I Bless the Rains Down in Africa: SAFARI TIME!
- Emily Graves
- May 12, 2018
- 11 min read
I'm actually playing that song on repeat as I make this blog post. SO, where we left off, we were headed to Murchison River Lodge on the Nile River for our free day! Per usual, 'twas a long ride in those little vans, but it went by quickly because of all the sites along the way. We had to go through a few gates with guards, but we finally made it right before the sun was setting! The lodge was amazing. It was located right on the Nile River on a game reserve, so the animals were free to roam around the site. We stayed in some pretty elaborate tents and the style was called "glamping". I thought this was an African term....but turns out it's a term that is made up which means "glamorous camping"...ergo "GLAMPING". You learn something new everyday in Africa. That's exactly what it was, though! I'm super glad we were able to stay here and experience camping instead of staying in a hotel; you can do that anytime. The tents were all spread out and down little gravel paths. At night if you were traveling place to place you
were "supposed to" use a whistle to get the guard to come get you and protect you (if my mom is reading this, I promise I didn't lose the whistle and used it every single time). My motto was that you just had to be quicker than the slowest person, but I guess no child left behind was a better motto...
The inside of the tents were really nice! We had three people to a tent (shoutout to Drasti and Scarlett for being dope roommates and putting up with me; that takes a special person). There were two beds that shared one mosquito net (intimate), and then another bed by itself (loner aka Drasti). The bathroom was outside but connected to the tent by a little door. The ground was gravel and there was a little toilet and sink and get this..HOT WATER! Best day ever.
Since we got there right as the sun was setting, we sprinted down to the main dining/hangout area on the river and
WOAH. Breathtaking. The Nile River was on its A-game for us. I can't begin to count up the amount of times sights in Africa took my breath away, but I'm going to estimate around 85. & this was a major time. You could hear all of the animals (especially hippos which actually kind of sound like the frogs in the south, so that was weird). Words can't begin to to it justice, so I'll just shut up and share some pictures of it now.
The grounds were crazy cool. There was a covered pool area where you could see the Nile River and it had lots of comfy lounge areas that we definitely utilized. The eating area was right on the river and they had some swings set up and fire pits (more about this location later...it became quite the dance club).
Dinner time! We were pretty hungry but not for long because dinner was buffet style & I'm not going to say that I put every single type of food they had to offer on my plate and ate it all, but I'm not NOT going to say I did that. No regrets. We even got dessert which was a little brownie thing with some powdered sugar on top. I'm not much of a dessert gal so I gave half of mine to somebody. If you can guess who then you can continue reading this blog post! (Hint: starts with a G and ends with ABBY). We finished dinner and sat around talking about how amazing everything was and some of us tried unsuccessfully to take a picture with lizards. Just normal Africa things. Then we could hear some music starting up and Patty pulled us away to go "watch".
Lessons that we learned pretty quickly, when Patty says we are going to "watch" some African dancing, it actually 110% means that you are going to dance with them and make a fool of yourself. There was a little group by the fire on the river with some bongos and other instruments and about 10 dancers. It was awesome to just chill and watch them do their thing under the stars. Little did I know that I was about to have to do my thing which is quite embarrassing. When I say that they were "dancing", I don't mean this lightly. THEY WERE GETTING DOWN. If they were wearing fitbits, they would have hit their 10,000 steps within the first 5 minutes. Nevertheless, it was time to join them. Shout-out to my fellow brave dancers, Gabby, Taylor, Nick, and Gerry. I'm not gonna lie, it was hard. First we started with going around the campfire in a circle which was probably the easiest part because you could just kind of do weird things with your body and it looked semi like you were doing it right. (Note: there was a plank looking thing in the campfire so I kind of thought the worst dancer would have to walk it, got kind of nervous, not going to lie). Then the line unfortunately stopped and it all went downhill from there. Well downhill for us dancers, uphill for everyone's entertainment that was watching. Midway through standing there and throwing my body around I realized a trend: the women were on their hands and knees on the ground doing some thing with their chest and shoulders that I have yet to master (if you want a good visual, go to this Justin Bieber "Sorry" music video to minute 1:35 and that's what we were trying to do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRh_vgS2dFE) , and the guys were all standing. Upon this realization, I naturally grabbed Gabby & threw her down to the ground with me. It took Taylor about 5 minutes to make the same realization, so she was a little confused as to why we were on the ground. Safe to say that that dance move turned into pushups for me. A for effort, amiright?? After losing about 10 pounds in sweat, the dancing part was over, and most people went to sleep. Gabby and I stuck around to hear the last two songs and mainly get our breath back, and then we were escorted back to our tents to get some sleep before we woke up for our sunrise safari. (P.S. I don't have pictures or videos of this because I was too busy doing my thing, but I'm sure there will be plenty on YouTube from Patty, so stay tuned).
Throughout the night you could hear so many animals. I thought we heard a cute little warthog aka Pumba outside our tent all night, but turns out it was a hippo....I really never got the hang of what different animals sounded like, if you couldn't tell. We needed to meet at 5:30 AM to get to the ferry in time for the sunrise, so we woke up and were ready to rumble. It was about a 20 minute drive to where the ferries were going to take us over the Nile to our safari vans. We got breakfast on the go & got on this huge flat yellow floating device that was called a ferry. Not your average Grey's Anatomy ferry, let me tell you. We were piled on there like sardines, squished between the cars we had to load on as well. I want to say that this part of the Nile was the Albert Nile, but don't go telling that to everyone because I could be wrong. It sounds good, though. The Nile is pretty dangerous to swim in so it was cool going across it and being so close to the water. Plus the sunrise was incredible. Another one of those breathtaking moments.
We got across with no child left behind and we loaded up the safari vans. There were two styles: one was like what you imagine a safari van to look like, a bigger version of a Jeep, and the other was a van with an open roof that you could stand up in and look out. We started our adventure and our tour guide was pretty awesome. She knew lots and lots of facts about the animals we saw which was really interesting to learn about. The views were incredible and the weather was perfect. I honestly think it was so cool I would have been content not seeing any animals. But maybe I'm only saying that because I saw a lot of animals. Anyways, now it's animal and safari picture time!! I'll share some facts we learned as we went. So hang on tight, we are going in.
Alright, alright, alright. So we were finally loaded and ready to go! We saw lots and lots of antelope, & there were different types of them. The Ugandan Kob appears on the coat of arms of Uganda, so that's pretty neat. One type of antelope was the hartebeest, & these were my favorite type because our tour guide told us that they have very short memories. So they will be running along doing their thing & all of a sudden stop and forget where they were going or what they were doing. Relatable. They also had some pretty funny faces and they always looked very confused. I loved it. We also saw lots and lots of water buffalo. We learned that if there was a small herd of them (about 2-6) then they are the "losers". This means that they fought with the alpha male, lost, and then were charged out of their group. And then all the losers would collectively come together and start their own little group. Animals are crazy.
We saw lots of giraffes and they are so darn cute. A group of giraffes is called a "tower". Probably the one fact I learned in Uganda that makes the most sense to me. I have never been as mesmerized by watching something eat as I was watching these giraffes just chomping away. I imagine myself looking like that while I eat. We also learned that you can tell the difference between males and females because male horns are bald while females are covered with hair. Also, male giraffes as they get older get darker, so that's a way you can tell how old they are. ANDDD (I learned a lot about giraffes), when they give birth, the baby just drops from like 6 feet in the air hooves and head first. Talk about a traumatic entrance into the world. Their first word would definitely be "GERONIMO". Unfortunately if they get hurt from the fall they are abandoned, but I like to believe they all make it. I also full heartedly believe that you have not lived life until you have seen a giraffe run. Imagine Forrest Gump when he first broke out of his leg braces. (Honestly through this safari I realized maybe I should have been a veterinarian because I find this stuff FASCINATING). Anyways, hated all the sciences, so moving on.
Plenty of elephants. Every time we saw a group of elephants or "parade" (hence why in jungle book when they all walked together they played music and sang songs...I MEAN COME ON, FASCINATING.), the little ones would all be in the middle surrounded by the bigger ones. We learned that the family was ruled by a matriarch (who run the world?) who protected the babies by putting them in the middle of the group. We also think we saw an elephant giving birth because they were all gathered around an elephant laying on the ground. That can neither be confirmed nor denied at this point, so we will just leave it at that. I think elephants might be my favorite. Don't tell the giraffes, they are a close second. Maybe if they learned to squat a little when they gave birth they would move up to #1.
Then we went on a quest to find some cats, but that ended up not happening. Which is fine because I have a pretty entertaining one at home anyways. We even did some illegal offloading to try and find them (I wondered if that could land us in the prison farm if we got caught). But yet we still didn't find them. I don't think any of us minded too much because we were still having a blast.
Also no zebras and no rhinos. Rhinos are actually extinct in Uganda but there is a pretty cool sanctuary for them that is a re-introduction project where they are breeding the rhinos and helping them make the greatest comeback of all comebacks!!
We saw lots of Pumbas. The little warthogs were incredibly cute and they ran just like they did in the Lion King (you can't possibly begin to imagine how many Disney movies were going on in my head during this safari). Their little tails pointed straight up in the air and they just scooted along. The babies were precious.
Then we took a little pit stop to chill with all the hippos. We got plenty of pictures of them as they just sat there and floated in the water and made some more weird noises. Gabby sang the creepy Hocus Pocus song to try and get them to come to us, but that proved to be unsuccessful and a little painful for all who were around her. We did some switching up of the vans and after tons of pictures we were off again! We saw more of the same animals on the way back and it was a nice ride back.
And the safari was officially over! When we got back to where we started, the ferry wasn't supposed to arrive for another 30 minutes, so we hung around, listened to some music, checked out a huge globe that they had, and tried to avoid getting attacked by some monkeys. They came over and picked up some mangos that they found on the ground and started to go to town. One jumped up onto one of your vans and then just decided to take a leak, so that was pretty great. Actually, now that I think about, I'm unsure if the windows were closed all the way or not...We crossed back over the ferry and I was at the very front and the water kept slightly splashing up so I might have contracted a disease but I would say it was worth it. We drove the 20 minutes back to the Murchison Lodge and had some curry and chilled by the pool for about an hour until it was time to head back to Masindi for our last night together! It was some nice R&R before the traveling began again.
When we got back, there were more vendors out and about. I loved shopping in Uganda because I literally bought so much and still had so much money left!!! But naturally I spent it all. Some things never change no matter where you are. Patty did keep giving us more money though so I have enough decorations to make an entire room dedicated to Africa. It was good though, I was able to get a little something for everyone and support the awesome talent of these people, so all was well! During our dinner, we talked a little bit about what it would be like when we returned to the states. We also talked about it a little bit at breakfast in the morning, but it was a debriefing time. I think it was super important to do that because it has been pretty difficult to get used to being back home again while I am constantly thinking about the people of Uganda and every hardship I saw. Some notes that I took from the debriefing were that we need to strive to be integrators after our trip. This means that we use our experience to make an impact wherever we are. It's also important that we take the time to process our feelings and give GRACE to those who might not understand what we have seen. We learned how important it is to lean on each other during this transition for the years to come, because the people we did this with all have a special bond now, & I'm so thankful to have these guys. Most importantly, we shouldn't focus on ourself when we get home, we should focus on GOD and how He's going to use this experience for Uganda and for the people we served. And lastly, this is OUR passion, it doesn't have to be everyone's. So while it is nice to share, we should show grace and understand that not everyone is going to want to jump on an opportunity to go to Uganda, and that's perfectly okay!! I really enjoyed this session, & it has definitely helped me a lot to the adjustment back home!
After a great last meal and celebrating Skyler and Jerry's birthdays with some cake, it was performance time number 2!! There were more dancers tonight and although you won't believe it, I think they moved faster than the dancers from last night. There was a guy doing the girl parts and I thought that was awesome. He did it pretty dang well, too. Hips don't lie. At the end, we all joined in and they gave us skirts and we got jiggy with it. And this time when I say we all joined in, it wasn't just me, Gabby, Jerry, Taylor, and Nick! We might have been the first ones because at this point we were pros, but everybody eventually came in and it was an awesome way to end the trip. (Fortunately there were no dance moves on the ground this time).
We all hung out a little bit afterwards and got packed up and ready for the looooong journey home. I think that adventure might have to go in another blog post, though, because it wasn't your average trip home. Thanks for reading!!!! Hope it felt just like you were on the safari. & I also hope that I gave you enough animal facts to last a lifetime. They are pretty cool to bring up in party situations, I think.
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