Aliya and Heida in Africa: Lazy Lions, Gushing Water and Frightened Children

It would break every rule in the book to come to the motherland and not see big game. Since this "Class Angel"- and "Most Likely to Become President"-containing trio has never excelled at breaking rules, on Sunday (Nov 9th), Aliya, Heida and I set off for Murchison Falls, armed with binoculars, cameras, and some pretty sweet safari hats.

With our driver Vincent at the helm, Aliya and Heida got a taste of the "real Uganda" over the next three days - the small towns and trading centers with the sometimes bustling, other times sluggish salons, saloons, shops, pharmacies, butcheries, rolex (egg in a chapati) and muchomo (meat on a stick) stands. We passed children in school uniforms walking in groups along the side of the road, children carrying their yellow jerry cans full of water, children looking after smaller children with no adults in sight, children waving enthusiastically. We passed men on bicycles and villages and farms and petrol stations. We went over speed "humps" and through diversions. We learned how pineapples grow. Which is not on trees.

We had a more literal taste of Uganda when we stopped at a guest house in Masindi for lunch on our way to Murchison. A & H gave local foods such as matooke (boiled and mashed green bananas), posho (a hard porridge made from maize), and fish and goat stews a whirl…without it whirling back up and out ;-)

The three of us kicked it up a notch and stayed at the Paraa Safari Lodge in Murchison, with adjoining rooms overlooking the Nile and overhearing the hippos. We spent a good chunk of our lodge time lounging in or by the pool, trying to convince the staff that it would be in everyone's best interest to open the swim-up bar, showing up to dinner way before they started serving, measuring the size of our heads against really big plant leaves, and dodging bats. The potentially rabid kind.

Monday morning was our game drive. The day started out quiet and unhurried.

"$h!t. Get up."

Alarm malfunction. My fault. Within 15 minutes, we had thrown everything we could find into our bags, scarfed our breakfast, and bolted out to meet up with Vincent and our ranger, George.

For anyone planning to become a park ranger in a place where tourists shell out large sums of money in pursuit of animal sightings and photo opportunities, allow me a quick tip on how not to greet your enthusiastic sight seers: "Good morning. We will not be seeing any lions today. No lions. We haven't seen in one whole week. The grass, it is too high."

Half full, George. We're half full kind of people.

Still, whether it's your first, your fourth, or your five hundred and ninety-second game drive, seeing elephants and giraffes and buffalo in their natural habitat is just plain cool. We rode with our heads poking out of the top of the matatu, taking in the kob, water buck, baboons, guinea fowl, cranes, an eagle, white birds I forgot the name of, other birds I never bothered to learn the name of, and sausage trees, whose alcohol-containing fruit are undoubtedly the source of the phrase, "drunk monkey."

An hour or so into the drive, we encountered a road block. While impressed by the enormous heaps of elephant excrement that lie before us, I was at the same time confused over how some piles of poop could cause such a delay. And then I shifted my gaze ahead instead of down, and realized there was a gigantic tree lying across the road.

No sweat, though. That's what our 4x4 minibus was made for. We just blazed a little trail to the side, and continued on our merry…

LIONS!!! There they were. Two of 'em, just hanging out on the side of the road, plain as day. I think George was even more shocked than we were. Don't mistake their relaxed poses for naptime. Apparently they were getting ready for an ambush.

The other game drive highlight had nothing to do with lions or elephants or giraffes or even driving whatsoever. Toward the tail end of our journey, we stopped by the river to stretch our legs, take in the view, get a lesson on local fishing techniques, and buy some fresh fish for George to whip up for his lunch from the guys fishing along the shore in their dug-out canoes. In addition to 3,000 shillings, the only thing the guys wanted in exchange for the fish was one of us mzungus for a wife. Heida and I were quick to offer up Aliya.

That afternoon we hopped on a boat and rode up to the base of the falls, being sure to push our elders/the women carrying babies to the side and sprint to the left side of the boat for the good seats. We saw hippos and crocs a'plenty, took some great shots of an angry elephant, and got acquainted with our fellow passengers. The four American guys? Highly entertaining. The older British couple? Less so.

Tuesday morning we had another abrupt wake-up call, rapid packing session, and hurried breakfast. My fault #2. Vincent lead us on a hike to the top of the falls, where the power of the water is awesome, the lack of guard rails alarming, the ever present rainbows inspirational, and the number of tsetse flies exasperating. Don't worry, Aliya and Heida's parents, sleeping sickness is a thing of the past. Kind of.

We started our journey back to Kampala from the falls, stopping once for a bathroom break (try as I might, I couldn't sell either of them on pit latrines) and a second time on the side of the road for our pack lunch. It was here that Heida chased after small schoolchildren. Luckily, they got the "Don't talk to strangers" message, and promptly ran in the opposite direction. With Vincent's local language skills, we managed to convince them to pose for a picture.

By the end, it was the small schoolchildren that were chasing after us.