Murchison Falls: The world is just awesome

The reason that I haven't updated for a while is that I was on SAFARI. I was gone from Thursday night to this afternoon. It was the best weekend ever, or was at least one of the best ones in my (admittedly generally uneventful) life.

I stayed at Backpackers in Jinja on Thursday night because our guide, Emma (short for Emmanuel), picked us up at 5 am on Friday morning in his party van, which was a party because we were in it, not because it was really different from other vans. The party was comprised of me, Mikey and Kirk of the rafting trip, Amanda, another intern, and two women from Spain, Lidia and Claudia. We headed northwest towards Muchison Falls National Park. Here is a map of Uganda in case anyone wants a visual on where we went (we left from Jinja): http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/africa/uganda/

We spent most of the day driving, but around lunchtime we stopped in Massindi, a town relatively close to Murchison Falls. We all got snacks at the supermarket, and Mikey picked up a block of something that he said looked like a sweet (I thought it looked like wood). It said Tamarind on the package, but neither of us knew what that was, so he just went ahead and took a huge bite. A silence ensued.

"...is it good?"

"It's vile."

This story has no relevance to the rest of the trip, but it was hilarious when, after talking to Kirk, we figured out that tamarind is, in fact basically a nearly inedible dried fruit, which most of you may or may not have known, but it was still funny. Anyway. Moving on.

We drove on, stopping nearby for lunch, and eventually got up into the mountains, which were lush and green. Emma spent a while driving on the winding roads, and eventually we came upon some baboons in the road, which was cool. More surprising, though, was an old white couple biking on the side of the road. We were literally in the middle of nowhere--where had they come from and where were they going? Pretty hardcore.

We eventually arrived at a safari park. It isn't actually open yet, and only has a few completed structures, but Emma knew the owner, so we got to stay there. It was weird being the only people in the place, but we did get to do whatever we wanted. Mostly we hung out at the lodge that was overlooking the Albert Nile, the section of the Nile that feeds into Lake Albert, which is on the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You could hear the hippos snorting in the river from there.

On Saturday we started at 6:30 and headed into Murchison Falls National Park. We spent the morning driving in the party van, looking at lots of gazelles and buffalo, and some awesome giraffes. They are actually a lot shorter than I thought they would be, especially the females. And then we found a lion! A male lion with only three legs. It turns out that poachers had set a wire trap and he had been unlucky enough to get caught in it. The rangers at the park had to call a vet to operate in order to save him. Part of the reason that we saw him was because he couldn't walk far without getting tired, so he kept stopping. F*ing poachers. I will punch you in the face. All of you.

We found his wife and cubs, who take care of him now by bringing him food. We couldn't get as close to them, though, since female lions are more aggressive, especially when it comes to cubs, and will actually jump in your car and mess you up.

Moving on, we saw a group of hippos in a little lake, where Emma cut up pineapple and we ate it right out of the rind for breakfast (it was only about 8 or 9 am at this point).

The sun roof was big enough for three of us to stand on the seat at a time and have half of their bodies out of the car. Riding through the savannah was amazing. I stayed up there until the people still in the back made me get down so they could have a turn.

After lunch, we drove out to the actual falls. I have never seen a more beautiful waterfall.

Murchison Falls could reasonably be called "Jaws of Death", because that's what it looked like. Huge amounts of rushing water are pushed into a narrow but deep cavern of dark stone that empties into a yawning chasm. There is a whirlpool developed there, and the water proceeds down a short distance before emptying into the calm Albert-Nile. The cliffs are covered in lush greenery and trees hang on their edges. A fine mist pervades the air from the crashing waves.

Okay, sorry, that description was really fun to write. Anyway.

We hiked about 45 minutes through the woods and ended up on some rocks that stuck out into the water. We waited a while for a boat (previously chartered) to pick us up. Many boats full of tourists, who were mostly British for some reason, stared at us like we were wildlife and some of them even took pictures. Mikey summed up our reaction the best: "In 5 years, they'll look at those pictures and say, "I'm glad we took pictures of those random people. That was really significant."

Our boat picked us up eventually. We saw HUGE crocodiles and some more hippos on the way back to our port. As we neared land, we noticed a giant, foreboding storm cloud coming closer to us. We didn't really have a choice but to go ahead and wait for it to hit. The rain started pounding us and lighting/thunder were right there. There was a group of young tourist girls and their moms on the boat, and they were literally crying and saying, "We're gonna die."

Our reaction, on the other hand, was to ask for free beer. They said no.

After the boat ride, we headed back to the campsite to shower and change, and had another delicious meal. We got up this morning at 3:40 am (I don't think I've ever gotten up that early for anything ever) and headed back to Massindi to go find some chimps. Emma picked up some guy in town who said he was a chimp guide, God knows why he didn't pick someone with credentials, and the guy hopped in our car and drove with us to where there were some chimps in a field, eating sugarcane. We walked over to them slowly, and the guy basically was just like, "Walk slowly." We got really close to the chimps, but after a few minutes they started talking to each other. We all exchanged looks. This continued until the biggest male jumped into the tree nearest us and loomed over us menacingly. We then decided that it was time to go. We dropped the "guide" off (Emma disinterestedly handed him 1000 shillings and told him to get out) and we headed back to town. We dropped off Lidia and Claudia at the taxi park so that they could continue their trek across Uganda, and headed home. I got back at about 3:30 and have been chilling at home ever since.

This was hands-down one of the best weekends of my life. I saw amazing landscapes, exotic animals, and just chilled with some awesome people. The world is just awesome. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0jZzBEKIMc)