sun, 7.8 – one word: safari. yes, that’s right. safari. today, we woke up at the crack of dawn (4:30, to be exact…which is before the roosters even get up in africa!) and headed into murchison falls national park for the day. my day started off on a funny note when i woke up and looked toward my feet and realized i was looking through my mosquito net…somehow, i’d managed to work everything above my arms out of the net and i had it tucked under my arm, along with the sheets. no bites (that i know of, at least), so i think i’m ok…in hindsight, though, it was pretty funny. also, i had my first hot shower in weeks, so i quickly forgot the net incident.
we were all set and waiting for our mutatu driver to show back up (we’d told him that we wanted to leave at 5)…once 5:10 rolled around, amy called him and he said he was ‘coming now’…an interesting aside: when people in uganda say they’re coming ‘now,’ it might mean ‘in the next few hours’ or even ‘when i get a chance’…however, when they actually mean ‘now’ or ‘right this minute,’ they say ‘now-now’…i thought this was pretty interesting, even if it does make the word ‘now’ more or less obsolete. ok, so omegovu michael and his magical mutatu (ok, it wasn’t really magical, but it sounds cool, right? and check out that alliteration! [yes, i’m an english dork])…anyway, michael finally shows up around 5:20 and we load up and go. then, he tells us that he needs to get gas (amy had offered him the gas money the previous night so he could go ahead and get it, but he had declined…so, needless to say, she wasn’t a happy camper when he said this). so we go rolling around the huge metropolis of masindi, from one gas station to the next to the next (yes, we visited all three of them)…but apparently, gas stations in masindi don’t open til 5:30 (which might actually end up being 5:45 or 6:00 once it’s all said and done…remember, T.I.A!).
once we finally found a gas station that would sell us some gas (right after he finished filling up some other guy’s motorcycle and ‘spare gas tanks’ [read: 6 empty water bottles]), we filled up and were on our way. we made it to the park gate around 7 and they finally let us through around 7:20. after racing through the outskirts of the park for about 20 minutes, we realized that we weren’t going to make the 8:00 ferry into the game reserve, so amy decided to stop off at the lodge where group 2 is staying and confirm the reservations and pay for their rooms. when we found out that the next ferry wasn’t until 10, we decided to relax and have some coffee for a few minutes.
we made it on the 10:00 ferry and crossed the nile into the wildlife reserve. we were getting ready to set off on our safari, when we were met by 4 or 5 trucks, mutatus, and vans, all returning. they told us that the trail was so muddy (from the 12 hours of rain during the previous night) that the trails were nearly impassable. our guide, simon, decided we’d at least check it out before we threw in the towel. we drove a little ways down the path before we saw the major problem: there was a huge truck that was stuck about halfway up the first hill leading into the reserve. simon went to check it out and came back telling us that he thought we could make it if that truck could be moved. after a few minutes, the truck finally was freed from the mud and managed to get up and around the corner, so we made a run for it. we made it past the place where they were stuck fairly easily, but after turning the corner we realized that they had become stuck again. needless to say, we couldn’t stop, because then WE would get stuck, so michael made a run for it…on the shoulder. now, you don’t have to be a civil engineer to know that the muddiest place on most dirt roads is going to be the side, where all of the excess water drains. apparently, michael was feeling a bit overzealous after conquering the last hill with ease. he took us around to the right of the stuck truck…for about 4 feet. we began to slide left, toward the truck, then back right, toward the brush on the side of the road…left then right, then left again and then…nothing. we were stuck. phil and i looked at each other, exasperated, because we knew what was coming next. and, sure enough, it came: “alright guys, get out and push.” now, the term ‘mud’ doesn’t do this stuff justice…it was more like concrete. we pushed the mutatu out without much trouble, but when we were done, our shoes looked like something better suited for gene simmons or neil armstrong. i literally had 3 inches of the stuff caked on my sandals…it was ridiculous. anyway, we all hopped back in and off we went.
after a few minutes of driving, we began to see several different types of antelope. then, we swung around to the left and topped a hill and my jaw dropped. ahead of us, off to the right, were about a dozen giraffes, just a few hundred feet off the road. several of them stared at us and just stood there. others turned and walked away until they felt they were at a safe distance. we kept driving, andsaw pretty much everything in the park except the leopards. we saw tons of water buffalo, hundreds of giraffes, about 5 different species of antelope, a black crocodile (as he scrambled back into the marsh), several hippos, one elephant (pretty up-close, too), several snake eagles and fish eagles (which are a little bigger), a bunch of warthogs, a monitor lizard (which was about 5 feet long), several dung beetles, and, my personal favorite, the lion.
we pulled up and saw a range rover pulled about 30 yards off the path (which simon said was illegal…right before we pulled off with them). i heard him say ‘lion,’ but i wasn’t looking in the right place. at this point, i was hanging out of the window along with several other people, and we had 4 people on the roof of the mutatu as well. i was straining to see this lion, when, all of a sudden, i realized that it was directly in front of us and less than 30 feet away! with visions of this monstrous creature ripping me from my perch on the side of the vehicle, i clambered up onto the top (which, due to the metal bar that splits the window horizontally, was actually easier than climbing back inside). when the driver went to crank the car and drive off, he stripped some of the gears, and the noise did NOT sit well with the lion. he was looking at us already because of the sound of the car starting, but when the gear-grinding began, his gaze of casual indifference became a fierce, intense stare. if he could’ve spoken, he would’ve probably said something along the lines of “alright, i’m about to get mad, and one of you on the roof of that ridiculous-looking van is about to get eaten.” fortunately, our driver eased us away, and we saw numerous other animals before we left the park. the pictures show it way better than i could ever explain it…see for yourself:
http://msstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2081231&l=5eebc&id=26501674
