Last Sunday afternoon we left Nansana and drove to Murchison Falls National Park located in the North West of the country. The park is about 300 kilometers from Kampala, so it took us about 6 hours to get there. Five of us went, me, Kathryn, Ruth, Moses and Ronnie who would be our driver for the few days. We arrived about 8pm on Sunday evening and we stayed in a nearby guest house, before entering the actual park on Monday morning at about 11am.
The Park is home to a great number of animals, including 4 of the big 5 (Lions, Leopards, Buffalo and African Elephant. unfortunately there are no Rhino in the park.) Out of these we managed to see Buffalo and Elephants, as well as Giraffes, Hippos, Baboons, 3 species of antelopes, Wart Hogs, Crocodiles, Patas Monkeys, a Turtle, many different species of birds, and probably some other animals that I have forgotten! It was amazing!!
On the Monday we went for a game drive when we first entered the park. We met a park ranger at the entry gate called Savior who offered to guide us to the best places to spot the animals for half price! Which was great, and despite it being around midday, when a lot of the animals are usually hiding from the heat, we managed to see a large variety. Savior also told us about the animals and what species they were etc. Which was very informative and interesting. I really enjoyed the drive and we managed to get very close to a herd of elephants which were eating beside the road.
On the Tuesday morning we went for another game drive to increase our chances of seeing one of the cats (Lions and Leopards..) but unfortunately we didn't spot any. Our guide told us that it is likely because of the high moon light and so they would have hunted during the night and rest during the hot daytime. The highlight of this drive was definitely seeing a herd of about 10 Giraffes really close up! They are incredibly beautiful animals, very elegant despite their size!
Another memorable moment from Tuesday's game drive was when a Baboon jumped into our car, grabbed some Bananas and then jumped straight back out! hahahaha... It was terrifying and hilarious.. Then to top it off, after our game drive, another Baboon jumped in and grabbed our biscuits! Thankfully Baboons have not yet discovered how to open screw tops!! And one of the rangers chased it off and managed to get our biscuits back.... hahaha.
During our stay we had decided to take our own tents and camp on the other side of the River Nile which runs through the park. The view from our campsite was very beautiful, overlooking the Nile and beyond in to the National Park. As it was an open campsite there would often be Baboons, or Wart Hogs searching for food! One night there was even a Hippopotamus grazing in the camping area!
On Wednesday we went up from our campsite up to the actual Murchison Falls. This was incredible and very picturesque as it looked down the River Nile.
In the Afternoon, we took a guided boat trip up the Nile towards the Falls. This was really good, and we were lucky enough to see a large number of Crocodiles and Hippos, as well as several Elephants drinking by the river bank, a turtle, and numerous birds. It was also very interesting to hear about some of the animals and their lifestyles.
On Sunday we leave to go to a village for a week long mission (18th-25th). We will be doing various activities, including running a kids club, community outreach, movie nights, and fumigation of peoples houses. I am looking forward to this and will keep you all posted when we get back next Sunday (25th).
Here some photos from our few days of safari to give you an idea of what we were lucky enough to see! (We have around 700 between us so this is just a few of the highlights!) Hope you are all well!
Kenneth
Hello!
I hope everyone has had lovely Christmas (yes people in "Africa" know it's Christmas... Despite what Bob Geldof tries to tell us...) and a very happy new year!!
We have had a good holiday season, so I will tell you a little of what we have been up to over the past couple of weeks.
Christmas
Unsurprisingly it was quite a different Christmastime than usual. On Christmas eve, we enjoyed a wee trip to the cinema to see Exodus; Gods and kings (wasn't the greatest film really...) and then we got ourselves an Indian takeaway as a treat! On Christmas morning we headed to church for a short service, and then met Alex at the supermarket to do the shopping for dinner. It was very interesting Christmas here as it isn't really much of a big deal compared to back home with the big lights/sales/decorations/parties. For quite a lot of people it seemed like Christmas was just another day, in fact we bought the food for our dinner at 12pm on Christmas day.. It would be near impossible to do that in the UK!
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| Nice apron.. |
We had invited a few members of the 'Smile family' over for dinner so it was a fun occasion! At one point there was about 15 of us gathered round the table! Everyone either brought along a dish or helped with the cooking, so it was a good team effort. I was in charge of making the pigs in blankets (which were obviously the best part..) but we all helped out, with a mix of British and African dishes! Including roast chicken, goat, pasta salad, roast tatties, pigs in blankets, lots of various veg, to name a few! Needles to say there was plenty of food for everyone. We even managed to have 3 courses of pudding having fruit salad, then ice cream, and then cake!! All in all it was a very good day :)
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| Crackers! |
Rwanda
On the 27th - 30th of December we were in Rwanda for a few days, as we had to leave Uganda and re-enter to renew our visas for a further 3 months.
This involved getting a 10 hour bus from Kampala to Kigali (the capital city of Rwanda), which was long and bumpy! Our time in Rwanda was very relaxing, spending most of our chilling out and not doing very much. Rwanda was a very interesting country to visit. Quite different to Uganda in my opinion. The differences were apparent from them moment we crossed the border really, with properly tarmacked roads, and driving on the right hand side! The scenery was very beautiful, VERY hilly (Rwanda being called the land of a thousand hills..), but incredibly beautiful driving through the hills and seeing the great valleys bellow. The city of Kigali was also much more ordered than Kampala, our bus driver even complained that people didn't queue up properly when getting the service bus to the hostel. People were quite friendly and in a way it felt safer than Kampala, with streets being well lit, and an obvious police presence.
During our stay we spent sometime visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial. This is a museum and mass burial site dedicated to the thousands of Rwandans who were killed during the genocide of 1994. It also serves as a reminder to the terrible atrocities which took place in the country, aiming to educate the population, and the world, so something so terrible never occurs again. This was a very interesting experience as I didn't know much about the history of the country. It pretty much went through the whole history of the country, highlighting several factors that contributed to the genocide taking place, as well as how the country has tried to change and heal. There certainly appears to be quite a strong community spirit and sense of forgiveness in the country.
Other than that, we spent our time around Kigali enjoying a couple of lunches out etc, Which was nice and relaxing. On the 30th we traveled back to Uganda on an overnight bus! We crossed the border and we renewed our visas for a further 3 months, relatively hassle free. Not much sleep was had due to the bumpy roads!! (9 hours of the journey took place in Uganda, and only 1 hour of nice smoot Rwandan roads...) so we spent most of the day on the 31st catching up on sleep.
New Year
As I just said we spent most of the day catching up on sleep on the 31st as we only arrived back in Kampala at around 7am. At around 9pm we headed to church for and evening of prayer and worship. This was a nice time of reflection and a good chance to focus on God as we entered into 2015. When it turned 12am, there was a particularly joyful time of worship which I couldn't help be reminded of the scene in the movie 'the Blue Brothers' when the go to church,, (found here if anyone is unfamiliar with it..) It was quite a different experience to enter the new year to say the least! All good fun though.
We didn't really do anything on the 1st (in fact I actually washed my clothes.... fun times!) and we spent the following weekend relaxing, going in to Kampala for a small shopping trip.
Last Monday work at Smile resumed, however we were supposed to be at a camp for students and youth at the church, but this was unfortunately cancelled.
Instead we have spent the time preparing posters and teaching materials for the coming term at Ruth Mother Care. We also went on community outreach to the Slums, it was nice to see the people in the area again after the Christmas break.
Tomorrow we head off to Murchison Falls National park for a safari! I am very excited as we will get the opportunity to see a very large number of different animals living in their natural environments! I will keep you when we get back as to what we got up to and what we saw!
Hope you all had a restful holiday season, and have not blown away in the recent storms!!
Ken
