All the rest of Uganda

Yup-I stood on the equator on my first full day in the country! And then I hung from the really cool ring ;)

My lovely hostess Blythe taking me for my first Ugandan meal: skewers of meat served with some cassava and diced tomatoes and onions on the side, eaten with just your hands. Delicious! Best part-the spicy sauce to dip the meat in. The man serving us obviously didn't get many Mzungus (foreigners) because he was so worried that all they serve is pork. As we explained, "That's why we're here!"

So I might have mentioned sleeping in tents while on safari-I wish it was cooler than it sounded. But as you can see they were usually covered/protected and fit 2 twin size beds and a night table inside. and some had electricity-not true camping, but still so much fun! 

Dinner one night during a safari-again, not really roughing it, but hey-you only live once. 

Driving in Uganda can be very dangerous-take care!

But apparently this guy likes to live on the edge. Besides, large bags of tea leaves might be comfortable. 

Or you can travel with others-apparently sitting/standing on these types of trucks is one way to get across the country. Also take note of the skirt on the bottom of the truck-so many trucks/buses/minivans had names or phrases that ranged from funny ones like this to.......

religious inspired ones like this. I really wish I'd taken more to show you-so many made me laugh out loud. 

Motorbikes are also very common (maybe not quite as common as my last trip but still the best way to get around in the city). I just loved that this was parked in front of that sign. 

And if you don't want to sit/lie on top of a banana truck-you can always ride on a bike. This cutie in a suit stole my heart.

Other sights from the road-tea fields. I also saw coffee fields, banana and pineapple plantations. About bananas: there are some 80 varieties of bananas in the region, and Uganda is both the largest provider and consumer of bananas in the world (per capita: 1 kilo/2.2 lbs per DAY).

Another view from the car-I love markets!

Besides food markets-there are lots of places to stop along the road for humongous bags of charcoal that had been produced in local ovens. 

Women here have some amazing clothing-beautiful colors and great fabrics-which also make for stylish baby carriers.  

Of course I met some kids-when don't I? We were working on counting ;)

And then I met A LOT of kids! I went to Lira, which is a city towards the north of the country where another good friend had spent a few years working with her foundation (I might have mentioned it over the years: Atin Afrika). I got to spend a day going to some of the local schools to meet kids Atin has helped. And then I got mobbed at one of the schools!

On the equator again with Blythe-this time on Lake Victoria (the source of the Nile). And to paraphrase from her caption on a similar picture: we met in the southern hemisphere (Argentina), reunited in the north (Korea), only seems right that we meet again on the equator. 

I loved all of the names on these coke bottles. 

Jerricans are still the main means of transporting water to people's homes. All along the roads and in villages you'd see men, women and children carting one, two, three yellow cans on their heads, backs, or bikes. Definitely makes you realize how lucky most of us are that we have running water.  

With Chelsea (the Atin friend), at Chobe Resort on the Nile. We spent the day in the pool and sunning our selves while over looking the longest river in the world. 

and even though I devoted my last post to animals, I couldn't resist this one! at the resort we got to witness a young elephant messing around with the hippos-just a typical teenager flaunting the fact that he knows he's bigger. Guess doesn't matter the species, all youth are hot heads ;)

"You need to get a rollex Lynn." -What? I don't want a fancy watch. "No, no, no. Rolled eggs=rollex." 

It's basically an omelet inside a chapati (thick tortilla) served rolled up.

Besides safaris I did a bit of extreme sports! I went white water rafting on the Nile! I know you can't pick me out but I'm on the left side, last one back. We went over 8 rapids that day, ranging from level 3-5. We flipped in nearly all of them (which may have been because we told our guide we wanted to go crazy).

The next day I took a much calmer ride on the Nile while sampling some of the local brew. 

My last day in Kampala (the capital) I was taken to an amazing restaurant where you can eat many of the local animals. After kudu (antelope) poppers for an app, Blythe and I both got springbok, wildebeest and crocodile served up tandoori style. It was delicious, I think the wildebeest was my favorite.  

Read carefully! and yes, people really do say that :)
Special thanks to Blythe and Chelsea-two Canadians I met abroad who brought me to this amazing country! I would never had had such an adventure if I had never met these two lovely ladies. 

The animals of Uganda

"Good morning, did you have a good sleep?" "How is your day going?" "You are welcome please." "Thank you please." There are just some of the extremely polite greetings that you will hear upon meeting someone at some point during the day. Ugandans are very polite and very soft spoken (usually I try to argue that Americans aren't THAT loud compared to the locals, but I think this time there's no argument).
But onto the good stuff-ANIMALS!

Within about 48 hours of arriving in Uganda I was out on my first safari (Swahili for "travel"). And this guy was my first major siting. I'm pretty sure I yelled out when I saw the first zebra!
(I will be honest upfront and say that twice at the beginning of safaris my camera was dead and I was lucky enough to be with some amazing photographers-so I stole all of their pictures-Thanks Blythe and Casey)

This guy is a black and white colobus monkey. One of the cuter primates I saw along the way. 

Here are some buffalo relaxing and cooling off from the heat of the day while Mr. Crocodile gazed on. 

And here is the buffalo afterwards!
haha, kidding. This skull was inland a ways and had obviously been there a while. 

I did see some live mongooses (not mongeese) but none under the care fortunately. 

This is a kop-one of the most common of the antelope found in the Ugandan National Parks such as Queen Elizabeth or Murchison Falls. Their beautiful horns have a great curve and they are pictured on the Ugandan coat of arms. I saw huge herds of them, sometimes over 40 or 50 at a time.

This little guy was a favorite of mine. Oribis are really little, maybe only about 2 ft tall as an adult. See the little black dot under his ear? That's a gland that can be punctured with a blade of grass to leave behind a dark, sticky substance that marks his territory. I really feel in love with them because apparently as my guide told me, "they have bad memories and sometimes after running about 200meters away from a predator, they will forget why they are running and stop-making them easy targets."

This is another antelope-the Jackson Hartebeest. I thought his horns were so cool and reminded me of the monster from a movie-but I still can't remember which one-do you have an idea?

This lizard was scrambling around on the platform of a tent at one of our campsites. He seemed to be changing colors as we watched. 

Can you see it? The monitor lizards are sneaky little things-they creep into the nests of the kingfisher that are built into cliffs and steal their eggs.  

Yeah, just chilling with Pumba (Swahili for "warthog"). These guys are all over the place, especially around places with garbage. In most of the camping sites within national parks there were sure to be a few warthogs running around. We were warned against leaving food in our tents for fear that they would break into the tents. 

My money's on the bird. Any takers?

ELEPHANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw way more elephants than I ever thought I would. On one boat cruise up the Nile we saw at least 50 elephants in one shot. It was so amazing! 

Then up on the highland we saw this guy pulling a bush out of the ground.

And here's a family just strolling on, not minding that they're making us late to see animals....tsk tsk. 

And GIRAFFES!!!!! We really lucked out one day when our schedule was completely changed and we had to drive several hours out of the way. BUT it meant an extra game drive in the late afternoon-one of the best times of day to see animals. We saw several groups of giraffes that day. I love them because they are so goofy looking, yet so graceful at the same time. 

My sister and I lamented recently-we wish we could be "bird people"= be able to appreciate birds. Well, here in Uganda, that is NOT a problem. On the banks you can see hundreds of birds from at least 10 different species. There are over 1000 species of birds in Uganda (over half of all those in Africa). 

The yellow-billed stork-this one stands in this position waiting for a fish to swim by and then closes its mouth. I don't know for how long, but I saw this guy standing there at least 5 minutes as we cruised by. 

This is a red throated bee eater. I will say no more. 

This is the pied kingfisher (the one whose nest is invaded frequently by the monitor lizard). I really like these ones because they can hover almost as well as a humming bird while looking for food in the water. 

This was my absolute favorite bird! The saddle billed stork. He looks super cool with the red and yellow on his beak-like a pair of shades,  as if trying to hide himself among the shorties but failing miserably.  He's also cool because he has a small red dot on his chest. 

This little guy fell out of his nest and the next day was either still sleeping....or more likely-dead (sorry). He was very cute and downy-unlike his mom or dad (see below).

The marabou stork aka the "undertaker stork" (not the one bringing newborns) is 5 feet tall and has a wingspan of 10 feet! It's huge and ugly and can be found all of the country, especially around garbage dumps.  

RHINOS!!!!! We could only get as close as 30 meters from the rhinos before they would turn and start to make signs as if to charge. Then the guide would tell us, "BACK BACK!" and so naturally we would move back.

The white-mouth rhino was improperly named. The English heard "white" when it should have been "wide" as this breed has a wider mouth then most. I saw about 8 in the sanctuary that day. But I didn't see baby Obama (a rhino born to a Kenyan father and an American mother (donated from Disney World)). 

I saw so many hippos during my various safaris. Most of the time they are like this-just chilling in the water during the hot hours of the day (many African animals don't have good sweat glands so they have to stay in water during the day...makes me wonder how evolution decided that THIS was a good idea!
I also saw/heard one outside my tent at about 4a.m. one morning. They are harmless unless you get in the way of them feeding and then they get nasty.  (My friend and I had to wait over an hour to leave to use the bathroom.)

And then we saw this one too-just keeled over. Maybe old age or some sickness. Either way-once we were down wind-not pretty. 

I saw a SIMBA (Swahili for "lion")! And we were actually closer than I seem in this shot. I had been hoping for 3 weeks to see one and on my last day of safari our driver pulled up next to another car and I was looking off in the distance thinking we might get a glimpse not realising it was RIGHT in front of us.

He had just eaten (the carcass was nearby) and he wasn't really in the mood to move much (luckily) but he did growl a bit. I felt sure that at any moment he could leap up and jump up on top of the van and attack us!