Murchison Falls National Park

This weekend we were at Murchison Falls National Park for a vacation in the middle of the trip. We left Kampala on Friday and drove north in four vans. On the way to the park, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch, but we ended up spending four hours there. The service was terrible, but we were able to spend time together and hang out before continuing our journey.

The drive took about six hours total and when we were about an hour away from where we were staying, it started raining. Really hard! Once we arrived at the rest camp, we got out and quickly ducked under a roof so we didn’t get wet. Then we got our room assignments. Emily and I decided we wanted to stay in a safari tent. The tent was on a tarp and under a covering so we didn’t get wet. The tent had two beds in it so we did not have to sleep on the floor. Emily and I had a lot of fun in the tent with the lantern and animal noises. The first night we were in the bathroom and heard warthogs outside the bathroom and got a little scared, but then we looked and the warthogs were just having dinner.

Saturday morning we got up early for a 6:30 game drive. Our vans that we rode in converted into safari vehicles with a popped up roof. We had to take a ferry across the Nile to get to where all the animals were. The game drive was so fun! We saw baboons, elephants, birds, giraffes, and even a leopard in a tree! It was a gorgeous day with the sun shinning and wind blowing; it was so nice I rode on the roof (I don’t know if I was supposed to, but I did anyway!).

Then we went back to camp for lunch and rest time. For lunch I had a really good bacon cheeseburger with fresh pineapple on it! It was delicious! Then Emily and I went back to our tent to take a nap, but it was so hot in the tent, we ended up outside relaxing and hanging out until it was time to go on the boat drive.

The boat drive was on the Nile and we saw a lot of hippos, elephants, water buffaloes, and many birds! The boat ride was relaxing and really fun. Eventually we arrived at Bugagali Falls, which is a waterfall on the Nile that sprays water everywhere. It was very pretty to see from a far!

Today we had breakfast and left camp to begin our drive back to Kampala with a minor detour taking a hike to see Bugagali Falls. Before we even made it to the falls, my van had a flat tire, so another van stopped to help change the tire and we got back on the road towards the falls. Once we got to the falls, we took the short cut so we could get right to the falls. The falls were beautiful! With all the spraying water, there was a very pretty rainbow that went from cliff to cliff! Once we took all the pictures, we continued down the road to Kampala, but my van got another flat tire! So we stopped once again and changed the tired and made it back to Red Chilli without any other problems.

Tomorrow we head to Jinja to see the source of the Nile!