Safari Adventures: Postcards in words (pics to follow)

Postcard 1: MUD, TRUCKS, MOUNTAIN ROCK WALL ON ONE SIDE AND STEEP RAVINE ON THE OTHER. Our Safari Adventure almost ended within the first hour when we met vehicles which had turned back from the mountain pass that our road follows, telling us that the road was completely blocked by 15 trucks stuck in the mud. There is only one road. Pretty discouraging when you've spent weeks anticipating the break, spent hours loading the truck and closing up the house and tying up work's loose ends . . . We decided to press on and investigate for ourselves. Just before we reached the trouble spot we began to meet some trucks coming our way, and our hopes rose. Indeed God opened the road for us in the nick of time. We sloshed through knee deep ruts of mud and narrowly scraped between the remaining handful of trucks and the treacherous drop-offs . . . But we made it! Postcard 2: SUNSET ON THE SAVANNAH, 5 TENTS, CHRSTMAS TABLE CLOTHS OVER TRUNKS, GRILLED CHICKEN AND VEGETABLES, 12 HAPPY CAMPERS Due to the unseasonable rain and terrible roads, we turned back from our original plan to camp in Ishasha (southern Queen Elizabeth National Park) and went back to our favorite place, campsite 2. A friend had assured us that villagers had poisoned almost all the lions in the area and it was a crisis to be sure some survived . . So we decided it was safer than usual to camp out in the park. Since we had the Pierce family, Scott Ickes, and Carol Logan on their first-ever game park campout, we wanted to be SAFE. This site sits on a ridge above the Kazinga Channel, with nothing but acacia bush, cactus, and wild animals for miles in any direction. As the sun set we sat around our campfire listening to the snorts of hippos down by the water and the trill of nightjars, watching the stars come out in the spectacular spread one can only see on the equator far from any lights, reading aloud "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." Bliss. Postcard 3: SAME SETTING, 5am, MOONLIGHT and FIRELIGHT and CAMPERS NOT VISIBLE, SHAKING IN THEIR TENTS Well, as soon as the sun set we began to suspect that our lion-poisoning tip was a bit off. We heard one roar in the distance, and another answer from a different direction, all far off. Hmmm. We kept the fire going. At 5 am we were all awakened by a thunderous roar...the authoritative and indisputable call of a male lion. Our book said it can be heard for five miles. How far away...well we knew it was closer than five miles. We laid low. At 6am we decided it was close enough to dawn to all pile in the truck and see what we could see, since we certainly weren't sleeping. We pulled out of our campsite road and turned onto the game track and there he lay, the biggest male lion, brown fury mane, stretched completely across the road. It was about 150 yards from our tents. He paid us no attention, simply lay in the glare of our headlights for a while, then stood up majestically to stretch and saunter off into the bush. Wow. Postcard 4: WALKING THROUGH A GAME-FILLED VALLEY IN THE EVENING WHILE ZEBRAS GRAZE AND WARTHOGS SCURRY From QENP we moved on to the more peaceful Lake Mburo Park: no lions, lots of impala and other graceful herbivores. Again we camped by a lake far from any humans. The first evening a game ranger (armed) took us on a walking safari--how amazing to follow the animal trails and be ground-level with the game. On the way we startled a whole herd of impala and laughed at the way they sprang straight up into the air in their alarmed fleeing. We caught glimpses of the elusive eland, shy bushbuck, and the scurrying dwarf mongoose. POSTCARD 5: THE BIG RED MYHRE TRUCK AND THE SOLID PIERCE VAN BUSHWACKING THROUGH THORNY FOREST LOOKING FOR A ROAD. As we left Lake Mburo Park, we wanted to take a wide circuit that traverses the park, picnic at a kopje (rochy outcrop) on the far side, and then hit the road to Kampala. So for a couple of hours we sat on the roof racks, spotting game, enjoying the breeze, following the track. But then the track seemed to end . . . We scrambled down, searched the dust for tire tracks in every direction. After a couple of false leads we determined that whoever's tracks we were following did the same thing we did and turned back. Very sad when you're hours into a circuit and then have to retrace your steps, it's very hot, limited drinking water, tired campers . . . As we were returning we caught sight of two spectacular crested cranes. Scott stopped the truck to take a photo. As he was focusing I looked beyond them . . . There was the track!!! It had made a sharp U turn in a grassy area and we had missed it the first time. So we resumed our journey, enjoyed out picnic, and survived! We are very grateful for the memorable trip, refreshing glimpses of wild beauty, fellowship of team mates, late night campfire talks and sticky marshmellows.