This weekend was great! We got to see lots of amazing animals and even did things I'd never imagine I could have the opportunity to do. But that's not to say it went smoothly or according to the plan.
First, we had decided to leave at 7 am. Our hope was to avoid the traffic in Kampala. Unfortunately, the car we hired didn't get to our house til around 730. I'm quickly learning how unimportant time is to people outside of America. After we managed to squeeze 8 people into a 5 person car, we filled up, did a little maintenance on the car and finally headed out around 9.
The 6 hour drive was a little tight. We made a few stops for bathroom and snacks and finally arrived at our "hotel" around 3. It was a group of huts that were located outside the park. They looked pretty nice. I was even shocked to see that they had running water and electricity. I felt like I was living in the lap of luxury!
From there we had to deal with a lot of confusion about our accommodations, things we wanted to do and see and the plan for the next day. We did have a little down time while we were waiting for park officials to come and help us. Of course when girls get together, you can count on some good gossip. Unfortunately, Julie had planned different things than we wanted to do. It was hard to explain what we wanted and for her to explain what she thought was best for us. Needless to say tempers got a little heated at times. Too much togetherness can be a bad thing.
We finally decided on a plan for the next day. We would get up early, drive into the park, do the early safari, eat lunch, do a boat ride and possibly hike the falls depending on the time.
Well that plan didn't work out exactly as we imagined either. Again, we got a late start. But we managed a game drive that ended up being absolutely amazing!! We saw elephants, giraffes, antelope, baboons, and so many more animals. After that, we headed to a nearby restaurant for lunch. We were pleasantly surprised to learn they served American food. I treated myself to a hotdog and a piece of chocolate cake!
After lunch, we all went on a boat ride down the Nile River. There we saw many different birds, hippos, and the breathtaking Falls. The 3 hour boat ride was nice and relaxing. I never thought I would get used to seeing a hippo just lounging around.
Even though we were supposed to leave Sunday night, we all decided that driving back at night was not the safest idea so we opted to stay one more night. In retrospect, that was a terrible idea. After dinner Cari, Jordan, Amber, Rebekah, and myself retired to our hut, which had enough room for 12 people.We went to bed around 10:30 so we could get up and leave about 5:30. Unfortunately we were woken up around midnight by a swarm of ants. First they were attacking Cari and Amber. After they showered, we came back to inspect the room only to realize there were thousands of them all over the walls and floor. They were mostly attacking the top bunks. We realized it seemed they were afraid of the light so since we didn't know where neither Juliet nor the manager were staying, we turned the light on and hoped for the best. That lasted about 2 hours. We all were now confined to 3 beds and the ants were taking over. Then we heard people close by making a lot of noise. Jordan braved the darkness and saw that they were being attacked too! We were finally able to find the manager who gave us keys to a different room so we could try to get an hour or two of shut eye before we left.
The next morning we headed out early. We had talked the driver into taking us to the Rhino Sanctuary which was on our way back. We met a Rhino named Obama (1 parent from Kenya the other from America) and got to stand about 20 feet from them. This was different from the safari, in which we had been confined to a car!
Afterwards, we made a stop to buy fruit and ate lunch. We ended up getting back about 4 pm and mostly rested for the evening. Biti had been kind enough to do our laundry for us, so we didn't have to worry about it when we got back. We just took our stuff to our room and got ready for the hospital.
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