On the Banks of the Nile

Thursday & Friday morning, March 13-14

Days 3 & 4

Our team with Maggie and her team (Maggie is 5th in from the right, standing).

We said goodbye to Maggie and her team and boarded our bus for another long, dusty, bumpy ride. Our destination this time was to Murchison Falls National Park where we were headed to enjoy a safari trip.

After 4-5 hours of bumpy, rough roads and driving at a rate of speed no bus was designed to travel (on those roads anyway)...we finally arrived at the ferry that would take us across the Nile River to Paara Lodge, our destination for the night. We got out of the bus to wait for the ferry's departure and it felt so good to stretch our legs. We took this opportunity to get some family pictures on the banks of the Nile. Funny how a song from way back in my childhood came to mind as I was standing there. Anyone remember this one? -  "Oh she sailed away on a sunny, summer day on the back of a crocodile..." It was fun to sing this song as we stood there watching the real, live hippos and crocs on the banks of the gorgeous (yet dangerous!) Nile River.

While we were eager to check into our rooms, get settled and cleaned up, our faithful Restore leader Deborah had other things planned for us. She had arranged for our group to board a riverboat for a three hour tour of the Nile. We climbed aboard and pulled away from shore and immediately ran into herd after herd of hippos every few yards or so. Josiah was our master "spotter". He was the first to spot a crocodile -- and these crocodiles were camouflaged amazingly well in the tall grasses. He also spotted the first elephant. We saw a variety of birds - kingfishers, cormorants, cattle egrets, etc. We even saw a couple crowned cranes! Warthogs, hippos, crocs, and elephants were all present during our afternoon riverboat ride.

The falls were beautiful and the water was so powerful we couldn't come very close to them. We saw a man fishing with a guide and he caught a huge Nile perch while we were passing by. That was fun but stirred a hunger in Mike to be out fishing that he wasn't able to satisfy. He learned that the only way to fish on the Nile was with a guide for $200 and that's after you paid the $50 license fee! Needless to say, the rod & reel he brought from home stayed packed away in his suitcase.

Just as the sun was going down we pulled back up to the dock and were finally led to the Paara Lodge and given our room assignments. This lodge looked like something out of an old movie...think Out of Africa. It was stunning, beautifully rustic, and so charming! We ate a delicious buffet dinner on the balcony and enjoyed getting to know those in our group even better. The most delicious item on the buffet was the orange glazed Nile perch....so delicious that Michael went back for 4-5 more pieces and I ate a second piece in place of dessert. We felt badly for Mike who had to miss out on trying the fish (due to his food allergies) so we made sure that we ate his portion for him.

Walking back to our rooms we were being dive-bombed by bats. I'm not even kidding. I shielded myself behind Mike & Michael trying to let the bats hit them before they hit me! I was kind of creeped out by the bats. It's one thing to see them flying around in the night sky, but to have them attacking you?  No thanks! At one point in the night I couldn't sleep and wanted to go to the lobby to email my parents (I hadn't had an opportunity to communicate with them yet) and yet I was terrified of going out in the dark with those bats flying around and no one to shield me. I finally did venture out and only saw one bat at that point. I think it must've been close enough to morning that they were starting to go off to bed (maybe?). YUCK!

Early the next morning the gang all met at 5:45 for our morning safari. We all had big hopes of seeing a lion and we heard exciting stories about a previous group that witnessed a lion kill an antelope and devour it for breakfast. We were all very hopeful that we would see something equally as awesome. We did see a lot of cape buffalo, bushbacks, chimpanzees, baboons, antelopes, and warthogs (man are those little guys ugly!). We also saw some pretty magnificent giraffes! Lots and lots of giraffes!

We had a fun tour guide named George who provided lots of comic relief...especially when we were greatly disappointed at the absence of lions. At one point George stopped the driver so he could focus his binoculars on a herd of antelope way off in the distance.  With my handy dandy camera lens I was able to look with him and didn't see anything too exciting. But George was just sure there was a lion there about to attack. We waited 5-8 minutes and nothing happened, the antelope not even budging from where they were grazing.  We moved on and found some really great photo ops with a couple elephant herds as we drove back to the lodge for breakfast. True story: the van behind us waited a little longer to return and they were able to be present when that lion George sensed sprung and had a delicious meal of antelope for breakfast. We all groaned with regret when we heard that.

After a lovely buffet breakfast (we continued the tradition of eating very well on this trip), we left Murchison Falls National Park and the Paara Lodge and began our 4 hour journey up to the city of Gulu.  (The bus was becoming a very familiar friend to each of us.) Gulu is the second biggest city in Uganda. It's not very big and is located way out in the bush. It also happens to be home to Restore Leadership Academy. We could hardly contain our excitement as we anticipated finally getting to meet the children.


Bragging rights of the day: Josiah for spotting the animals from afar, sometimes even before George did!