Catfish Unite!

Safarrrrriiiiii

We were told that the drive would take 5-7 hours. The whole process including checking into Red Chilli and getting to our rooms took about 8 hours. Before we even entered the park, our safari driver, Rashid, stopped to show us a chameleon and a python! There were two men walking along the roadside carrying a python they had killed in the field. It is illegal to kill them, but Rashid said it was self defense. Pythons are known to eat human babies and goats. Yikes! The locals were just as interested in seeing it as we were. One man walked up, pointed, and said, "Abomination!" Rashid jumped out of the van and ran over to take pictures. He asked if we were too scared to join him. I think some were, and some were merely lazy.

We took the last ferry across the Nile to the savanna grasslands on the other side. Red Chilli is on the rain forest side of the Nile. It was raining AGAIN when we left and were afraid that the safari drivers wouldn't allow us to pop the tops of the vehicles. Luckily for us, it wasn't raining on the other side and we had the best of views, standing on the seats in the van and sitting on top of the roof in the SUV. We saw giraffes, elephants, waterbuck, African kob (the national emblem???), warthogs, aka Pumbas,  Jackson heartabeast (previously renamed the hortelope), oribi, hippopotamuses, jackal, cape buffalo, and lots of birds, including the national bird, the African crane. We had the unfortunate experience of seeing a three-legged giraffe. It was so sad! He/She had been caught in a poacher's snare. Those stupid poachers! This giraffe has compensated very well and was moving fairly well, but a bit slowly.

You may be wondering what the title, Catfish Unite, has to do with our safari. At Red Chilli restcamp, we were grouped in 2s or 3s and given bandas. These bandas were nicer than the ones we stayed in last trip, which were already pretty nice. The bandas are cement huts with a couple of beds and a fan, but this time we also got a bathroom in each banda with hot water!!! Nice. Each banda was given an animal name. Michaela, Kelsey, and Laura were in Catfish. After a while, we decided we needed some sort of hand signal or team cheer. So we began to say, "Catfish, unite!" as we headed to dinner or off to bed, etc. We quickly added the hand motion of giving ourselves whiskers on the word unite. Some of the group members who had to share beds had the pleasure of figuring out how to also share a mosquito net. There was lots of laughter to be heard. Until early in the morning, when the only sounds to be heard were the hippo grazing around our bandas and Greg snoring.

The following day, we woke up before the sun to be first in line for the first ferry across the river. We saw lots more of the same animals and added a hyena and a brown snake eagle to this list. We switched up the vehicles a bit to give Michaela a chance to ride on top. This is the best place to sit while on safari. You can see everything all around you, unobstructed. While the 3 "young ones" and Dorothy rode in the SUV, we decided to come up with a ranking system for our photos. If you get the most amazing shot, you call it a money shot. One step down from money is solid. That's pretty much as far as we went with it other than naming the bottom of the totem pole, the Marvin. Marvin somehow ended up with a lot of plant and miscellaneous pictures. But really, Marvin is such a good sport, on the giving and receiving end of lots of teasing.  Even though we searched far and wide, we were not successful in finding lions or leopards. The guides did tell us that two lion cubs got in a fight with a cape buffalo and both cubs died :(. We can only assume that all of the lions were in hiding, grieving. And apparently the leopards refuse to show themselves, even though there are something like 1800 of them in the park. We were sad that Donna wasn't able to join us for Wednesday's activities, due to feeling ill. We are glad she got to see most of the animals on Tuesday night drive.

After the morning drive and then lunch, we took a river cruise up to Murchison Falls and back. A three hour tour. (Please insert Gilligan's island theme here.) On this journey, we saw lots of hippos and a couple of crocodiles. There were more birds and previously seen animals, grazing, bathing, and pooping alongside of the river. Kelsey somehow didn't bring sunscreen to the equator, so her legs are pretty much fried. She also has some other interesting burn/tan lines. The cruise was nice and relaxing. We spent our last real evening (the true last evening will be in transit) enjoying dinner together. We played a couple of card games. A group of us (Kelsey, Greg, Sue, Deb, Marvin, Laura, Michaela) stayed up and closed down the restaurant, playing a game called Golf. In this version, you hold one card on your forehead so that everyone else can see your card but you. You get one opportunity to switch cards and whomever has the lowest card, is out that round. Last one standing, wins. Most of the time, this was Sue. The Ugandans were quite fascinated with the foolish Americans and couldn't grasp the concept of putting cards on your forehead. One of our drivers, Emmanuel, sat for a couple of rounds, trying to figure it out. Every time Emmanuel was near, Kelsey started to sing  O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

We started the day with a nice breakfast at Red Chilli and then cranked out our long drive home, obeying only the important traffic laws/suggestions. It has been nice to have a chance to shower and pack well before rushing off to the airport tonight. On arrival at the Stevenson's, we were greeted with a good report of Colleen's surgery. The doctors even used the word amazing.

Thank you all for reading our blog, praying for us, and supporting this trip. We are full of mixed emotions, sad to leave our dear friends here in Uganda, and excited to see our friends and family at home. We are hopeful that there will still be many trips to Uganda to come in Park Place's future.
See you on the flippity-flop.

Signing off,
Kelsey, Laura, & Michaela