Extremely early start on Tuesday morning - up whilst it was still dark! Helen, duncan and I drove to masindi (an hour and a half) and had pancakes in the sunshine for breakfast. Then onwards and upwards towards the safari park. It was a long drive but I love gazing out the window as this completely different world whizzes by. Eventually we arrived at the ferry crossing where we crossed the Nile into the park, whilst watching the hippos bobbing about in the water beside us.
When I arrived at Paraa safari lodge I honestly thought I was in heaven - it is the most beautiful place with stunning views and lovely rooms. They even had fancy mosquito nets and was in awe of the hot tap in the shower!! My room looked out over the pool with its sunloungers and thatched pool bar with a palm tree for added effect.
Started with lunch where I had proper bread (not sweet bread) with CHEESE on it, salad including my long-lost love CUCUMBER accompanied by a cold, DIET coke :D I was a very very happy girl!
After lounging about in the intense heat, Duncan and I went for a game drive. The scenery is incredible with such vast stretched of flat land and its even better with giraffe, elephant, antelope, buffalo and warthogs dotted amongst it.
There were ridiculous amounts of giraffe, almost everywhere you looked. We almost saw giraffe fight but it didn't get too serious, they left it at just hitting each other with their necks. Found a torn apart hippo carcus which was surrounded by ugly vultures and scavenging jackels, and the next day it stank!
I was welcomed back to the lodge by an amazing hot, powerful shower...I felt clean for the first time since I left England and that is no exaggeration.
Did a morning game drive at 6am and watched the sun come up and the wildlife wake up around us. We spent much of the morning following lion's paw prints but never found the lion. However, we did find a hyena which are very rare to see and it just wandered down the path in front of our car for a while - they are very unattractive animals because they have a special shaped jaw for chewing bones! Saw giraffes running which is the best thing to watch and is so elegant despite the gangliness. As we were almost back at the hotel, a little family of elephants stepped out on the road in front of us with a liddle baby and then slightly older (but still young) one who got a bit agitated with us and was very close to charging us but thankfully got distracted by food.
Again spent the middle part of the day (after a delicious breakfast with sausages and BACON) lounging by, but mostly in, the pool in the almost unbearable heat. It was great to catch up on all the gossip from home and hear about Hartley wintney life :)
On the evening drive we were mainly on the hunt for lions but there didn't seem to be any about. Duncan had said I will give up hope at 6.35 and at 6.25 we got a call from another ranger saying they had found lions so we sped over to them! There was a male and female lying side by side in the open but far off the track so no wonder we couldn't find them. We had been there watching them for about 3 mins when the male got up and mounted the female. They had a brief - 5 seconds - moment of excursion where he bit her and roared a bit, then he dismounted and they lay down again. Our ranger then told us that this was them mating and they do it every 22 minutes, day and night for 3 weeks while the female is in season - how crazy is that! So if I came back in 7 months time there would be little babies too :) we were so thrilled to have seen the lion in the end and drove back in the moonlight very happy!
Another hot shower and impeccable dinner followed by much needed moisturising of my extremely sunburned skin (again I blame the anti-malarials) and then sleep in my grand mosquito net with a fan!
Drove home through the safari park and through land that was previously impassable because it was Kony's land and crossed the Nile at the beautiful Karuma falls. It was a longer and much dustier drive home (due to no rain) but with stunning scenery to make up for it. Eventually made it home for a cold shower to wash off the layer of orange dust that had collected on my skin and then went out for dinner.
Absolutely knackered after a tiring but thrilling couple of days - what a perfect birthday present!! Now off to Kampala, the capital, for the weekend to do some shopping...
Hugs and kisses xxxxxx
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