Holy Hippopotamus!

Heading back to Kampala, we set off for a safari the follwing day at Murchison falls. This was a cool experience! We stayed in two man tents with cots


(ok, the moldy tents were not cool),

the main dining/bar area was a large open hut that over-looked part of the Nile and allowed for our nightly hippo visitors. Not to mention watching a serious lightening show take place in the night sky during our first night there. It was pretty awesome!

Our safari guide had two warnings for us:
1. Absolutely no food in the tents. Baboons are vicious and they will rip their way through the tents to get at it.
2. Campsite lights go off at midnight and we should not go to the washroom after that time because hippos come up to the grounds from the river and "mow" (i.e eat) the grass around our tents. In the next breath, our guide says in these exact words: "when you go to the toilet late at night, should you see a hippo, maybe cross your legs and wait"
Huh? Is this guy serious? Sure enough, another traveller from Israel literally bumped into a hippo the first night we were there and she ran off screaming. The hippo- too interested in the grass to take notice- didn't even budge. I must admit it was a bit unnerving to hear munching sounds around our tents at night but we got used to it...sort of...
The family of warthogs that decided to keep us company were less scarier. They were just fat and lazy and only snorted at you when you got too close!





Before setting off in the early morning however, I watched a big baboon open my packed lunch and eat my banana.
He didn't like the seeds in my watermelon slice so he carefully made sure to spit them out before proceeding to eat the rest of my lunch. The safari was awesome! We spent the morning driving around the open savannah. We even managed to get a glimpse of a lion and lioness (since we weren't in the Serengeti the chances of seeing lions here were slim so we were quite happy to come across them). Having to make a "short call" in the open grasses near the watering hole full of hippos nerve wracking- especially when you're trying to prevent monstrous dragonflies from landing on you while you're doing the deed (sorry...had to share that, it was worse then described! LOL!)

In the afternoon, we took a cruise down the Nile river and got up close and personal with elephants, crocs, hippos, water buffalo, you name it!



The boat took us to the bottom of Murchison Falls which was amazing. I guess you could say its Africa's version of the Maid of the Mist...but better!!!





This is definitely a highlight of my trip so far!