Hey Blog Readers! I have quite an adventure to tell you about! There was a long weekend here in Kigali since Friday and Monday (tomorrow) are both national holidays. One marks the day that Kigali gained independence from Belgium, but I'm not too sure what the other one marks...Anyways, we took full advantage and we drove out to Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda with some of our friends from the WE-ACT house! :)
Zach and I went in to teach early Friday morning, but we left Kigali around noon straight for Uganda. I slept most of the way to the border (where I got my newest passport stamp!) and after stopping to ask many many locals how to get to the park, we arrived around 8:00PM Friday night (Uganda is somehow one hour ahead of Rwanda despite it being North, we still didn't quite figure this out). We grabbed a quick dinner and got some rest since we had to be up and ready to go by 6:00AM the following morning. We took a tour of the park and all of its wildlife--Ugandan Kob, Warthogs, Buffalo, more Ugandan Kobs, many species of birds and butterflies, it was great. We had a tour guide--Jane--who just cracked me up. We kept asking her questions about the park but when she said that the temperature in the park ranged from 18 degrees Celsius to 18 degress Celsius, I just couldn't contain myself. We have this friend, Frank, who was only adding wood to the fire with his jokes. By 8:30AM, I had laughed more than I had this whole trip to Rwanda. It was great.
By this time, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped for none other than PB & J sandwiches! There was a spot in the park that had wooden benches, so we just chose one in the shade and ate away! I have to say this much: Uganda is a gorgeous country. I wish my internet connection would allow me to upload a picture for you, but the hills are simply breath-taking. After lunch, we decided to tour the 'Explosion Craters' in the northern region of the park and then make our way down South as we head back to Rwanda. The craters were amazing. We kept trying to figure out how they all came to be so different. One had water, one had a flat plane of grass and the third had a forest. All were beautiful.
We were tired at this point, but we were also determined to make it down to the South of the park where we heard that there were TREE CLIMBING LIONS!!! We thought the lion tours were only in the morning, but we found out that they also had them in the evening, so we had to rush! It was already 4:05PM and we had an approximate 2 hour drive to the lions. We were all pretty determined to find Simba! I, of course, slept most of the way to the lions, but we got there around 6:10, just in time to snag a tour guide and GO! After about 25 minutes, we finally found them, sitting there in the tree. We caught them just when they were waking up to go and find...breakfast? dinner? Not too sure, but it was amazing. I got some good shots of the lions and some pretty good videos (which of course I can't upload...but you will see them at some point!). All in all, it was a very productive and VERY tiring day. We slept in these bandas which had ZERO electricity. It was interesting to go back to living in the old days where people had to use flashlights to get around. We basically just slept early and woke up around 6:45AM to go and find the lions again!
Unfortunately, we didn't find them this time, so we were glad that we at least got out the night before to get a glimpse. We did, however, get the chance to go on a nature walk and see HIPPOS! A whole family of hippos! There must have been like 15 of them all sitting in the river that separates Uganda from the Congo. Hippos are such lazy animals, all they do is sit and make noises all day. I wouldn't mind that kind of life :) It was nearing noon by this point and we knew that we had a long drive back to Kigali, so we decided to head out. We took this path through a beautiful forest. We were told that we might get the chance to see some gorillas, but that didn't happen. :( Maybe next time. We did drive through the mountains for a good number of hours though. I waved to every Ugandan child I could find. They are so funny when they see foreigners, they just drop whatever they are doing and run to say hi and ask for money lol.
We crossed the border back into Rwanda and listened to Rwandan music the whole way home! Overall, I have to say that this was a well spent and well deserved long weekend. Zach and I have a bit of catching up to do tomorrow and we're hoping that we can go to the Volcanoes this coming weekend, we'll see :) Good Night from Rwanda Everyone! Ijoro Giza! I'm exhausted.
Will
