Madonna Tribute - Cast of Glee
Uganda Chapter 3: There is no "time" in Africa
(To see a complete set of photos from this day, click here, here and here.)
And so, it's finally Friday though it feels much later and we're finally taking off on safari. we're supposed to leave at 7:30am in the Land Cruiser that is pretty much our home for the next twelve days. Lisa has money in the safe at the hotel. The night before we leave, she asks the front desk if she'll be able to get her money out by 7:30am. "No, problem!" she is told.
Perhaps you read my tweet where I explained that in Africa time is more like a vague knowledge that now is later than before rather than a set system of hours, minutes and seconds.
"There is nobody here with the key. They will be here in fifteen minutes."
"Just another fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen minutes more."
We finally leave. At 8:30am. Possibly closer to 9am.
Friday is a long driving day. Eight hours. And because we have left late, we are now in morning rush hour traffic going out of Kampala. As we're sitting in traffic going out of Kampala, James points over to a large dirt construction area.
"That will be Uganda's first freeway," he says.
"Oh!" Lisa and I say.
"But it will not be like your freeways in America," he says, "There will be goats crossing it at certain points."
You would think that that comment might sum up how bad the roads are in Uganda, but it doesn't. Everything you've heard about how bad the roads are there? However bad it is in your imagination? Multiply that by a hundred. The roads aren't typically paved. But I come from a place where often there aren't paved roads. It's not the unpaving that's the issue. It's the lack of maintenance of any kind. The roads were so bad that my cell phone broke just from being in my backpack getting bumped around. You regularly were being bounced three to four inches out of your seat. By day ten, I wanted to cry just at the thought of having to ride in the car. The entire unemployment problem in Uganda could be solved by just hiring enough people to actually maintain the roads, paved or not. That is all.
Our first stop is the rhino sanctuary. There used to be a lot of wild rhino in Uganda, but most (all) of them were poached off during the Idi Amin regime. The rhino sanctuary has six rhino to breed to reintroduce the species to Uganda. Three of the rhino were donated from Kenya. Three of the rhino were donated from...wait for it...Disney's Wild Kingdom.
Reintroducing rhinos into an environment is hard because the gestation period for a rhino is so long. A mama rhino is pregnant for sixteen months before she gives birth, and then she'll nurse the cub for several years before she gets pregnant again. At that pace, starting with six rhino, the rhino population should reach normal levels in Uganda again sometime around the same time the last ice has melted from Antarctica.
And so, we drive out into the wild to find us some rhino, along with our ranger- who is also named Geoffrey. There are many Geoffrey's in this trip. Thank you British colonizers. After about half an hour, we find Abu, who has been tracking the rhino all day. There are three - and they're the three from Kenya so at least I don't have to feel like I could have seen the same thing in Orlando. The group we find has two females and one male, and one of the females (Bella) is actually pregnant. We don't get to see her big belly though because the females stay seated the whole time we're there.
The male, though, is feeling friendly and wants to come close. Like, really close. Like, much closer than the rangers are comfortable with. But I! I grab the moment to get what is possibly the third or fourth worst picture ever taken of me along with a rhino less than ten feet away from me. And the rhino actually cooperated by looking right at the camera when the picture got shot. It was a scene. Lisa is excited that the rhino is so close so she's snapping frame after frame. Geoffrey is upset that the rhino is so close so he's yelling "Go back! Go back!" at it. I am determined to get a Christmas letter picture so I'm shoving my camera into Abu's hand and hissing "Take the picture! Take the picture!" while I try to smile. Welcome to enjoying the peaceful nature of a rhino reserve.
The rhino are really just beautiful. Enjoy some pictures.
After the rhino sanctuary, we have my favorite meal of the trip. Now, let me just say that we have some amazing food at Semiliki, N'Dali and Mihingo, but my theory that the best food you'll have on any trip is what you'll buy off the streets held true on this trip. We're driving through some village and we buy some cassava and roasted goat meet out of the window of the car. And it's the single most delicious thing I eat all trip. It's like, unreal. And I probably dodge a bullet by not getting sick from it, but even if I had gotten sick from it, it would have been worth it (unlike any of the other travel meals that have historically made me sick and not been worth it).
Our last stop of the day is the top of Murchison Falls. Murchison Falls is this amazing spot in the Nile River where the entire Nile forces itself through a gap that's only 7 meters (about 21 feet) wide. You may remember that seeing the Nile, the source of which is actually in Uganda, was one of the things I was looking forward to the most on this trip. It really should have been on my 43 Things list, but whatever. Anyway, the Nile is amazing. That river is responsible for so much in the development of society. Just standing next to it is amazing. And this particular spot is stunning with the power of all of that water rushing through.
Finally, after a really, really long day, we head out to Par'aa where we'll spend the next two nights. On the way there, we drive through the Murchison Falls national park and see all kinds of plant and wildlife. They've found oil on the land surrounding Murchison Falls, so enjoy these pictures while you can. I'm sure it won't be beautiful there for very much longer now that there's oil involved.
We pretty much fall into bed that night at Par'aa. Which is good because we'll need to be up at the crack of dawn for ...
(To see a complete set of photos from this day, click here, here and here.)
And so, it's finally Friday though it feels much later and we're finally taking off on safari. we're supposed to leave at 7:30am in the Land Cruiser that is pretty much our home for the next twelve days. Lisa has money in the safe at the hotel. The night before we leave, she asks the front desk if she'll be able to get her money out by 7:30am. "No, problem!" she is told.
Perhaps you read my tweet where I explained that in Africa time is more like a vague knowledge that now is later than before rather than a set system of hours, minutes and seconds.
"There is nobody here with the key. They will be here in fifteen minutes."
"Just another fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen minutes more."
We finally leave. At 8:30am. Possibly closer to 9am.
Friday is a long driving day. Eight hours. And because we have left late, we are now in morning rush hour traffic going out of Kampala. As we're sitting in traffic going out of Kampala, James points over to a large dirt construction area.
"That will be Uganda's first freeway," he says.
"Oh!" Lisa and I say.
"But it will not be like your freeways in America," he says, "There will be goats crossing it at certain points."
You would think that that comment might sum up how bad the roads are in Uganda, but it doesn't. Everything you've heard about how bad the roads are there? However bad it is in your imagination? Multiply that by a hundred. The roads aren't typically paved. But I come from a place where often there aren't paved roads. It's not the unpaving that's the issue. It's the lack of maintenance of any kind. The roads were so bad that my cell phone broke just from being in my backpack getting bumped around. You regularly were being bounced three to four inches out of your seat. By day ten, I wanted to cry just at the thought of having to ride in the car. The entire unemployment problem in Uganda could be solved by just hiring enough people to actually maintain the roads, paved or not. That is all.
Our first stop is the rhino sanctuary. There used to be a lot of wild rhino in Uganda, but most (all) of them were poached off during the Idi Amin regime. The rhino sanctuary has six rhino to breed to reintroduce the species to Uganda. Three of the rhino were donated from Kenya. Three of the rhino were donated from...wait for it...Disney's Wild Kingdom.
Reintroducing rhinos into an environment is hard because the gestation period for a rhino is so long. A mama rhino is pregnant for sixteen months before she gives birth, and then she'll nurse the cub for several years before she gets pregnant again. At that pace, starting with six rhino, the rhino population should reach normal levels in Uganda again sometime around the same time the last ice has melted from Antarctica.
And so, we drive out into the wild to find us some rhino, along with our ranger- who is also named Geoffrey. There are many Geoffrey's in this trip. Thank you British colonizers. After about half an hour, we find Abu, who has been tracking the rhino all day. There are three - and they're the three from Kenya so at least I don't have to feel like I could have seen the same thing in Orlando. The group we find has two females and one male, and one of the females (Bella) is actually pregnant. We don't get to see her big belly though because the females stay seated the whole time we're there.
The male, though, is feeling friendly and wants to come close. Like, really close. Like, much closer than the rangers are comfortable with. But I! I grab the moment to get what is possibly the third or fourth worst picture ever taken of me along with a rhino less than ten feet away from me. And the rhino actually cooperated by looking right at the camera when the picture got shot. It was a scene. Lisa is excited that the rhino is so close so she's snapping frame after frame. Geoffrey is upset that the rhino is so close so he's yelling "Go back! Go back!" at it. I am determined to get a Christmas letter picture so I'm shoving my camera into Abu's hand and hissing "Take the picture! Take the picture!" while I try to smile. Welcome to enjoying the peaceful nature of a rhino reserve.
The rhino are really just beautiful. Enjoy some pictures.
After the rhino sanctuary, we have my favorite meal of the trip. Now, let me just say that we have some amazing food at Semiliki, N'Dali and Mihingo, but my theory that the best food you'll have on any trip is what you'll buy off the streets held true on this trip. We're driving through some village and we buy some cassava and roasted goat meet out of the window of the car. And it's the single most delicious thing I eat all trip. It's like, unreal. And I probably dodge a bullet by not getting sick from it, but even if I had gotten sick from it, it would have been worth it (unlike any of the other travel meals that have historically made me sick and not been worth it).
Our last stop of the day is the top of Murchison Falls. Murchison Falls is this amazing spot in the Nile River where the entire Nile forces itself through a gap that's only 7 meters (about 21 feet) wide. You may remember that seeing the Nile, the source of which is actually in Uganda, was one of the things I was looking forward to the most on this trip. It really should have been on my 43 Things list, but whatever. Anyway, the Nile is amazing. That river is responsible for so much in the development of society. Just standing next to it is amazing. And this particular spot is stunning with the power of all of that water rushing through.
Finally, after a really, really long day, we head out to Par'aa where we'll spend the next two nights. On the way there, we drive through the Murchison Falls national park and see all kinds of plant and wildlife. They've found oil on the land surrounding Murchison Falls, so enjoy these pictures while you can. I'm sure it won't be beautiful there for very much longer now that there's oil involved.
We pretty much fall into bed that night at Par'aa. Which is good because we'll need to be up at the crack of dawn for ...
(To see a complete set of photos from this day, click here, here and here.)
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