Happy birthday to me

Yes, I'm 2+ weeks late for my own birthday.  

But now that I'm caught up on the weekend trips, the next step will be catching up on all the fun things that have been going on during the week.  Tonight's post will be short, but I promised pictures of fried grasshoppers, and I wouldn't lie to you about something like that...

Believe it or not, they're delicious.  Kind of like popcorn, but crunchier and with a little bit of a bacon flavor.

When we took a trip to Masaka one night, we saw the way the grasshoppers are caught - it involves huge sheets of metal, 50 gallon drums, lots of smoke, and the brightest lights I've ever seen (which is apparently managed by illegally tapping into the power grid).

Even though they're out of season, Teo managed to find some, and fried them up for us.  We also had sugar cane.

Birthday cake!  Birthdays aren't traditionally a big deal here, but the Western idea of birthday celebrations is becoming more common.  Still, obtaining or making a birthday cake in Kalisizo is definitely a challenge.  Leigh, Elizabeth, Megan and Teo came through though - with passionfruit sauce and creative use of chocolate chips!

This will be my last post for a few days, since we'll be taking a weekend trip to Lake Bunyonyi, near the Rwandan border, and I doubt that our safari tent comes with wifi.

So, for your enjoyment for the weekend, one more picture of adorable kids. 

Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part 2

And so the story continues...

On Saturday after our hike, we had some free time, so we stopped to swim at Mweya Lodge - definitely one of the more upscale accommodations in the park.

(For our lodging, we chose to go with a more authentic, back-to-nature option.  It had lots of character, such as hundreds of dead lake flies both on and in our beds at night.  We even got to witness part of the circle of life happening right in our room... lots of little bugs eating a giant dead bug.  It was magical.)

Photo by Megan

My life here is SO HARD.  See how we're suffering?

After we got in some pool time, we took a boat ride around the Kazinga Channel, which connects Lake George and Lake Edward.

Photo by Leigh

This seemed to be a popular hangout spot for all kinds of animals.

Side note:  I really wish hippos weren't so angry and dangerous.  They look like they would make great flotation devices to ride around on.

Photo by Leigh

Nile crocodiles.  Apparently they're not native to the park, and have been causing trouble locally (aka eating people) since they moved into the area.

BABY HIPPO!!!

Photo by Leigh

"And to your left you will see a hippo... decomposing."

Also, there was a crocodile lurking around eating the decomposing hippo.

Nature is a beautiful thing.

Photo by Leigh

One of several fishing villages in the park.  A limited number of people are allowed to live inside the park, and are essentially assigned a way of making a living, such as fishing or collecting salt from the crater lakes.  This strict regulation is done in order to protect the animals from poaching.

After the boat ride, we went looking for lions again...

Photo by Megan

 We saw a lion-shaped termite mound and a lion-shaped warthog, but no actual lions.

Photo by Megan

Some animals that are not lions.

The next morning, we were up early to continue the hunt....

Photo by Megan

This, as you might be able to tell, is not a lion. 

But it is definitely awesome.  The elephant stopped and trumpeted before crossing the road...  safety first!

Water buck.

Photo by Elizabeth

And oh, by the way, here are some lions stalking a herd of buffalo.  

SUCCESS!!! 

 (Credit for this must go to Sula, who drove through the park like a crazy person when our guide got word there were lions nearby.)

We saw seven lions - one young male, and six females.  We watched them from a distance for a long time.  No buffalo separated from the herd, so they weren't able to make their move.  

We moved on to other parts of the park, and checked back later... to find these two relaxing by a termite hill.  

Photo by Megan

"Should I use the 'pets' setting on my camera?"

Photo by Megan

Photo by Megan

AWESOME.

Tomorrow, the blog will be back to my everyday life, and will involve no ferocious animals.  But there will be a close-up shot of fried grasshoppers... so keep reading!

Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part 1

I’m going a little bit out of chronological order here, having promised all kinds of exciting photos tonight… so here we go:  Our weekend safari to Queen Elizabeth National Park!

We left on Friday with our driver/guide Sula, and drove about 6 hours to the western part of Uganda.  The roads weren’t always ideal, but the scenery was beautiful.

Photo by Megan Guzman

Tea fields.

 A crater lake.  This part of Uganda looks like a tropical version of Switzerland.

Photo by Megan

The park is located in a valley, and we had a great view as we drove in.

Photo by Megan

 About two minutes into the park, we met an elephant.  Off to a good start…

Photo by Elizabeth Eckel

We stopped to pick up a guide and put the roof up on the safari van. 

Photo by Megan 

LET'S GO FIND SOME LIONS!!  Not that I have my heart set on just one animal that there's no guarantee we will actually see.

Photo by Megan

Photo by Megan

 We saw a lot of water buck (center) and Uganda kob (on the left).

The lions were more elusive….

But I will hunt them down.

Photo by Megan

No lions the first night… but riding around standing on the seats with the roof up, seeing other, inferior animals*, and enjoying the sunset over the savannah was a great end to the day.

*Dear Uganda kob, water buck and cape buffalo:  Just kidding, I love all animals equally.

Photo by Megan

The next morning, we were up before 6am to go chimpanzee tracking in the rainforest gorge. 

We didn’t get off to the best start with our guide, Bernard.  He requested that we all write our passport numbers in a log book.  We didn’t all know our passport numbers.  He explained that this was so they could identify us, “if you get swallowed up by a hippo.”  I laughed.  He glared.  “The book is not for fun.”

After tucking our pants into our socks (avoiding fire ants is so hot right now) we descended into the gorge, where we could hear all kinds of animals calling, screeching and roaring. 

Photo by Leigh Bernstein

 Bernard pointed out the sound of the chimps calling from across the river.  Naturally, our next step was to cross the murky, crocodile- and hippo-infested water on a wet, slippery log. 

Photo by Megan

Photo by Leigh

Yes, this water.

We hiked around looking and listening for signs of chimps.  At one point, we heard sudden loud crashing as something huge ran through the forest – turns out we had startled an elephant.  After circling back to the river, out guide noticed tracks showing that the sneaky chimps had crossed back to the other side of the river once we had crossed and were out of sight.  Back across the log we went…

Photo by Megan

Partially eaten fruit - a sign we were getting closer…

Suddenly, we heard LOUD screeching and hooting noises, and came around a bend in the trail to see a huge group of baboons.  The males of the group were fighting, running in the woods all around us and making horrific noises.

Once the baboons had moved on, we kept walking, and just when I was starting to give up hope of seeing the chimps at all, we found a group of them sitting high up in the trees. 

Photo by Megan

Chimpanzees don’t really like to hang out and have their picture taken, so the photos we got definitely don't do justice to the whole experience - seeing their faces, watching them swing around in the trees chasing and being chased by other monkeys (which they apparently eat - a fun fact shared by Bernard after he warmed up a bit).  

We returned safely from the gorge.  

Not even the slowest people in our group got swallowed up by a hippo.

And based on the current internet speed here, I think this is where I have to leave it for the night.  Tomorrow, the second half of the trip!

Lake Mburo

The power is out but the generator is running smoothly tonight, and despite the fact that the functioning lights have attracted an extremely large wasp-like character which is now dive bombing into my hair, I'm sticking to my goal of one blog post per day until I'm caught up to real time.  

I know, my dedication is truly inspirational.

But I still have some work to do ... this post is about what we did on June 11th.  It was the weekend after our first week of work at RHSP, and we decided to take a trip to Lake Mburo National Park, which is about 3 hours west of Kalisizo.

First stop:  a hike through the grasslands, led by an armed guide.

Photo by Leigh Bernstein

Our guide, Godfrey, carried a rifle and his shirt said 'No Surrender' so I think we were in good hands.

Zebras!!!  I know why they have stripes... but they weren't very well camouflaged here.

Impalas... just look like deer.  I feel very neutral about impalas.  But there were a lot of them.

This is the animal I was most scared of.  The furry caterpillars here are extremely poisonous and can cause skin ulcerations and nerve damage if you touch them - and sometimes if you even touch where they've crawled.  I found this out after shaking one off of my water bottle a few days earlier.  I had thought about just taking it off with my hand but decided against it, and in this case my general dislike of crawly things was actually beneficial.  Fortunately my skin and nerves are still intact as far as I can tell.

WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WARTHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG

Photo by Megan Guzman

Up up up...

Photo by Megan Guzman

 We hiked basically to the top of the world.

Proof we made it all the way to the top...

But the view is really much better without people in safari outfits in front of it.

See how the sky is purple at the top of this picture?  This day was the beginning of the end of my camera, which has since decided that everything in Uganda looks best purple and wavy.  Expect a lot of photo credits to Leigh, Megan and Elizabeth for a while.  My new camera should arrive next week with some researchers who are coming to RHSP from Columbia, who have generously agreed to give up some valuable luggage space on the way here.

After the hike, we drove around to see some other sights in the park.

 I know this is only a few steps above the manatee ('blob in the water') pictures I took in Florida at age 10, but come on, it's a HIPPO!  Okay, fine, it's part of a hippo's back.  Still exciting.

An offended cape buffalo.  One of these is the reason why, since 2008, it's required to have an armed guide with you when walking around the park.  This buffalo didn't seem to like us very much, so we didn't hang around long.

The monkeys, however, were perfectly friendly. 

We saw some more hippos in the lake - okay, hippo faces.  Part by part, we are working up to an entire hippo.  Sadly, we are not skilled at taking photos through binoculars, so you'll just have to take our word for it.

Coming up in future posts (hopefully tomorrow):  Even more exciting animal photos from our trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park.  Not to give anything away about what we saw... but they may or may not have had a starring role in The Lion King.  

On another note... what number of Lion King references can I make in one blog post before it becomes unacceptable?