Holiday Hootnany

After a rather busy few weeks of work, it was time to have a little break.  And lucky enough for me, my globe-trotting cousin had decided to come to visit me over in these parts!  I was working right up to the last minute to try to get everything ready and taken care of before it was time to go to the airport for my big trip out last Sunday!  The airport was so simple – everything went so smoothly and quickly, and before long, I was on the plane to Entebbe, Uganda.  Once there, my buddy Grace and her two wee ones, L and F were there waiting at the airport for me.  It was SO good to see them again! 

We went straight to the Golf Nest restaurant for some supper (mmm… roasted pork!).  Later that night, I took Grace’s little Toyota Corona back to the airport to pick up my cousin, Liz!  I experienced a bit of culture shock in those first few hours in Uganda – first of all, the bathroom in the airport was so clean, complete with toilet paper, and the folks were SO friendly!  I wasn’t quite sure how to react to the soldiers at the airport gate – they were joking and laughing about finding the guns in the car, and, of course, about marrying me, but it was all in a different tone than the folks back “home” in Jb! 

Anyway, I found Liz already out and waiting for me, as her flight had landed a bit early.  I felt a bit bad, as she was standing there with her luggage, fending off the kind taxi drivers.  And really, the taxi drivers there were kind!  They insisted that she used their phone to call us to make sure we were actually on our way. And that was just the start of many, many times where I marvelled at the niceness of Ugandans!

Monday was spent doing a few “housekeeping” things, like going to the office to make sure Liz got a travel pass, doing some shopping for a few bits and pieces and packing for our road trip!  Liz and I also enjoyed a delicious meal of steak sandwich and nachos (with guacamole and cheese!) at a beautiful new restaurant near Grace’s house.  Quite an enjoyable first day out of Jb! 

Bright and early on Tuesday morning we all packed ourselves into our safari vehicle – the Toyota Corona – and started on our long journey West.  With Grace, Liz, me, two car seats filled with their accompanying children, and all the necessary road trip snacks and water, there wasn’t all that much space to spare!  But in fact, it was quite comfortable!    Being the gracious hostess I am, I let Liz sit in the front with our chauffuer, while I entertained the wee ones, comfortably crammed between the car seats in the back!  Someone had to be the pillows for the sleeping children!

I’m amazed and astounded by how beautiful Uganda is!  There are good paved roads, groves and groves of matooke, and beautiful green rolling hills and mountains.  Really some stunning scenery here in this country.

 We made a few pit stops on the way – some in the bushes, others more indoors.  One pit stop happened to be at a place which had some lovely “fart” food (something you get a LOT of mileage out of with a 5 year old and a nearly 3 year old in the back seat!).   

Of course, a holiday wouldn't be a holiday if there wasn't a bit of shopping involved!  The first shopping stop was at the basket and loofah section of the highway.  I wanted a loofah (I guess I was already feeling slightly grimy from the road trip!), and Grace ended up buying a beautiful mat.  In fact, the mat was so beautiful that we had to stop on the way back to Entebbe and buy me a few to cart home to Jb... where I also ended up buying a couple of beautiful fruit baskets - all for the low, low price of about $6!

Our second [shopping] stop came when we crossed the equator!  How cool was that to actually cross the equator?!  Well, actually, I've crossed it several times, but never by land, where I could get out of a car and get my picture taken at the cheesy tourist sign!

Of course, there was more shopping to be done here.  At this place, I spent a dollar or so on a scarf to keep my hair out of my face and looked for a piece of fabric which I knew Sean wanted (we'd seen it in the market back in Jb, but I knew it came from Uganda originally, so I was on the prowl).

We only got slightly lost in one main town.  There are a few road signs in this county, though the vast majoirty of them are put up by the local cell phone companies!  So should you find yourself lost in Mbarara, look for the MTN sign to Busenyi!  It’s not a Zain sign or a Warid sign, but a yellow MTN sign.  That’s where you turn to get to Queen Elizabeth National Park.  After 164 speed bumps, you will finally reach your lodge – a great place which gives amazing missionary rates :) The lodge overlooks Queen Elizabeth National Park, and it's really built right into the escarpment over the park, so you have an amazing view and some fantastic sunsets!

Even though we left early in the morning, it was pretty late in the afternoon when we finally arrived.  So there was just time for a quick swim (which really was quick for me and little F, because it was FREEZING in that water!), a cold soda and a little walk to explore the lodge surroundings before dinner.  Hot showers were had, an episode of “House” was watched, and snoring ensued. 

The next morning we woke up bright and early once again to go hunting for some creatures.  Turns out, there main “highway” to Congo runs right through the National Park.  So we all jumped in the car at daybreak and started driving to the Congo.  We saw some Bushbucks and Kob on the way, as well as lots and lots of birds.   

Without a guide, and just the Brandt Uganda travel book, we were a bit clueless as to where we were going, but after a little ways, we found a little road which didn’t seem to be on any maps.  But we figured our little safari Corona could handle it.  If the guys on bikes loaded with matooke could make it, it seemed there was nothing stopping us!

So off we went down this little track through the forest.  Little F had been talking about seeing elephants for days and days before we had even left on the trip.  And Grace, for some odd reason, really wanted to see buffalos.  But without a guide… well, who knew what we were going to end up seeing.

But with God as our Guide (which was a motto we saw on a bus earlier… we figured maybe we’d see at least something.  And sure enough, we hadn’t gone far down that little track when we spotted our first buffaloes!  That was really cool.  They just stood there and looked at us. And we sat there in our Corona and looked at them.

After a little while, we mosied on down the track.  Then, in in her calm, cool, air traffic controller’s voice, Liz mentioned that she saw a dark shape in the forest.  I guess she didn’t want to get our hopes up until she knew exactly what it was… but it’s big floppy ears and tusks soon emerged from the forest.  Wow.  Two huge elephants were loping through the forest… right next to the little car!   

 

These creatures were so beautiful… and so huge!  They came through the bush and crossed the road right in front of our car.  Yowzers.  They were rather close.  At one point, the big guy was really, really close to the car and turned his head to look right at us.  He flapped his ears a few times and I just had visions of him getting just a little upset with us and ramming into our car… and he was on MY side of the little Corona and looking RIGHT at me!

But, of course, they just wandered into the forest and left us completely alone.  But wow, we were all a bit giddy after that close encounter with the elephants!

 After a little while, a motorcycle with a suit-clad man came roaring up behind us.  Seems he was some sort of big-wig in the district government, and he welcomed us to visit his village at the end of the road.  The road was great and dry, so we did keep on going, and what a great decision that turned out to be!  We ended up at a little fishing village, right on the mouth of the channel between two lakes.  Seems these folks in the village co-habitate very peacefully with the buffalos (who are supposedly really dangerous!) AND the hippos, who are even more dangerous (supposedly!).

We all piled out of our safari vehicle, the might Corona, much to the interest and astonishment of the fishermen who were all just coming back into the village with their morning catch. One guy took a liking to us, and decided to be our little tour guide for a few minutes.  Again, amazingly nice guy.  Just started chatting with us and telling us all about their village and answering our funny questions - without even asking for any kind of tip or help of any kind!  Amazing.

The hippos were just hanging out in the water right off the bank near where all the fishing boats were coming and going.  

 

And there were a ton of birds and other little creatures hanging about, as well. And of course, the day's catch was sitting there, waiting to be sold or packed up and taken to a market farther afield.

Of course, we didn't actually buy any fish, but we did end up buying some bananas and little donut balls for a snack - there certainly weren't any restaurants on that road to Congo where we could get any lunch!

Anyway, the little village was a definite highlight of the day.  The kids were great at watching out the window and being patient while we drove around all day looking for animals!  While we never did see the tree-climbing lions, we saw quite a few other creatures, which was really amazing.  

One of the most disappointing parts of the day was when we saw a nice new billboard/sign on the side of the road, advertising a lodge which had a restaurant (and therefor, we were hoping, cold Cokes!).  So we followed the sign down this little track in the mud which seemed to keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller... in fact, there was a guy working at the site of the sign, and we asked him where this restaurant might be.  He just pointed in the direction of the small mud path that we were on, and say it was near there.  Um, well, we certainly didn't see anything that looked like a lodge anywhere near by.  And it was getting a bit muddy for our mighty Corona.  So we cut our losses and started driving back to the Kingfisher Lodge.