29 December 2016 3 of 4
I’m currently on the bus to Nairobi, Kenya. It’s been just over 13 hours so far and I’m not sure I can yet see the sparkly lights of the big smoke. My bottom is sore.
We’ve been in Uganda since I last wrote enjoying some outdoor activities around the many hours spent in mini-vans getting places. We visited Murchison Falls National Park on a safari tour which gave me my first experience of African animals in their natural habitat. I loved the giraffes and elephants, and the hippos were hilarious. We also saw buffalo, warthog, hyena, antelope varieties, crocodiles and birds, and a lioness and a leopard in the distance. I will be doing another safari in Kenya so hope to see a bit more.
We happened to park next to a truck that had a huge collection of traps and weapons used by poachers that the Ranger’s had found in the national park. Some traps were very basic, but were obviously able to cause the right amount of damage. It made me sad.
As part of the tour we were supposed to do a “hike” to the waterfall. Picture yourself in the middle of a national park, dense dry bushland, stinking hot day, 13 other western tourists gamely following a Guide up about 40 stairs to a ridge to start a (15 min) hike, and discovering fire all around you. Us Aussies were immediately on high alert but the Guide reassured us in his (un)knowledgeable way that it was a “controlled burn” and everything was fine. I’ve included two photos here so you can see that nothing (except us) was controlled or fine. We watched another tour group on a path across from us continue to follow the path down to the river as the fire got caught by the wind and jumped across their path!!!! Nutters!! It wasn’t until the lookout shelter 5 metres from us exploded in huge red flames that our Guide started taking things seriously (including taking a selfie). Weirdly he still offered to take us along the path that we could all see was in the centre of the fire. I guess he just wanted to do his job. The fire was someone else’s problem…
We spent four nights over Christmas at a great campground by the Nile River near Jinja in Uganda. The tents are permanent and very comfortable. I’ve attached a photo of the view from our tent. It was marvelous. And a photo of Chef & I having pool time on Christmas Day.
While at the campground we did a day of white water rafting which was awesome. It was about 5 hours in total so it was a mix of rapids, river and cruising. Life-vests & helmets were essential cause we did fall out a few times, but geez it’s easy swimming in a life-vest – so lazy!!
I’ve got stories about ants and monkeys and a drunk boat cruise and bounty bars. And stories about people wearing white underwear to swim (no one I know!), and about missionaries and the equator and Republicans and goat… but I’ll save them for another time.
