Safari Weekend

Traveling in the Invisible Children SUV off roading vehicle is so much better than a mutatu. Mutatu's are Africa's versions of large van taxi's that take many people, often more than the legal limit, from one town to another. Often they travel long distances, for many hours. I've come accustomed to this type of travel throughout Uganda. But I have only riden in a mutatu ONCE during this whole trip.
Because of the Kampala bombings, Invisible Children will only allow us to travel with the use of their vehicles. Thus everywhere we go we get to travel with the amazing Simon and/or Christopher, two of the IC drivers.
They took us to Murchison Falls National Park. We drove to Anaka IDP Camp and picked up Kelley, Min, and Colleen and then headed right to the park.
Catherine is our fearless leader this summer, and her right hand woman is Danielle. The two of them had to travel down to Kampala and to Entebbe with Group 1, so they put me in charge the Safari for our group. I was up for the challenge and definitely learned a lot. Plus, everyone in group 2 started calling me their commander-in-chief, which was pretty hilarious.
We drove through the park to get to the Nile and saw many Kob, Giraffes, and a few far off Elephants. After crossing the Nile, we boarded a small boat with just the 12 of us on it. Fiona was our guide and she did a fantastic job of showing us the many animals that live in the Nile or just off shore. Our trip was about 2.5hrs up the river to the falls, and then we travel back to the dock (1hr drive) as the sunset over the Nile. Pretty surreal. We saw tons of hippos, crocs, king fishers, and even some colobus monkeys.
That night we stayed in real canvas tents, and there were even wild warthogs walking around the camp ground. Thankfully, Angela and I left our food in the vehicle so they didn't bother us at night. Also, thankfully Angela is a light sleeper and my alarm woke her up even though it didn't wake me up. So we left bright and early for our game drive safari. We pulled out before 6:30 and got in line to take the ferry back across the Nile. First in line felt pretty good!
We then spent the next 3-4 hours sitting on a mattress on top of our vehicles. I can't imagine doing this in the states, but it really is the only way to do a safari. Thankfully the weather cooperated and it stayed cool most of the morning and by 10am the clouds started clearing and it started getting hotter. We finished by 11am without seeing any lions, but we did see lots of other animals. After I get home I'll post some pictures. The internet is just too slow here. sorry.
We got back yesterday and spent some time relaxing. Angela, Sarah, and I even went to an American type restaurant for dinner. We got our dinner to go and took it back home. I was able to eat a delicious chicken salad sandwich while watching Big Bang Theory. It was amazing.
Great ending to a great weekend.