Safari - Wednesday

We got to sleep until our 9am breakfast. I got almost 11 hours of sleep last night. That is more than I got in the last two night combined! Breakfast was wonderful. Our first course was assorted fruits, then we got a plate with toast and Spanish omelets. I am growing to love African tea, with raw sugar crystals and milk. after breakfast we showered and hung out. We played this awesome dice game called "Farkle" with about 10 people. It was really cool getting to know Aryn more, and nice that she wanted to play a game with us. For lunch I got "spaghetti", which was noodles with a meat sauce.. It was pretty good, but not what I was expecting.

Aryn told a really cute story that I wanted to share. Here's a little background so that you can appreciate what she told us. There is a tribe in Africa called the Massai. They actually believe that every single cow in the world was given to their tribe and therefore belongs to them (which is why they often steal cattle from their neighbors). In the newspaper Aryn read that after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, the Massai saw a newspaper about the tragedy and heard about how many people died. They wanted to do something to help the families and so they raised the money to sent a heard of their cattle to the United States! How cool and amazing is that! Its a story of the generosity of the people here.

At 2pm we all got on our bus and drove to our boat ride. On the way we saw elephants! I was so excited!! We also saw a salt lake where animals go to bathe when they get hurt to clean the wound. The lake was in the valley next to the mountains. Picture the "Circle of Life" opening to The Lion King and you will understand how incredible the views were. We got to Lake Edward (clearly named by British colonizers) and loaded into boats with balcony roofs. We boated around the Lake for two hours. We saw tons of hippopotamuses, water buffalo, alligators, ELEPHANTS and birds. It was really really cool. We also boated past a village with Ugandans waving at us from the shore and then getting into their long canoes and paddling off into the picturesque sunset.

One very cool thing that I learned today was about the "Weaver Bird". These birds mate for life. The male bird skillfully crafts a nest that hangs from the trees. When he is finished the female inspects it. If she doesn't like it, the guy has to build another one again from scratch. Once the female is satisfied, the two mate. These birds mate for life and remain in the same 1km around their nest. If one dies, the other does not find a new mate. I think that this species of bird is incredibly sweet, and human men might like follow their example. ;)

After the water tour, we got on the bus and drove to Queen Elizabeth park. We got our Ugandan tour guide, Moses, and headed out down the dirt road. We talked about how we might not see any lions, but we would all keep a look out for them. Within ten minutes, we pulled up beside THREE lions laying in the grass! They were maybe thirty feet away from us. We were absolutely amazed and took a lot of pictures. Everyone got really excited, and I felt so blessed to be able to behold a real lion in its natural habitat! We eventually kept driving and then stopped to take pictures of cobs (look like gazelles) grazing and mating. We also saw wildebeest, water buffalo, and warthogs. The mountains next to us were huge. They are the tallest in Uganda. It took my breath away to see the Savannah turn into towering mountains. On our drive back to the resort we saw a herd of elephants and took more pictures.

I can actually say that today was the most amazing day of my life. I saw some of the coolest animals in the world. Ten minutes didn't go by without me seeing something new and amazing. I wanted so badly to be sharing the experience with my friends and family at home. Completely and utterly breathtaking. I had that worship song stuck in my head that goes "You make everything glorious", because God did!

Back at the resort we had a delicious dinner of pepper steak, rice, gravy and chipotte. I couldn't stop gushing to everyone about how much fun i had, and they agreed. It definitely goes on a list of the coolest things I will ever do in my life.

Now it is 10 and we are in bed. We have to be on the bus at 6am for a morning safari to watch the sunrise!