The weekend before my birthday some of us from the office went on a safari trip up to Murchison Falls National Park. We drove up to the Red Chili Hideout Kampala Thursday night so we could head out on the road first thing Friday morning. The trip up to Murchison falls was about 6 hours and luckily the roads were mostly paved the whole way. We of course hit some gnarly traffic jams getting out of Kampala, but the rest of the way was pretty smooth sailing.
Friday afternoon we hiked around the falls which link Lake Kyoga and Lake Albert on the Victoria Nile. The falls are the narrowest point along the Nile River at 7 m wide and with a drop of 43 m.
After the falls we went to our base camp for the night. We barely escaped getting caught in a torrential downpour as we checked into the Red Chili-Murchison camp. We stayed in safari tents that were so close to the river that we got many warnings to bring a flashlight when going out at night to watch out for hippos grazing through camp.
We woke up bright and early to watch the sunrise and headed out on a river cruise on the Nile. We saw tons of animals along the banks and got a great view of the falls. Also didn't get boat-sick for the first time in years so praise the Lord for that!
We headed back to camp for some lunch then took off on a game drive. We picked up a park ranger on the way into the park to be our guide for the day. He gave us some odds of seeing animals and then said it was a toss up due to the rains. Rhinos - 0/10 (they don't reside in the park), Lion - 1/10, Leopard - 1/10, Cape Buffalo - 4/10, Elephant - 5/10, Giraffe - 7/10, Antelope/Field deer - 11/10.
Luckily the odds were in our favor because we encountered a herd of elephants before we even turned off the main road. The rest of the ride we saw a TON of cape buffalo, elephants, giraffes, antelope, hyenas, hippos. We even got to see a lioness and two lion cubs.
We headed back to Red Chili for dinner and played some games and got some great star gazing in.That night we decided to sleep with the tent flaps open to really get the feel of the wilderness, but woke up around 3am to torrential rains pouring through the screens into our tent. Needless to say we probably woke up a few of our neighbors with our laughter and shouts as we frantically rushed out in the chilly pouring rain to tie the flaps down.
The next morning we headed out for another game drive. We got to see a lot more of the same animals we saw the day before with the addition of a male lion and some hippos grazing on land.
It was a wonderful weekend to kick off birthday week and was such a beautiful display of God's creation. I left Murchison in AWE of God's abundance and just the peace and serenity of nature and the entire ecosystems that rely on God to sustain. I'm so thankful to have gotten to step away from crazy Kampala life and culture shocks and just enjoy great company and the amazing experience. What an awesome God we have.
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