A full 12 hour day of traveling crammed into a dirty, smelly, scary bus gets you from Jinja to Katunguru just outside of the Queen Elizabeth National Park gates on the eastern slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains providing the division between The Congo and Uganda. Driving to the town, you cross into national park reserved land where it is endless, open savanna. We started screaming with joy in the bus full of Ugandans as we spotted elephants grazing just before sunset. They were all amused at the foreigners being so excited to see animals in the wild.
Tuesday night, we sampled the local rolex and beer selection. Our new found Ugandan friends laughed and danced with us for a few song while others laughed as we became that evenings entertainment.
Tracie, Erin and I trekked out here in search of lions devouring gazelles, hippos fighting crocodiles, and elephants trampling water buffalo. We didn’t witness any bloodshed, but all of those furry and shiny critters were there in full force. Wednesday was dedicated to safari as we set out at sunrise for a 3 hour game drive looking for lions on the prowl. We learned the hard way that lions rest 23 hours of the day and only eat every 3rd day. The afternoon party boat safari was more exciting as we saw a herd? of 20 elephants, numerous water buffalo, and hippos resting in the water. Most of the people on the boat were concerned with all of the damn birds flying around, but we were blood thirst hoping something, ANYTHING would become predator and prey right before our eyes. Nothing like that happened. All in all, the animals didn’t make the trip a success; It was my travel companions that provided me with the most amount of happiness.
The trip ended with a couple of nights in Kampala to re-acclimate ourselves with city life, cold beer, loud music, and people staring at us instead of the elephants and lions.