serengeti

Meg and I headed straight to Mwanza from Gorilla trekking. If Mwanza whose nickname is Rock City was in the US it would be a climbing mecca much like Joshua Tree. There were such awesome standalone spires,  amazing cracks and boulders everywhere you looked. Here I was stuck on another bus watching them zip by on the horizon en route to the Serengeti stopover camp. Turns out we had the place to ourselves which was pretty awesome. We stayed in the Simba Suite and were waited on the minute we walked into the restaurant.

The staff even went so far as to catch us before meals to see what we wanted and when we would like to eat. Talk about service! For those unaware this is very rare. Normally when you sit down and order fish for dinner as we did with our awesome guide Geoffrey in Masaka he said "they still have to go fishing and catch the fish" which may have been fairly accurate based on how long we sat there.

Serengeti day 1
Meg and I woke up to a thunderstorm with lightening touching down around our little oasis the morning we were supposed to head into the Serengeti. Serengeti is derived from the Maasai word siringet that means "endless plains". With pools forming around our little hut and the restaurant I was thinking it might also become the endless flooding plains.

As it turns out our little place dried out pretty fast, but unfortunately this was at the expense of Meg's clothes catching all the rain that leaked into our little abode. Secretly thankful it wasn't my clothes I helped Meg wring her clothes out and set them before the fan after the power finally turned back on 20 minutes before our scheduled departure time. We had a few moments of prayer for a dry day after envisioning a wet safari after traveling halfway around the world. Thankfully prayers were answered  and we were off and heading into the Serengeti with our new guide Victor and driver/mechanic Juma.

Juma was a last minute addition of which we were thankful for later. We started cruising in with Meg and I standing up through the removable roof admiring the Zebra, giraffe, baboons, thompson's gazelle and keeping our eyes peeled on the horizon for whatever amazing animal might show up next.

I am in the middle of trying to spot some mystery animal when Meg all of a sudden starts tugging my arm. I look at her and see a look of mild panic on her face as she is looking up at the dash. It is about this time that my nose tells me she is seeing an electrical fire from the front of the car. Glancing forward to take in the situation unfolding in our Landcruiser, I just about get ran over by Meg who is trying to run out the door by me because there is no door on her side. 

Then I do what any good husband would and distract his wife while Victor and Juma take care of the issue at hand after I see its not spreading further. "Babe let me take some pics of you with that cool tree."

Well that only worked for about 5 minutes and then I couldn't get Meg away from the car. Yes there may be smoke and flames coming from the front of the car where the radio used to be, but it will be fine don't worry babe. Juma was disassembling the dash as fast as he could and ripping wires out left and right that were still on fire. What seemed to happen was a short that was sparking set the rest off and a fuse blew in the process. Trying to assure Meg while she was attentively watching was not happening. She kept looking at me and asking if it was fine, what would we do if we were stuck there for the night. I told her that it was electrical and the engine still was running fine, but worse case scenario we would be camping and would have a good story. Based off her expression I could tell Meg clearly wanted nothing to with that kind of a story. Alas the fire was out electrical wires were patched or ripped out and discarded and we started up our not so trusty ride and cruised to our campsite after about an hour delay. Upside is that Victor is a chef as well as a guide so our dinner was awesome and highlights for Meg and I included our daily soup serving. 

I would like to say that the rest of night went smoothly, but the thunderstorms and lightening returned which would be impressive to watch except for the fact that our tent seemed to want Meg and I experience it first hand and dripped on us on the wind driven side until it stopped. All in all that day we saw from what we can remember: the above listed animals, impala, water buffalo, wildebeest and calves, waterbuck, vervet monkey, dik dik, crocodile, hippo, wild dog, secretary bird and tons of others that I can't name and some elephant.

Serengeti day 2

The plus side to rain in the Serengeti is less dust, which is nice when you spend 8 hours standing up out of a Landcruiser. We also had sunny days the whole time and just experienced the lightening/thunderstorms at night. In the morning we got an early start and saw a female lion sunning herself on a rock. Leopard lazily lying in a tree. I have decided they have the easiest life because all they do is sleep in a tree all day until an animal unknowingly walks to get water below the tree and the leopard drops on them for the kill.

We saw some hippos trying to outdo each other on how wide they could open their mouths. 

2 were outside the water and that is just a funny sight when you see them nowhere near water lumbering through the bush. 

Some gazelle also in a little man-squabble.

We counted a giraffe family of 20 as well. 

Jackal - pretty small fox

helping a brother out

We really liked the vervet monkeys.

One of the prettiest Serengeti birds: lilac breasted roller

Pumba!

Hyena... these are some dirty dogs

The highlight of the day was watching a cheetah mother and her 3 cubs who were about 18 months from what we were told on the hunt. Those suckers are patient. They were hunting impala who had one male and about 50 females.

The male was clueless as he continually chased a female in efforts to get after it even though a few females seemed aware of being hunted.  The hunt from where we saw them initially to the finish only traveled about 200 yards. We had sat there for 3.5 hours waiting and decided to do a quick little loop in the area because the cheetahs were still sitting still.

Bad decision. When we returned we had just missed the kill by about 2 minutes. They had just started eating the impala when a hyena who apparently have a nose for blood swooped in grabbed it and trotted off with their hard earned dinner. It was actually a sad sight because the mother was now limping apparently getting a little hurt during the chase, which creates an unknown future for her 3 little ones. The below shot is right after the hyena swooped in.

Looking in the distance at their meal that got taken from them...

Bummed out cheetahs.

sweet shots of little cheetah

We then returned to camp for dinner and with us returned the thunder and lightening. We were super hungry and excited for dinner!We played cards for what seemed like hours waiting for dinner and were still hungry.I thought to myself that there was nothing fast food about Africa. Then dinner and the amazing soup finally came. The other interesting part about camping in the Serengeti is that when the sun goes down the light turns off! Pitch. Black. Oh wait, except for that set of glowing eyes over there, there and yep that pair as well. A little unnerving when nature calls in the middle of the night and apparently lions are known to lie down right next to your tent because they can feel your body heat. I told Meg she was on her own if she had to pee to which she said I was a horrible husband. I assured her I was joking...mostly.

Thankfully Meg never hit code red on the pee scale because she never drank water after 3 pm so she would not have to see all the glowing eyes. This allowed me to not have to show her how much of a wuss I am and make her go out there by herself. The guides said not to worry because your flashlight is your weapon and they would take off when they saw it. Well to clear up any curiosity for you all any eyes that I spotted in the night with my flashlight remained there unwavering so that light bit was a bunch of crap!

silverback gorillas

Hello again from Africa. Or better yet, Jambo from the land of endless maize fields, dusty, hot and crowded transportation, giggling children with heart-melting smiles, big plates of posho, matooke and gnut paste... all amidst the colorful and vibrant fabrics and people that paint these beautiful countries we have been enjoying.

Rob and I have been away from the blog and computers, and since then have left Uganda and been adventuring across Tanzania. I'm going to take us back to where we left off: departing, and most importantly surviving, the nile. That should be a once in a lifetime experience, and I have somehow managed to come out alive twice. I probably owe that to the extra prayers that my mom throws up when I'm in Africa.

Back to the gorillas. I think this has been one the best highlights from the trip. It all started when we were ready for our gorilla guide/driver, who we were supposed to meet at 6.30 a.m., at our hotel in Kampala. A couple blog posts, many games of rumi, and a long-breakfast later, we were greeted by Geoffrey at 11.30 a.m.  This is how Africa rolls. Time is relative, so you learn to embrace it. For a punctual, and some might even say... type-a... person like myself, Africa time and the hakuna matata mentality, is actually quite freeing. I actually love it, and there is something to be said for their freedom with time.

So, Geoffrey was our driver from Kampala to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. An estimated drive time of generally 11 hours. For Geoffrey, this was 9 hours, including our 1 hour hold-up due to some road work. So, more like 8 hours because this man can drive. FAST. I think my internal organs and brain were bounced and shaken more than they ever have. Driving fast on Uganda's 'highway' is like riding a flying and broken roller coaster that has millions or large and small rocks/boulders jostling you around. But he got us there quickly, and it turns out we love Geoffrey. He is awesome, and we plan to host him in our home in Seattle in September. Rob is most excited to take him to see snow in the mountains. Geoffrey below:

We arrive at Bugoba Rest Camp in the evening, and are graciously welcomed into what I can only describe as an amazing African bungalow nestled in the Bwindi rainforest. With HOT water and legit showers. Wow, what a treat. So, the next morning we were clean and ready to hang out with the gorillas. We were teamed up with 6 others, and given an informative and humorous talk by who was going to take us to the gorillas - a man named Obed. Obed informed us of many fun facts. Such as, there are only 706 silverback mountain gorillas left in the world, with 320 of them in the Bwindi forest. They are the worlds most endangered ape. Our group was going to be trekking the Rushoga gorilla family, a group of 17. The national park actually sends out trekkers early in the morning who knew where the gorilla family was last night, so they start at that point and follow the tracks to find out where the gorillas are that morning. Obed told us we may have to hike all day to find them, or it could take 10 minutes. Good thing Rob and I ate a hearty breakfast, because we had to hike a rough 30 minutes before we were with the gorillas. No complaining here - it was amazing, to say the least.

Just to enter the forest to trek the gorillas, you pay a 500 USD permit fee per person. That said, you are thinking... this better be worth every penny. It turns out it is definitely worth it. It's hard to describe the surreal environment in which we are SO close to these beautiful gorillas just living their daily life. The first ones we ran across were a mama with her kiddo and toddler near. The two young gorillas, apparently 3 and 1 years old, were good old-fashioned rough-housing. They were playing and pushing each other over, making funny noises and slapping their chests, which means -- I'm stronger than you! These two little gorillas were the perfect mirror image of two other gorillas I know... Rob and Chris Kilcup. Wrestling.  The only difference is that these gorillas were in this amazing rain forest, and Rob and Chris are usually in their parents' living room. I couldn't believe that the gorillas, especially the mom, were totally fine with us just being there. They were within a few feet of us, and we even had to scoot back to give them some room. It's important that we don't get too close for too long, as the guides informed us that one of the reasons for some gorillas dying could be from human diseases. The guidelines say you are not supposed to be within 7 meters of the gorillas, but our guide was cool and let the gorillas near us. We had to sign-off that we did not have colds/ apparent sickness before we entered the forest.

Shortly after the gorilla play-time, we stumbled across the big daddy. Mr. Silverback. He was huge, and his silver hair on his back is indicative of his age -- estimated to be in his 40s. Their lifespan is generally up to 50 years old, according to Obed. This guy was was so cool. Imagine an enormous mountain gorilla, yet with a serene and relaxed personality. He was like -- no big deal, welcome to my home! Incredible to be so near, about 5 to 7 feet. Truly. The gorillas are very comfortable around humans. It really felt like we could have pulled up some chairs and just chilled with them all day.

Another highlight with them was when the entire family crossed a river. Some of them chose to cool off, and hop, jump and meander across the river. Others clearly did not want to mess up their hair or take a dip, so they took the vine-route. These apes just climb up the trees and have a grand-time swinging from branch to vine until they are safe to the other side. All the while, we are just beneath them in awe.

So, big thanks to Charlie and his machete for clearing the way during our trek... and to Obed for his expertise and bright-spirit. After 90 minutes we had to call it a day, as they prefer that the humans aren't around them for too long. After our egg-sandwich and pineapple lunch, we hopped back in Geoffrey's landcruiser to bounce our way on the rocky roads towards Tanzania. Driving through this area of Uganda, despite the bumpy ride, is stunning. Rolling mountains covered with plaintain trees, tea plantations and the bright colors of the country is really quite beautiful.

And that wraps up our time in Uganda. I always dreamed of going back there, and my heart is still so glad that we did. Plus, we have a new friend Geoffrey, that we get to welcome to our home later this year. Uganda is full of joy, strength and soul. The people love God and love eachother. Community is rich in love. The tastes, sounds, smells and heat of Uganda seems to be a part of me in a small way. From my dear friends in Ibulanku, to the waves of the nile, and into the forest with the gorillas... Uganda is Beauty. Webalee Uganda for the country that you are.