While on safari we saw elephant of all shapes and sizes (from a HUGE grandpa to a little baby!), lots of Uganda Kob, Waterbuck, Olive baboon, red tailed monkey, African Water Buffalo, Hartebeest, Banded Mongoose (no pictures), warthog, hippos, and the last evening we almost ran over a bush pig! We might have seen Impala when we were passing by Lake Mburo Nat. Park and I think that I saw a dead zebra alongside the road.
The kids got to get out of their car seats while we were on the smaller murram roads in the park, which they thought was pretty cool. One kid would sit up front between the driver and the passenger seat (Frankie only tipped over backwards once!) and the other kid would hang their head out the window, much like Bridger or Sanyu (only the kids kept their tongues in thankfully). The last evening I let Ella sit out the window with me, which she loved.
Warthog
African Buffalo
Waterbuck (doe)
An Ella and a Tanya
Hartebeasts
Little Uganda kob
A hippo track! They're huge!
She reminds me so much of Bridger and Sanyu :)
While traversing down a small two lane pair of ruts (for free!), we found that it led to a small fishing village and landing right at Lake Edward-Lake George channel. This wasn’t exactly a tourist spot but we got a tour of the place just the same, by a friendly fisherman. Not only was this place home to a bunch of water buffalo, but HIPPO as well!
Waterbuck (buck)
Ella loved riding up here, despite our scary expressions. Maybe we were looking for poachers?
Fweinds :)
I had never realized before at what BIG poop elephants leave! But, where there is fresh poop there is usually an....
ELEPHANT!!!
These two big dudes were right along the two track road to the fishing village that we were on
Then they decided to cross the road in front of us!!
This was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. This guy was seriously almost right on top of us! He was calm and we were calm buy let me tell you, my foot was hovering over the gas pedal lest he make any weird moves! They were SO CLOSE!
Such an amazing picture that Tanya got. I never knew how wrinkling elephants were!
A family of buffalo
Elephants in the distance!
And here's the gang looking at them :)
Yes, that's a mama and BABY elephant! Frankie SO wanted to see a baby elephant!
Uganda Kob
The road to Ishasha and Congo
Liz, riding high on the safari vehicle
Tanya spelled me for a while :)
Frankie looking at some elephants
Fun!! I love hanging out a window.Our second day we went to Maramagambo Forest and took a three hour hike around a crater lake and to a bat cave. The rangers were a bit skeptical of the wee one's hiking abilities at first, only because they hadn't been riding in a car for two days straight with them! We knew that the kids were ready to run:) And run and hike they did, all in thier little plastic crocs ;).
The guide/ranger was great with the kids and boy did they love his gun (little Montanans that they are)!
Tanya playing tourist in her tourist grandma hat
Again, the man with the gun is your friend and may be willing to give you a lift now and then!There was quite a bit of jealousy among the other hikers over our plastic hiking shoes. Like I can help it that they didn't plan well before hand and purchase plastic hiking shoes? Geesh!
Met up with some really big trees
A certain someone scorned our plastic hiking shoes, however when we had to forge a small stream the wearers of plastic shoes were able to stride right through it!
The hikers reach the bat cave - note the looks of absolute delight on their faces
Sadly, this was the only lion that we saw the whole trip and has Liz pointed out, it looked like it was suffering from a bad case of mange!
They had a very nice interactive little model of the park and all of the different things on it, which the touring tourist enjoyed.
There were even buttons to push which lightened up different parts of the display!
A warthog skull that Liz and I remodeled. We won't mention what Tanya was doing during the reconstruction session. It involved hunting for large bush...
Warthog Skull
Warthog jawbone
Mighty muscle man wrestling with the jawbone of a warthog. Take THAT Samson! No jawbones of an ass for my little Frankie!I was so proud of the kids for doing so well bouncing around in the car for four days, missing naps, going to bed late, and filling their chops on junk food the entire time! Amazingly, both children survived the trip without any major meltdowns! Of course they probably new that we'd just use them as lion bait were they to act up any ;)
And by all means, when you're on safari, don't forget to engage your 4x4!!!! Toyota Corona's go where others fear to trod...