Sunday, July 1st

The morning of Sunday, July 1st started with baboons fighting right outside of my door as soon as I walked out. I quickly ran back inside and shut the door. I peeked out the window and the baboons were gone, so we started walking towards the dining area to have breakfast. On the trail, we saw the baboons running up the trees around us and jumping down around us. I was terrified so I ran, bags in hand, until I was safely off the wooded trail. Breakfast was a delight. I had coffee. Oh, how I missed good coffee with real (not powdered) milk. I was so used to eating bread, boiled eggs and peanuts every morning that I forgot what it was like to have fruits, bacon and pancakes. We had to hit the road because it was going to be another long drive. We had to drive five hours north until we reached the next lodge in Queen Elizabeth National Park. We would be staying in the park for two nights. On the drive, our tour guide pointed out a couple of crater lakes that were made many years ago from explosive volcanos. There wasn’t as much wildlife on this journey, but we saw a lot of rolling hills that were home to many bright green tea plantations. Once we got into the gate to the park, some of the girls in another bus saw a baby elephant in the distance. I was quite butter that I didn’t get to see one, but shortly after there was another mature elephant and it was so close to the vehicle! The girls got so excited that they screamed and it started turning away and retreating into the brush. We learned our lesson about doing that again… good thing there’s supposedly five or six thousand elephants in this park! There were plenty more to be seen, and that’s just what we did. We spotted every one of them that we could. When we had lunch next on the lake, there was a herd of elephants across the way taking water. After lunch we were supposed to take a boat ride on those very waters to see the elephants closer. It was the Kazinga Channel going into Edward Lake. The waterway is split between Uganda and Tanzania. I wish I could tell you the length of the waterways, but I don’t know the metric system so the figure didn’t stick with me. I really need to learn the metric conversions! Meanwhile, on the boat, we saw lots of water buffalos amongst hippos amongst more elephants. The water buffalos and hippos look so tiny compared to the elephants. Apparently, the hippos and water buffalos can all live together because they are vegetarians. The tour guide pointed out a huge tree that elephants had uprooted just to eat the tops off the tree. They are so massive! I can only imagine the destruction that they can do. Incidentally, the type of tree they pushed down was the same type of thorny tree that hit me in the head the day prior when I was watching the game and not the road (haha)! We saw other animals such as more crocodiles, water bucks and birds like storks and pelicans. The guide also pointed out a fishing village along the lake. This village has been in Queen Elizabeth park since the 1950s. The fisherman here can only fish at night though to avoid the hippos attacking their small boats. All of this was so cool to see and to learn, but nothing beats seeing so many elephants! This was my favorite part of the trip so far. I will never get tired of seeing elephants. We saw many of them on the game drive that afternoon on the way back to the lodge. We got stopped by some baboons in the middle of the highway as well. There was a mother walking across the road with a baby clinging to her underside. She was going over to another mother who had another baby with her. There was a larger male sitting on the side of the road doing hand gestures towards the van. This ride was the first time we have seen a Ugandan Kob. The Kob looks like a cross between the antelope and a buck but the horns go straight up and them curve inward at the tops. We traveled through a rural village setting that resembled Ggunda until we reached our lodge. We would be staying at the Enganzi Lodge which overlooks Queen Elizabeth National Park for the next two evenings. I have never seen a more beautiful skyline than here! You could see herds if elephants crossing the park in the distance. I could get used to this view! If only there was a door on the bathroom in my cottage, then it would be perfect! We ate dinner at the lodge and enjoyed some time looking at the scenery while eating my pork chop dinner before turning in for the night.

Fun fact: If I could be any animal in the world, I would want to be a hippo! Why? Well, for starters I am so large that no one would think I was fatter than the rest of them and my size is intimidating to most predators. Like what is weight management?! I can graze all day and don’t have to worry about catching and killing my food since I’m a vegetarian. I can swim around in the lakes all day and seem to be so carefree while doing so. I can lay on the shore and take a nap in the warm sun when I get sick of swimming. Best yet, when tourists see me, I would go underwater and stay there for about ten minutes. They would be waiting and waiting for me to pop back above the water but I would swim far away before coming back up to shock them all. Wouldn’t that be fun?! Lastly, it’s cute that my babies swim on my back when they are young. That’s why I want to be a hippo — life seems so much easier.