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Published: July 11th 2007
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Going back around a month since I last wrote, I went to Zanzibar for 5 days and had a really fun time. I was a bit worried about what it would be like going by myself but I met the friendliest fellow travelers. I ended up hanging out a lot with 3 people from Spain and two people from Australia, as long as people from the US, Canada, the UK, Mexico…I went to 2 islands and went snorkeling twice, saw some giant tortoises, spent a little time on the beach, walked around Stonetown, saw gorgeous water and sunsets and went on a tour of a spice plantation. After that I flew to meet my mom in Arusha for a 6 day safari in Tanzania—in Arusha Park, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater (which was FREEZING when we were there) and Serengeti. We saw tons of animals, and I especially liked Serengeti where we saw the great migration (hundreds of wildabeast and zebras and impalas/gazelles) along with many lions and cubs, birds, ostriches (I thought of Nina), etc. Serengeti was also fun because it’s big so in certain stretches there are almost no animals so it feels like you’re on an exciting search
for them, especially when looking for lions, leopards, etc. I took a gazillion pictures which I can show people when I get back. Oy, the power just went out and I lost a whole bunch that I had just written. This is the problem with a laptop whose battery doesn’t work at all. I have gotten used to saving often but sometimes it’s not often enough, especially when I get on a roll! I’m not quite sure how I’m going to get this onto the blog…I’m writing it on my own computer and can use my flash drive at an internet café but apparently you always get a virus from those computers. Sam has a computer at home and an internet connection but for some reason, the laptop sometimes won’t turn on, which happened today when I tried (and he’s in Kampala so he can’t help me figure it out). I just retyped some and hopefully I haven’t repeated anything twice.
Back to my travels, after Zanzibar, my mom and I went back to Uganda and spent a day in Kampala (which she also thought was hectic) and tried to get in touch with many travel agents (and I had already done some of that before) to see if there was any way to go to Murchison Falls with a group or a not too expensive tour. Most of them were saying we could go for 3 days (where 1 ½ days was travel) for between $450-900 a person and I thought that was ridiculous, especially since we had just spent a lot on a safari. The travel agents ranged from meek and completely unhelpful to friendly and helpful with no ultimate follow through. We took a bus to Fort Portal (my mom was a trooper), stayed there for a night, and in that area, we walked by some pretty crater lakes, waited forever for transportation, had a cute boy give us a tour of Bigodi Wetland sanctuary and saw lots of monkeys….I’ll try to write more details another time. After that, we went back to Kampala and took another bus to the Murchison Falls area and then I managed to get the name of a driver who was recommended by 2 hotels and for 200,000 shillings (about $120), he drove us into the park, to the top of the waterfall, to the Red Chili backpackers place one day…then the next day, we got a ranger in the car and went on a 3 hour game drive which was nice (although it would have been better in a jeep, we were just in a sedan and when the grass was high we couldn’t see anything), and then chimp tracking the next morning and out again to Masindi. We then managed (after talking to every tourist in the area) to get 9 people together and rented a matatu (minivan) that drove us back to Kamapala. It’s funny, the park fees are outrageous and you have to pay for each thing you do (I think my mom and I spent $180 just in fees for 2 days in the park) but things like local transportation is very cheap (well, the locals also pay much lower fees in the parks). Our 5 hour (bumpy, in a bus with no shocks) bus ride to Masindi was 8,000 shillings a person—about $5. Okay, this is VERY long, I think that’s enough for now! I’ll hopefully be checking e-mail every 2-3 days so keep e-mailing me! (or call…if you don’t have my number and want to call, let me know and I’ll give it to you. The phone doesn’t have voicemail so if you don’t reach me, you can just try another time. I can also receive text messages but can’t send them to Verizon and Sprint phones—it doesn’t go through). On a side note, I missed Amy and Adam’s wedding this weekend—I hope it went well and can’t wait to hear about it!
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