On Monday, we woke up very early to another hard rain. We left the Seguku guest house and traveled northwest to the Paraa Safari Lodge. It took about 5.5 hours. Along the way we saw a lot of country side and grass huts. Many children were on their way to school in their uniforms, without shoes and walking for miles. Each school is different so you will pass children walking in both direction in green, then blue, and then a different shade or color. Here you will always see people walking. The children don’t ride buses to school. We saw many huts throughout our drive. Everywhere you go you see phone minutes for sell and Coke signs that look like those from the 50's. All the sodas are served in glass bottles. We told our driver that in America you don‘t see glass bottles anymore, it‘s all plastic and he commented that if so many plastic bottles are used “Isn‘t that bad for the environment? “and he questioned why we would do that.
As we drove through the wildlife park we saw beautiful African deer, warthogs, and a lot of various birds. We were almost there and we saw elephants grazing at the trees. There are a lot of baboons here as well. Then we arrived to a beautiful lodge located on the Nile river. This place has so much history. Ernest Hemmingway, Theodore Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill have been here. We checked in, had lunch and then went on a boat ride upriver to the Murchison Falls. They are so powerful that clumps of while foam form at the base and float down like muddy icebergs along the river. We saw crocodile, elephants, many hippo, wart hogs, water buffalo and birds. At the beginning of the ride, Billie-Jo expressed confidently how she was not scared of the animals and loves them all. Later she was taking a picture of a large croc on land and while it dove in the water she jumped because it looked like it was coming at her through her camera. Then a hippo dove underwater and came at the front of the boat on her side, lifted his head and spit water at us and growled. She jumped right into Laura’s lap and fell down on the middle floor of the boat. Later when we stopped at a large group of rocks in front of the falls to take pictures the boat next to us asked “Who in your boat peed her pants when the hippo came up to your boat” We all sold her out! She was so embarrassed that even the other boat saw she had hit the floor. We were thankful she instinctively jumped in the middle and not out of the boat!
When we arrived back at the lodge we had time to take the first long shower in over a week! The water here is from the Nile and in abundance. Before dinner, there were two elephants and their babies grazing near the pool. All the hotel guests were out with their cameras. Tawnie and Porsha returned to their room and found someone had been in their room. They went to Bethany so excited and scared that she would have thought there was something very scary in the room, or that all their things had been stolen. She instantly thought of asking questions first before reacting and asked them, did they take anything? She thought a moment and before they could answer asked them if the bug netting had been moved. In scared voices, they said “yes” and Bethany realized they had never been to a hotel where you have bed turn down service. The hotel staff had prepared their room for the night. We went to dinner and ended with conversation about bugs and Sudan spiders. As we came back to our rooms, the lights are all off outside and we noticed bats were flying around. In our hallway, one bat was flying near our heads. Ed hates bats and quickly ran to the room. Bethany and Rennie were successfully dodging. Laura started to dodge and lost her footing but dropped to the floor to avoid the bat. We had many wildlife adventures today. Tomorrow we will go on a drive through the park and hopefully see a leopard and lions.
It’s almost noon on Tuesday. We woke up early this morning to go out on Safari. As we left our rooms, it was still dark and we realized there were still bats flying around. We convinced ourselves we were brave yet that didn’t work for Bethany. She ran right into one but told us it wasn’t as bad as you imagine. We enjoyed a great breakfast. The cooking is fabulous here but not as great as Esther’s at the guest house. The one difference is we can have salads and several of us were missing those.
Our guide is one of the best and knew where the leopard was in the park. We were praying our group would find the leopard and lions. We got to see, film, and shoot with our cameras elephants, waterbuck, warthogs with the cutest hairdos, and saw a lot of birds. The best was when we found the leopard. It was up in a tree and we couldn’t get close, but we were able to get great shots. She watched us the whole time and then we decided to go off the road to get closer. As soon as we traveled a short distance, it jumped down the tree. You’ll love the photos that Bethany was able to get with the big camera.
The next best moment was when our guide found the lions. We saw the dominant male of the area and two females with him. We were able to get great shots through the grass from our van. Don’t worry Pastor Eddie- the photos look up close but we were safe. Then two other vans saw us and came very close. It made the male nervous and he jumped up and ran off with one of the lionesses. The other didn’t move because she was pregnant. We were able to take a few more but then left because of the disturbance. Our guide didn’t like how the other vans cornered the lions near us and made them run off.
Another amazing moment was when we saw a whole herd of giraffes with babies grazing on a hill. Tawnie loves giraffes and could barely contain herself. After that we saw a family of elephants taking a mud bath right near the road. It had a baby; our guide said was less than 6-8 months old. The two small elephants were in charge of helping it and they were about 3 years old. Then there was one a bit older and bigger and the mother and bull elephant. He saw all of us and lead them away after their bath was done.
This afternoon, Rennie, is going to get a massage as a gift from someone. We all felt she could use the pampering. We don’t have very good internet here but will now try to find a way to get this to you. We’ll update you as soon as we can get hooked up to internet again.
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