Definitely a Difference...

Last night was pretty eventful with having a hippo a few tents away from mine. I think it might have even walked between my tent and the tent next to mine. However, I don’t know for sure if the rustling noises I “heard” were real or just me being paranoid. Guess I’ll never know…

This morning I woke up at 6:40am because it was so loud with people talking and vehicles leaving that attempting to sleep was becoming pointless. Instead I got ready, and I went and had breakfast. This morning’s breakfast was French toast. While it wasn’t the same as at home (like all foods here), it was still really good.

We all packed by into the vans around 8:30, and left to go to see Murchison Falls. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. Once we arrived, we got to go on a short hike that took about 20 minutes. It was a lot of fun. It definitely reminded me of how much I love climbing around on rocks. The path wasn’t the greatest in some areas, but I really enjoyed it. The view off to our right of the falls definitely made the hike even more enjoyable.

We were able to see Murchison Falls really well. It was absolutely gorgeous, and we got so close at one point that I could feel mist from the waterfall! There were lots of pictures taken of the scenery, and of course, we all had to include ourselves as well.

After we were satisfied with the number of pictures we had taken it was back to the vans for the journey home. We stopped in Masindi again for lunch. This time I had had fish and chips, aka fish and French fries, and it was absolutely delicious! It’s probably one of the meals that I’ve actually eaten almost all of the food on my plate. The MUBS students were proud of me and shocked that I had eaten so much.

On the way home our van stopped three times! I honestly didn’t think we were ever going to get back to Kampala for a bit. It seemed to be taking forever. My van also witnessed our first car accident on the way home. Just to clarify, we didn’t actually see the accident; we just saw a semi on its side and the other semi that had crashed into it. With the way Ugandans drive, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more.

The closer we got to Kampala, the more I realized what I hadn’t noticed before since all of my time had been spent in the city. First, it was extremely dirty. Murchison Falls was the only place I have seen signs that say no littering, and people didn’t just throw their trash everywhere because there were garbage cans around, unlike in the city. I also noticed that the air was definitely not as fresh. There seems to be a constant haze, some smog, and dirt in the air. I’ve also noticed now that there is a slight smell to the city. It mainly consists of occasionally smelling a burning fire (since garbage is either burnt or just thrown wherever here), though I also noticed a sewage like smell (apparently we went by a sewer treatment plant though). I definitely prefer the National Park’s atmosphere and environment better, but I guess I’ll adjust back to this since I didn’t seem to notice before.

My van arrived back at Red Chili last around 5:15pm. We unloaded the vans and showered (because it was so hot and we had all been super sweaty on our hike) before we left for supper at Faze 2.

At dinner I had something similar to a quesadilla, though I don’t remember what it was called. It was pretty good though. After dinner, we had the choice of going to a club or heading back to Red Chili for the night to relax. For those of you that know me, I’m sure you can guess where I ended up J But just so there is no confusion, I went back to Red Chili.

Back at Red Chili, I worked on my blog post for the class that I had to complete, and I wrote my journal entries. I also worked on this blog; however, the Internet connection has been bad, so posting for the class came before posting for my readers.

On the agenda tomorrow is shopping in the morning because the speaker we were suppose to have had a family emergency and has postponed our talk, and in the afternoon we are going to a football game (which is soccer to us in the United States). We’ll see how that goes. I’m not a soccer fan, at all. In fact, I grew up being told soccer players are “lawn fairies,” and as a softball player I was pretty much taught to dislike the sport. Oh well, I’m sure it will still be great.

But until then, I leave you with this…