Safari!

Here's the latest from David in Uganda. By the way, he didn't take this picture. I got it off the web. He can't send me pictures from the internet cafes because the computers are too slow. I can't wait to see the pictures he took.

This last weekend was fantastic! I went with a few other students up to Murchison Falls National Park in northwestern Uganda and it was amazing. Soon after entering the park we started seeing animals. There were several baboons on the road or on the side of the road. They would scurry into the forest when we got too close. There were several amazing birds, as well as a bunch of warthogs and cape buffalo. Cape buffalo are huge and really ugly (kind of like our first steer Hal, only bigger, uglier, and meaner). After lunch at the Red Chilli (yes with two l’s), we went down to the Nile River to catch a boat up to Murchison Falls . The boat ride was incredible. I had no idea that there were so many hippos in the world. There were hundreds of them (no joke!). They were all along the side of the river. They are enormous. We also saw a small herd of elephants right along the edge of the river. The are even more enormous. During our ride we also saw a lot of exotic birds (my favorite was the fishing eagle), several crocodiles (the largest one was probably 7 – 8 meters long), antelope of all kinds, and several herds of cape buffalo. It was thrilling.

We were dropped off about a mile and half below the falls and proceeded to hike along the river to the base of the falls and up to the top of the falls. I don’t think I have experienced such extreme humidity with about 90 degree temperatures before. I know that there are much hotter places, but wow was I sweating. I felt like I was in some Indiana Jones movie with all of the sounds and animals around. The waterfall is about 45 – 50 meters tall with the entire Nile River fitting through a gorge that is as narrow as 7 meters in some places. The river is more than a mile wide above and below the falls, so there was a lot of water rushing down that gorge. It was absolutely roaring. We went back to where we were staying that evening, had a swim in their bug-infested pool, took a shower, and slept in some small, but very comfortable cabins. At that point I didn’t care about the bugs. I needed a way to cool down.

In the morning we had breakfast, crossed the Nile on a barge and went on a little safari. We saw all sorts of amazing animals, including giraffes, elephants, baboons, antelope (of all kinds), cape buffalo, warthogs (Pumba was there!), and some beautiful birds. We really wanted to see some lions and had seen a few from a very far distance, but some of the other vehicles scared them away. Later in the day we came upon three lions right next to the road. They had just made a kill and were resting under a tree, about thirty feet away from us. They would leave the shade every five minutes to go have a snack and would come back with blood on their mouths. They were beautiful.

All in all it was an amazing trip, and it testified so strongly of the beauty of God’s creations.