Safari!!

(Leah) So, we are back from our African Safari. We ended up staying in Kampala until Thursday and didn't arrive back until late last night. Sorry for the long leave of absence, but here I am to try to tell you all about it.
We left on Sunday to head to Kampala and spent the night in a hostel owned by the company we were going on the safari with (Red Chilli). It was my first time ever staying in a hostel, so it was quite interesting although a positive experience. We got up early on Monday and loaded our van with our group of 8 to head to Murchison Falls State Park where our safari would take place. It was a long drive, but we eventually made it. We entered the park and I started to get excited...I was actually going on a real African Safari!! It wasn't long before we started seeing babboons and warthogs...also known as Rafiki and Pumbaa. Our first stop on our safari was to see Murchison Falls from the point right before it heads over the edge to become the falls. The Nile River was flowing so rapidly it was amazing. Gorgeous views all around of this beautiful country. We stayed for about an hour and then finished the journey to our campsite where we would be staying for the nights. We got checked in and were shown to our tents. They were so cute! It reminded me of "The Parent Trap" because they were so perfect with two beds (with mattresses and pillows) and a little table. By now it was dinner time, so we headed to the restaurant to see what the special was for the evening. Chicken and rice with a creamy honey-mustard sauce was what we decided on and it was delicious. I almost forgot that I was in Africa because it was the most delicious meal I had eaten thus far on this trip! We were pretty exhausted so we hit the showers and headed for bed kind of early.
Tuesday morning: We had to leave the camp area by 6:30am for our "Game Drive". We had been praying to see lions which can be rare, but I was optimistic. We crossed the Nile on our ferry with a gorgeous sunrise and entered the area where the wildlife inhabit. We hadn't gone far before we started seeing all sorts of antelope-type animals all around. I don't remember all the names of the animals, so please forgive me. Our guide was great at explaining all about the different animals and the difference between male and females. All of a sudden he started talking on his walkie-talkie with a group ahead and then said to us - let's keep going because there are lions ahead! Of course we were ready!! We drove a ways and sure enough, on our right-hand side lay two female lions resting. Under a bush in front of them was a dead animal they had just killed. It was fantastic!! After we had taken tons of pictures, we headed on down the path and came upon a huge elephant that kept shaking the trees trying to get a piece of fruit to fall. It was a HUGE elephant!! We were able to get pretty close to it because it was so close to the road. There we were snapping pictures and camcording, when all of a sudden it decided it didn't like us being so close and started snorting and charging us. Our driver quickly cranked up the van as if to drive away and he calmed down. It was amazing!! We saw other animals such as huge Cape Buffalo, Antelope, Giraffes, and more warthogs. We never saw huge herds of the animals, but it was kind of nice to be able to see all of these animals up close. At one point, we saw a male and female elephant with a baby. It was kind of hard to see since they were over the edge of a hill, so our driver suddenly turned off the beaten path and headed right towards them. So great!! The game drive was a huge success.
That afternoon, we headed out on a huge pontoon boat with two other groups for our river cruise. We saw TONS of hippos and some crocodiles. One of the crocs we saw was about three meters long. Of course right as we were going to take pictures of it, it slided into the water. Oh well! The hippos were so big - no one should EVER compare themselves to one because there isn't a human being on the planet as big as a hippo (thank goodness!). We saw an elephant near the shore and some more monkeys up in trees. The zoom on our camera wasn't the greatest, so it's hard to see them all, but we snapped pictures anyway. And the birds...so many different kinds and so colorful. We got back to the campground around dinner and ordered beef stroganoff with rice. It wasn't so great unfortunately! We all felt disguisting after riding around in the dust all day, so Amy and I were only too grateful to hit the showers. We then played some Phase 10 and then Mark decided to humor us by becoming Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild as he talked about a praying mantis that had found its way into our tent. It was hilarious!!!
Wednesday: We had to pack up and leave by 8:30am. We drove out of the park and headed to the Rhino Sanctuary for our last thing for the safari. I didn't know this, but rhinos are extinct in Uganda. So, they have this rhino sanctuary where they currently have 6 adults and 3 babies - the only rhinos in all of Uganda. We arrived around lunchtime and headed out to see them. The workers there keep track of each rhino 24/7 so it was nice to know exactly where we were headed. The rhinos we saw were Bella the Mom and Augusto the baby born in October. They were amazing! Rhinos are huge. At first they were both laying down, so our guide kept trying to call their names to get them to stand up. Finally they did, so we all started snapping pictures. Mark did another episode of Bear Grylls although we had to keep quiet, so I don't think it transferred well onto the Flip camera. : ( We finally made it back to Kampala about 4:30pm and made reservations again at the Red Chilli Hostel. Unfortunately it was pretty packed this time, so we didn't have a ton of room like before. When we found our beds assigned to us they had clothes from someone else. It looked like someone had used our beds to dry their clothes, so we piled all our bags onto one bed and decided to come back later to deal with it. We headed to the Kampala Tourist Market to get some souveniers. There must be a new law passed in Kampala about boda drivers because we could only ride one per boda (we had been squishing two on) and some had helmets that they wanted us to wear. Wow, a lot can change in just a few days! Thankfully, we made it safely there in one piece! Riding on Boda's in Kampala can be dangerous because of the traffic! Fun, but scary!
And so this concludes this post about our safari. We had a GREAT time and enjoyed the time away although we were all missing the babies terribly and were ready to come home. We will try to get some pictures to Deanna soon so she can post them. In the meantime, thanks for keeping up with our trip that is too rapidly drawing to a close.