Safari

I have definitely been waiting in anticipation for the safari at Murchison Falls. We were going to have both groups going on this trip, which required four mutatus and thirty people. We were supposed to leave early, so everyone started getting snacks and preparing for the trip early Saturday morning. We were all waiting by the house when a HUGE bus pulled up. Definitely not something that would make it through the trails of safari…and not something that we could ride on top of! So Mama Cat and Lindsey told Bongoman (our travel guy) that it wouldn’t work…So he had to go scrounge up four mutatus. Hours later, we finally had our mutatus and jeeps and headed for safari. We picked up the people that were staying at Anaka since they were on the way. It was cool because we got to see the parish and the school. Then we stayed at this cool campsite (the tents actually had beds in them). Early the next morning (4:45) we woke up to Bill running to our tent and saying, “We have pancakies for breakfast!” He’s like a kid at Christmas. After breakfast, we boarded our mutatus and headed to safari. Once it was safe to put the mattresses on top, we sat up there in the chilly morning air, and started looking for animals.

As we were riding along, we noticed an elephant in a little watering hole…it was super close to us, and we were all excited to get pictures….until the mutatu stopped. The guide, with his AK-47 walked up to all of our vehicles and told us that he was nervous about this one. The elephant was agitated and ready to charge. Not comforting when you are sitting at eye-level on top of a vehicle. He stood in front on the ground and said that he was going to send the first mutatu speeding past to see what happened. The elephant fanned the ears out. Then he sent the second mutatu….the elephant started shaking the head and moving the legs…Then, it started going CRAZY!!! We were on mutatu number three…The guide cocked his gun…Now the nerves and adrenaline was pumping! Our driver stepped on it…I had to hold on to a bar and my hat…the elephant was ready to go face-to-face. Luckily, all four mutatus made it past the elephant, and we continued on our way.

The next encounter happened when we stopped for lunch, and there were baboons everywhere…they were really close to the vehicles and had no issues approaching us and the trashcan…It made me nervous because I fear the baboons. We ate lunch by the water, and my friend Kellan was showing me where the trash was in their vehicle. She had an apple in her hand though. One of the baboons jumped on her back and grabbed the apple…scratching her hand in the process. She screamed and I screamed because I wasn’t sure what was happening and I was already nervous. Luckily, it was only a little cut and we cleaned it out and all was well. The boat ride on the Nile to the falls was enjoyable and we had a good rest of the afternoon.

Then the time came for the ride home. One of the vehicles had to take one of our teachers (Chris) to the hospital…So everyone had to squeeze into three vehicles (we got Pablo…yes!). As we were leaving the park, our safari guide, Simon, rode with us. Ryan started to deejay and we were playing Toto’s “Africa” with the windows open and leaving the park. The giraffes started to come up super close to the window...Then, we had another (closer) encounter with an agitated elephant. Simon said that we would not have avoided that attack if we were still on top of the vehicle. Dang elephants! Who would have thought that they would be the animal that I feared the most this year?! We continued the ride listening to some old school tunes and singing along with Simon until we dropped him off. Good times.

Good times until one of the mutatus ran out of gas. Now people had to squeeze into TWO vehicles! The music stopped and everyone was tired because it was already after ten at night and we were idle for an hour trying to figure out what was going on. The driver of the vehicle that ran out of gas got it out of the road and we had to go pick him up. The vehicle was at this shady place and he was out front surrounded by guys. They wanted money to watch, and not strip the vehicle. One of them started circling our vehicle….figuring that the munus (white people) would have money. Then the guys started beating our driver and trying to drag him out back! Nothing good happens out back! Pablo, Ryan, and freaking JUSTINE all tried to get out of the vehicle…but we held them back. The driver got away and ran to our vehicle and we sped off toward home. Scary. I am glad that everyone was okay.

So that was the end of our Sunday trip. We arrived home late, tired, DIRTY, scared, and hungry. We all know that we were so blessed to have a good experience…and even the bad experiences were okay because we were all in it together. Love all these people!

PS-The pic of the charging elephant is courtesy of my friend Amanda Bankert.