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Today was Safari day. It started out great. We got up early and had breakfast. Chapatti with eggs (similar to a breakfast burrito. Chapatti reminds me of thick Swedish pancake. It's basically a wheat and water mixture that is fried with some spices. We headed out for the park straight after breakfast around 6:30... Best time to see the Animals. At the entrance we met our guide. His name is Savior. Who knows if that is his real name or just his English version. In my past experiences of traveling many of the people I have met change their birth name to something that is easier for Westerners to pronounce and remember especially when they are involved with a job frequently used by foreigners. Savior was hilarious and he reminded me of Nelson Mandela. He spoke with the same accent. I asked him tons of questions about being a Safari Guide. He said out of all the animals he is most afraid of the elephants. Leopards and Lions are actually very peaceful animals and really are only concerned with the other animals. He also said that hippos are territorial but only get super upset when there are babies around. Elephants on
the other hand, once infuriated will attack and continue attacking and make sure they completely trample whatever has upset them. Who knows though....one guides opinion.
Regardless, within the first 10 minutes we saw elephants, warthogs, a lion, a hippo, baboons, kobs, monkeys of all kinds, bushbucks and Jackson Hardabeasts. It was awesome. The guide was even surprised by seeing the lion. He guides all the time and doesn't see lions very often. Savior thought We were fairly funny, however, because he would call out an animal and we would immediately reference it by the Disney movie name. For instance, when he would call out warthogs, we would yell out, "Pumba" in reference to "The Lion King". Definitely waving our American flag. The safari took around 4 hours and we saw more of the same animals but also ended up seeing Water Bucks and Crocodiles. There were tons of birds as well but I have no idea what they were called seeing as I'm not a birder. 😊 They were so colorful though. Some were fully bright red and bright blue. We stopped at Lake Victoria and watched the hippos for awhile. Our Safari Van was pretty cool. Big windows
that opened the sides up and then four sunroofs so we could stand as we were traveling. For lunch we stopped at Red Chili Restaurant. It sits at the top of this little mountain over Lake Victoria and is situated fairly close to the beginning of the boat ride to Murchison Falls. Most of us ended up getting a big cheese burger with fries, not your typical Ugandan meal but we were all craving American food.
After lunch we jumped on a boat to head up the Nile to the falls. The boat ride took about 2 hours. The boat ride was definitely one of the neatest parts of the day. The sides of the river were lined with all the animals we had seen during the safari and the boat driver would take us within 8-12 feet from the shore. It was really cool being that close to the animals. The hippos would get a little testy with us being so close but for the most part they didn't chase us. An hour into the ride, however, I started getting sick. I'm not sure what it was.... I haven't eaten anything that was weird or that I know
better not to eat but whatever it was I am still feeling the upset stomach :S I have never been so sick in all of my travels so I guess after the 25 countries I deserve to get a bout of stomach ailment. It definitely was the worst timing though. Being on a boat without a bathroom followed by a hike for a half hour after and then a two hour car ride. It was awful. :P Once back at the hotel I was fairly scared to eat so I barely ate any dinner and quickly showered and went to bed. I'm fairly sure it was the hamburger from lunch so NO MORE HAMBURGERS.
I want to describe Alice a little further. She is a very deep person and has an amazing connection to the world. We had a bit of a miscommunication with the group and Bazil and Alice and ended up leaving most of our stuff at a hotel that they weren't planning on us returning to. After we realized what happened we were all apologizing and she very sternly said, "Do not apologize. There are no coincidences in life. Everything happens for a reason. You can
look at the bad or you can turn it into good and be happy about it and know there was a reason for it." She went on to describe this as the Ugandan way. She said that when her kids would do something wrong or make a mistake that Ugandans will typically not yell at a child or accuse them because they already know it is wrong. They will say it was wrong but that's it because the kids already know it was and if you punish them for it typically you are punishing them twice and then that will cause resentment. She also said that when something happens anyone who is involved will apologize because everyone should feel sorry it happened. Such a cool different perspective on life.
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