Lions & Tigers & Bears Oh My!

       Well perhaps not tigers & bears, but we sure did see lions!  Our long weekend safari to Queen Elizabeth National Park was wonderful, frustrating and a great group adventure.

       We left camp Thursday afternoon and stayed at Canada House in Mbarara for the evening.  Jim & Karlee had left earlier in the day and had arranged a feast for us at the rotary club.  The food was so amazing...fried chicken, salad, french fries, rice and much more...but we're pretty sure the cook planted, grew & harvested the food before she cooked it, with the amount of time it took her to bring it all out, lol!  Just kidding, it does take a heck of a long time to prepare food here though, without all our North American gadgets.  Friday morning our friend Geoffrey came to pick us up in our ghetto minibus/safari truck.  I joke, but it actually was perfect for the weekend...some of us could stand up through the sunroof and others of us could sit on the roof rack.
       We took the afternoon/evening on Friday to settle in to our hostel and check out the Mweya Lodge and pool down the way.  The lodge was 5 star (in Ugandan ratings), which is about a 3 star back home.  It was clean, rustic and served amazing food...pizza, bacon cheeseburgers ...mmm my mouth is watering now!  I took Theo swimming while the rest of the group relaxed on the deck overlooking the Kazinga Channel, watching the hippos, elephants and buffalo swim.  It was so nice to just sit and put our feet up, drinking an ice cold drink with our new friends.

       Early Saturday morning we set out on our epic safari.  We were one of the lucky few to see the lions in the early morning, before they ran off and hid in the bushes.  We saw two females and four cubs, but none of our pictures do them justice as we were still a fair distance away.  The morning was filled with elephants, warthogs, water buck, buffalo, hippos, gazelles and so many birds.  Theo loved how the animals ran away each time we approached, but all the excitement eventually tuckered him out and he slept through the second half of the morning.

       The rest of the day we hung around, worked on our plans for the rest of the weekend and went to see the volcanic craters. Unfortunately the gentleman who appointed himself our guide, ended up being a pain in the butt.  We had only asked him to take us out on safari for the day, but instead he had started to try and plan our whole weekend and expected us to pay him for it.  We eventually got rid of him...but he did come back to haunt us later in the weekend...I will get to that soon.
       On Sunday we went chimp tracking, took Geoffrey out to try some Canadian food and then took a really neat boat tour.  On top of the many elephants and buffalo we were becoming accustomed to seeing, we saw crocodiles, chimpanzees, monkeys and the rear end of a hyena...so exciting!  We stayed up late that night, playing games and getting to know eachother better.  But after we had all gone to bed, our drunk and angry old guide showed up at our window, demanding money and to come check out all the rooms.  My family did not wake up, thank God, but the rest of the house was up arguing with him and telling him to leave.  He eventually left, but in the morning we spoke with management and they advised that he would be let go for his behaviour.
      Overall our trip was really nice and a great time to get to know eachother better.  We saw amazing and beautiful parts of God's great creation and had the chance to recover from a hard month of work and adjustments.

~A&M