African Safari

 Yesterday we spent the day in Queen Elizabeth National Park, an hour's drive south from Kasese. The park is over 1,798 sqare kilometers and boasts over 95 mammal species and over 600 bird species. I don't think I can even name 95 different animals, let alone 600 different types of birds…

When we reached the park, we hired a guide to ride with us as we drove through the open savannah. He began explaining a little bit about the park, how it used to be named Kazinga National Park until Queen Elizabeth visited in 1978 and decided to claim it for herself, when all of a sudden our driver slammed on the brakes and our guide pointed out the window and motioned for us to be quiet. An elephant. Not more than 20 feet away from our van. It was absolutely unbelievable, and then, to make it even more exciting, two baby elephants came running up next to it! We watched in awe for 5-10 minutes before continuing our safari and seeing more animals like the warthog (sooo unattractive), water buffalo, and kob (possibly my new favorite animal because they always stopped to pose for beautiful pictures on my camera).

We quietly drove around in search of a lion, listening to our guide explain to us how you could find lions by observing the kob. Apparently the kob are top prey for lions, and by looking at the direction the kob are facing you can detect where a lion could be hiding. Unfortunately, we did not spot a lion but we did see the bushes they were sleeping in. Too bad I didn't have my ipod and speakers – I'm sure if I would have blasted some "Lion King" music that would have woken them up.

Following our safari drive, we then hopped on a boat and road up and down the Kazinga Channel to observe even more animals and wildlife. Crowd favorites from the boat ride were the hippopotamuses and elephants. It was fascinating to be that close to them. At one point, Evan turned around and said, "I can't believe we're looking at elephants in Africa," and he said exactly what I was thinking. Never in my life did I think I would one day be on an African safari watching elephants, and yet here we were in Uganda with a whole elephant family right before our eyes. It was incredible!

Here are some more pictures from the safari…

Ugandan Kob

Hippo Yawn

Evan, Elephant, Jackie, Whitney :)