No internet service here so I haven’t written for 3 days and already everything is starting to blur together. Once we got past the stump storks, the leaf hoppers, and twig lizards and started noticing REAL birds, we competed with each other for the best close ups of each species. We have identified and photographed over 140 different varieties of birds, not to mention the elephants, hartebeasts, bush bucks, oribis, waterbucks, giraffes (the rare Rothschild), warthogs, baboons, monkeys, buffaloes, hippos (including one albino), crocodiles, and jackals. The abundant wildlife never ceases to amaze us: a buffalo herd that stampeded across the road in front of us, two hippos that fought each other--with one losing a huge chunk of flesh on his hind quarters, the vervet monkey that charged me in the botanical garden, and the chimp that picked my nose----ewww!.
On the way to our current habitation (Nile Safari Lodge), we stopped for lunch at a famous historic hotel. We almost didn’t get past the machine gun armed security guards as the Duke of Kent (Queen Elizabeth’s cousin) and his entourage was also dining there. He chatted with us on his way out (kind of him since we all stuck cameras in his face). Little did he know we would be stalking him as we followed him on our boat trip upriver to the base of Murchison Falls and trailed right behind his jeep on a game drive. He is touring Uganda as part of the country’s 50th year of independence celebration because he was the formal British representative who gave the country its first flag and took down the Brits’ flag half a century ago.
Unfortunately, a series of civil wars and 2 punitive dictators (Milton Obote and Idi Amin) wrecked the economy for 40 of those 50 years and the tyrants tortured and killed perhaps a million people (no one knows for sure because so many people simply “disappeared“). Now everyone is exasperated with the current president’s 4 terms of extremely corrupt service, but they will vote for him anyway if he runs again in order to ensure stability. To give you some idea of the corruption, about 10% of what is budgeted for any given governmental project actually reaches the its destination. 90% is siphoned off along the way, going into the pockets of politicians, project “leaders” and relatives of those folks.
Last night we had our first “bush” shower--a couple of jugs of water dumped in a bucket attached to a shower head suspended over a stone enclosed stall. Not being tall enough to reach the shut off valve, I had to partially climb the wall to get any water. Lesson one: if you have to climb a wall to reach the valve, do NOT put soap on your face first! Lesson two: make sure the bucket is full BEFORE starting your shower as it is impossible to summon more water when you are naked and soapy--not to mention the staff climbs a ladder to dump more water in the bucket and looks right down on where you are standing. Lesson three: check the shower for lizards, bugs and monkeys BEFORE locking the door behind you. Today we used the swimming pool as our “bathtub” and rinsed the chlorine off in the shower--MUCH simpler!
On the way to our current habitation (Nile Safari Lodge), we stopped for lunch at a famous historic hotel. We almost didn’t get past the machine gun armed security guards as the Duke of Kent (Queen Elizabeth’s cousin) and his entourage was also dining there. He chatted with us on his way out (kind of him since we all stuck cameras in his face). Little did he know we would be stalking him as we followed him on our boat trip upriver to the base of Murchison Falls and trailed right behind his jeep on a game drive. He is touring Uganda as part of the country’s 50th year of independence celebration because he was the formal British representative who gave the country its first flag and took down the Brits’ flag half a century ago.
Unfortunately, a series of civil wars and 2 punitive dictators (Milton Obote and Idi Amin) wrecked the economy for 40 of those 50 years and the tyrants tortured and killed perhaps a million people (no one knows for sure because so many people simply “disappeared“). Now everyone is exasperated with the current president’s 4 terms of extremely corrupt service, but they will vote for him anyway if he runs again in order to ensure stability. To give you some idea of the corruption, about 10% of what is budgeted for any given governmental project actually reaches the its destination. 90% is siphoned off along the way, going into the pockets of politicians, project “leaders” and relatives of those folks.
Last night we had our first “bush” shower--a couple of jugs of water dumped in a bucket attached to a shower head suspended over a stone enclosed stall. Not being tall enough to reach the shut off valve, I had to partially climb the wall to get any water. Lesson one: if you have to climb a wall to reach the valve, do NOT put soap on your face first! Lesson two: make sure the bucket is full BEFORE starting your shower as it is impossible to summon more water when you are naked and soapy--not to mention the staff climbs a ladder to dump more water in the bucket and looks right down on where you are standing. Lesson three: check the shower for lizards, bugs and monkeys BEFORE locking the door behind you. Today we used the swimming pool as our “bathtub” and rinsed the chlorine off in the shower--MUCH simpler!
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