-existent bucket list. It was so amazing! I will tell you something true: animals in the wild are far superior to animals in the zoo.
Because Uganda had yet another national holiday on Thursday (honestly, it’s amazing anything gets done in this country at all. Oh, right. It doesn’t) we left for the safari on Wednesday night after work. Although it wasn’t as scary as the last time we took a taxi in the dark (See: Jinja trip) it was still pretty intense. Uganda doesn’t really use addresses or anything, so we weren’t really sure where we were going. The travel company gave us “directions” but they said things like “Take the second left after the old soap factory.” Yeah, ok. It was especially interesting in the dark, but we figured it out. That night we stayed in a hostel type thing in Kampala. It was an interesting experience, but I think I have reached my hostel quota for my life. There were about 30 people sharing the same bathroom, so I was forced to wake up at 4:30 am in order to accomplish my necessary tasks. But I did love the vibe. It was totally hippie, with incense and dreadlocks and the whole shebang. Plus, hippies spend less time in the bathroom, so that was good.
The next morning we boarded a bus to Murchison Falls, which is where our safari was. It was quite a trip (about 3 hours) but it wasn’t too bad. We had booked the upgrade safari, which meant that there were fewer of us and we got to ride in a nice van rather than a big bus or taxi. It was only our group and this adorable 77 year old couple from Yorkshire (or yoke shuh, as they called it) who has been coming to Africa for the past 10 years building wells and teaching classes and stuff. They were awesome and completely the stereotypical old British couple, except they were totally spry and lively. Plus, at the end of the trip they totally treated us all to lunch, so I am their biggest fan.
The first stop we took when we finally got to Murchison was rhinoceros tracking. Rhinoceros is an impossible word to spell. Rhino is a much more manageable alternative. Apparently rhinos are supposed to be native to Uganda, but became extinct in the eighties due to poaching. (Side note: after this trip and seeing all of the endangered wildlife, I hate poachers. I have very violent feeling of hatred towards them, almost like unto the feelings of hatred I have for racists and child abusers. I am just about to send in my application to PETA. Just kidding dad. Mostly.) To help build the rhino population back up, the reserve brought in about 5 rhinos from Kenya and the US. Happily, they have started reproducing. This was very recently, but they are already up to like 15 rhinos. They very first one born had a Kenyan father and an American mother, so they called him Obama. Hahahahahahaha When the population reaches a certain point, they are going to release them back into the wild, though the reserve seemed pretty wild to me. After this brief introduction, we went hiking through the grassland to see the rhinos. We literally walked right through their home. It was amazing! There was not a single thing in between as and these gigantic animals except about 10 meters of grassland. I’m not sure it was completely safe, but it was incredible. At one point, we were watching the alpha male and he started coming towards us. Our guide started yelling at us to “Get back! Get back!” but luckily the rhino decided it was uninterested. It never started charging or anything, but it could have and the guide was worried it would. Apparently if it had charged, the only thing we could have done was climbed a tree and hoped the tree wasn’t thorny. Crazy, right? One of the mama rhinos we saw had a young rhino with her, so cute! And huge.
We spent that night at the safari company’s campsite in the national park. The campsite was nice. We slept in tents, but they had cots set up so we weren’t sleeping on the ground. It was awesome because there were just baboons and wart hogs walking through the camp, ain’t no thang. At one point I saw a couple baboons grab the cushions off some wicker lounge chairs and run off with them into the forest. I don’t know what they planned to do with the cushions, but it was hilarious.
We woke up EARLY the next morning for the true safari part of the adventure. Our driver was awesome and had this desperate urge to be better than all of the other safari groups (which I appreciate) so he made us get up before everyone else and would always drive crazy fast and cut the other vans off so that we could be at the front of the line. It was awesome. Don’t worry, I totally tipped him at the end of the trip. The van we rode in had an extendable top so we could climb out and ride on top. It was amazing. I don’t even have words to adequately describe it. But fear not, there are many many MANY pictures. We saw all of the animals I could ever hope to see and they were amazingly close to the vehicle. Tons of antelope, gazelles, warthogs (baby warthogs are adorable), water buffalo (don’t worry family, I totally sang), hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, HUGE elephants, and lions! The lioness even had a cub and they were hunting! SO CUTE. Except when the thing died, then it wasn’t cute. We were worried because it took us awhile to see a male lion. Then one of the other groups told us that there was a lion in the bush a bit off the path. They had seen it go in there, but we had just missed it. But did our driver let that stop him? Oh no he didn’t. He drove off the path right into the bush so that we could see the lion. We were literally a few feet away from him, with only van windows between us. It was so cool! He looked right at me.
We went back to camp for lunch (a hamburger, yay! I love when these touristy places cater to my American appetite) and then went on the Nile boat ride. It was definitely not like the last time we rode on the Nile, it was much more smooth. But just as beautiful. There were hippos and crocodiles EVERYWHERE. It was awesome. Hippos are hilarious and awesome. Also, baby hippos are so cute. After the boat ride most of the people just headed back, but because we were on the super deluxe safari we got to hike to the top of the falls. Oh man, it was beautiful. Again, there will be pictures when I get home. When the boat first dropped us off there was no guide. The boat drivers were like, “oh well, just get started. It’s not hard to find your path.” Oh, ok. It was seriously the most Indiana Jones-like experience of my life. We were by ourselves hacking through a jungle that we knew very well was inhabited by animals. I was pretty sure we were going to discover some ancient civilization at some point. We didn’t, but we did find the guide eventually. It was an awesome hike and the falls were beautiful. I wished you were there the whole time dad, cause you would have loved it. There are tons of pictures, don’t worry.
Our driver was at the top of the falls to pick us up after, which was good because I don’t think I could have hiked down. It wasn’t a super difficult hike at all, but I am used to hiking in Utah with 3% humidity. Hiking in Uganda is quite a bit different. At the risk of entering the land of TMI, I will tell you that I was NASTY nasty sweaty. We all were. We showered immediately after coming home and then were so exhausted that we went to bed straight after dinner (which was phenomenal vegetarian pasta. There is serious love in my heart for tourist food).
The next morning we were forced by our driver to be on the bus at 6:15. I know that you mow girls will mock me for my weak-sauce morning attitude, but I have not had to be anywhere by 6:15 in a LONG time. We were headed to chimp tracking and I literally slept the whole way.
Chimp tracking was my absolute favorite part of the trip. Like the rhino tracking, the guides just take you straight into the jungle to observe the chimps in their natural habitat. Oh man, it was incredible. They were just hanging out in the trees above us eating breakfast and playing around. There were at least 30 chimps around us, including babies. Baby chimps were the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. They just cling to their mum’s tummy for dear life while the mum swings about eating food. The guides for chimp tracking are awesome. They have been doing it for so long that they recognize each monkey on sight as well as the sound of each monkey’s call. Plus, they know what each call means. It’s like they can speak monkey! After standing for about an hour watching the monkey’s in the trees (which was awesome) a distress call came from the other side of the jungle, so the big male monkeys went to check it out and see what was up. Chimps eat in the trees, but apparently they travel on land, because they got on the ground and walked right past us. We followed one of them for awhile. It was amazing! We were just walking along behind him. He kept looking behind at us, but the guide said that he is the friendliest chimp and he didn’t run away or get scared or anything. It was almost like he was looking behind to make sure we could keep up. It was completely amazing.
After the chimp tracking we headed back to Kampala, which is always a disappointment after being in a beautiful place for awhile. Kampala is so dirty, plus poor Karen’s wallet got stolen. I felt really bad for her, but I was impressed and a bit shocked by her use of the English language. Homegirl is a talented swearer, and you all know that it would take a lot to impress me and even more to shock me. She got all of her cards cancelled and everything and luckily she wasn’t carrying a ton of cash, having spent most of it on the trip. But it still sucks.
I wish I could explain everything better, but this is really a trip that can only be adequately described through pictures. The internet is too crappy for me to post any, plus most of the good ones are on other people’s cameras (I really should have invested in a good camera for this trip, the one I have is a tiny bit crappy) but when I get home we will have an epic slideshow where I force you all to relive my triumphs. Get excited.
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