Mweya Hostel Queen Elizabeth National Park

... to nearly 100% by now and both very hungry which was a good sign and I was just about ready for a cold beer
in the campsite bar, before another fairly early night as it was another 6am breakfast and Luc was on duty so had to start
the toast at 5.40am ha ha!, but that left me to pack up and take the tent down on my own, boo!
Sat 14th
Long long drive today as there has been some heavy rain ...

... to get a little intoxicated. A few hours into the night, she was really drunk and a totally different person which was kind of funny in a way. She was even talking about the whole night about "needing a man." For Mr. Bad man, he could of. But no one was like that and she was put to sleep soon after. It was a good night. I woke up cursing my alarm clock not because I was hungover, but ...

... to see, especially after that of nothingness. There was even a little baby elephant which was pretty cute to see. Finally the elephants crossed the road in front of us and then disappeared into the bushes. I think the whole truck was pleased with what they saw. Again, seeing animals in the zoo is no way near the same as seeing them in the wild. Followed by the game drive, we found our camp and set our tents up because it was mid-day and we wanted to ...

Our stop in Queen Elizabeth National Park was at the Kazinga channel connecting Lake Edward to Lake George (good local names, those...) Apparently it has the highest density of hippos anywhere in the world, but not one of the buggers would provide a good picture by ...

... mining operation which was featured in a recent issue of National Geographic. It was fascinating to learn about this very dangerous occupation, which people can only do a maximum of three days a week, and to see the entire process.

We move to the mountains tomorrow. One day closer to our first opportunity to see the Silverback Mountain Gorillas! (And no doubt farther from our next opportunity to use the internet!)

... spotted 2 male lions in the distance through his binoculars and we made our way towards them as quietly as we could. The best part about this find was that the males were communicating with each other by roaring and Paul said that this was almost unheard of for humans to hear this in the wild. The find was amazing and the fact that the lions were so close to us within 5m was awesome. We watched them for a little ...

Following another early start this morning with breakfast at 6.30am, we had chance to take a few last minute photos before we were on the road again for a very long drive to Mweya.

Our first stop was at a tea plantation to buy some of the locally Bwindi produced mountain tea and then onwards for another open top game drive through the QEII National Park where we saw lots of bird life, elephants, warthog, kob (the symbol of the Ugandan national park) and zebra. The ...

... slowly made our way across the national park. One of the first sightings was probably also the best that day. We came across a large group of elephants walking towards the lake and crossing the road just behind us. A second there it looked like they were coming straight at us. We had of course stopped the truck so we could watch these massive creatures make their way towards the lake ...

... of the Moon', although on a clear day you can spot the snowcaps from the park. There are two bases for touring the park: Mweya Lodge in the north, and Ishasha River Camp in the south. We limited ourselves to the northern part. Animals found in the Queen Elizabeth National Park include hippos, lions, elephants, buffalo, Uganda kob, waterbuck, bushbuck, topi, warthog, hyenas, mongoose, red-tailed monkey, black and white colobus, vervet monkey, baboon and chimpanzee.

... to only flip our raft twice and lose 2 people during another rapid otherwise we managed to all stay in and hold on....We heard those words alot and we held on for dear life in some parts. It was great fun and no it wasn't raining...not until we got back. We did some volunteer work at a primary school close by in Jinja and helped paint the outside of a school. It was a long day as most of us had hangovers from the night before but it ...