Asanta Sana Squash Banana

In light of all the drama surrounding recent events in Uganda which I will blog about later (don't worry, I'm feeling very safe), I thought I would blog about my Lion King inspired weekend in Murchison Falls. Murchison Falls is a waterfall of the Nile created by the narrowest bank in the Nile, measuring only 7 meters wide. It also is part of Murchison Falls National Park where many tourists and wealthy Ugandans go on safaris. It came highly recommended from several other students rotating with me, so with that a gaggle of 5 Americans, 6 Swedish and 3 Dutch girls all planned a getaway weekend. We left early in the morning and met our drivers, Rogers and Moses. They picked us up in extended jeep-ish cars that had a “pop-up” roofs and handles equipped to keep you in the car on bumpy roads. We set off, and 7 hours later (again-Uganda roads are nothing to mess with) we arrived to a beautiful scene of the Nile River.

We started our weekend off with a boat cruise of the Nile where we saw a family of elephants, a few lazy crocodiles, flocks of beautiful birds and tons of hippos (literally tons). We also fittingly had Nile special beer  and had a great happy hour in front of the beautiful Murchison Falls. After a minor incident where we ran out of gas in the middle of the Nile and had to be rescued by a dingy, we packed back into our jeeps and had  a sunset game drive through Murchison Falls National Park.
 

After our beautiful sunset drive, we arrived at our hotel/glampground, Fort Murchison, which overlooks the Nile. This place was unbelievably beautiful and for the first time since I arrived in Uganda I had a shower with actual water pressure. We had a wonderful four course meal and retired early to our glamping (glamorous camping) sites. The next morning we got up early to game drive. Within minutes of being on the savannah we saw huge troops of buffaloes with their white feathered buddies flocking towards them. They grazed lazily and we eventually moved on to finding a memory of elephants crossing our path. The enormity of these animals was astonishing and watching them feed and play was nothing short of awesome. Throughout the day we also saw towers of giraffes, flocks of beautiful birds, herds upon herds of antelopes, sounders of warthogs and barrels of monkeys (I had to google the group names of all of these animals-great 4^th grade review). After a while we all just put our cameras away because we saw so many beautiful sites and amazing animals that the pictures just weren’t cutting it anymore. Towards the end of the day some of us became adventurous enough to sit on top of the vehicle as we took one more tour of the savannah. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see lions, but the safari we had a beautiful day in the neighborhood with Mr. Rogers anyway.

 The next day we left towards home but stopped at the Rhinoceros Sanctuary on our way back. Sadly, in 1983, rhinos became extinct in Uganda because of poaching. The horns of rhinos are apparently very valuable, so they were hunted ferociously until they became extinct. Years later, the Kenyan government and the US government donated white rhinos to the Ugandan government in order to set up a sanctuary. Land was donated by a wealthy Ugandan and the breeding of a new generation of rhinos began. An especially fun fact for me was that the first baby born in the rhino sanctuary was named Obama (papa rhino was from Kenya and mama rhino was from the US ;)). At the sanctuary we were  guided on foot to a location where a mama rhino and her baby were snoozing. There are no fences or any barriers between you and the rhinos during the tour and so we had to tip toe and be very quiet to keep them from charging. Luckily, mama rhino was pregnant and really tired and we were as quiet as church mice, so no charging incidents occurred.

The Crested Crane-national bird of Uganda

After the rhino sanctuary we headed back and eventually arrived back to the craziness and chaos of Kampala. Overall the weekend was amazing and I feel so lucky to have had that experience. Conservation of land, resources and animals within Uganda is hugely important to their economy, development and growth and so it meant even more to be able to witness how proud Ugandans are of this park. Our tour guides, Moses and Rogers, have been guiding for years and were incredibly knowledgeable not only about the animals and foliage, but also had a lot of knowledge about how these parks and conservation efforts affect their country and economy. Although economically Africa has its struggles, it is rich in natural resources, beautiful landscapes and majestic animals, which are all things Ugandans actively fight to maintain. As an American I had never seen many of these animals outside of a zoo, and it made me proud that we also contributed to the preservation of some of these species.