After a whirlwind trip from the school to the airport in Kampala, our group flew on two small, 15 seat propeller planes up to the northwest part of Uganda to go on safari. We flew to Murchison Falls National Park. The flight was amazing as we flew from Lake Victoria and the start of the Nile at the equator, up north to Lake Albert and the Nile on the Democratic Republic of the Congo border. Our short, 40 minute flight saved us a 6 hour drive!
Here we are after landing on the small Pakuba airstrip.
The Chobe Safari Lodge picked us up on the runway and
gave us an afternoon safari on the way to the lodge.
The giraffes were the first to greet us as we drove through Murchison Falls National Park.
The park is miles of roaming room for the animals and small dirt roads for the jeeps.
The gentle giraffes wandered the savannah amongst the acacia trees.
Down by the Nile, we spotted our first elephant.
At the amazing lodge, Rosie posed on the balcony with the jungle in the background.
Our rooms were amazing and we had a view of the Nile as well!
We could hear all the animals, especially at night. The elephants came up from the river and were seen around midnight attempting to find their way to our pool before the guards chased them away.
The next morning, we went out for an early morning safari. Seeing the big cats is rare and although we were not able to see any lions, we did run into more giraffes.
These are classic African savannah views.
Anyone else remember Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom?
The acacia trees stood tall in the distance on a perfect morning.
Smile.
High above us, the wildlife perched.
We didn't see any lions but we saw what they leave behind. This kill was estimated to be a week old by our guide. The hyenas had all but licked it clean.
We took a mid morning hippopotamus break. The hippos were cooling in the water and although we walked around and enjoyed listening to their noises and watching them splash around, we remained cautious as hippos are a very big animal and cannot be underestimated as docile.
Bella enjoyed the jeep rides.
Squinting with the African sun in our eyes and scores of wild hippos bathing behind us.
This was surreal.
A huge meeting place for these large herbivores.
The animals interacting and all crossing paths was interesting to see.
Rosie and Bella slightly out-cute the bathing hippos.
Our Land Rover seated 14 quite comfortably.
Great logo; great lodge!
Water buffalo with birds cleaning off the parasites.
Some sharp horns!
Some of the animals seemed to pose for us.
How safari has changed: Shooting them with cameras seemed so much better than the old way of shooting these beautiful creatures.
Elephants jogging past palm trees along the savannah. Wow.
Rosie looks out at a distant giraffe.
Giraffes, warthogs and the tall grass.
Back at the lodge, Rosie poses with our guide and driver, Kula.
We decided to take a swim at our pool that had a swim up bar and overlooked the Nile.
The juxtaposition of this portion of our trip with our days at the Masooli School was yet another piece of our service learning. Roaming the beautiful Ugandan savannah on safari reminded us once again of our fortunes. We kept talking about the friendly school children and reminding ourselves about what they were doing at that very moment. It was a lot to take in.
The path to our rooms
One view of the Nile from our path, not far from where the elephants had invaded at night.
It was a day full of adventure.
We saw many monkeys just hanging around!
No comments:
Post a Comment