So, as I headed back to the lovely Paraa Safari Lodge for oil dialogue number 2, I was distracted. We were supposed to leave Gulu at 2pm, but in addition to work distractions, there were the inevitable life distractions. I suppose it’s probably not that different from suburban living in the US, at least as I imagine it. I’m quite settled in Gulu. I know a lot of people in the community and am very involved in the daily hustle and bustle. This first dawned on me one evening after I got back from Christmas break in the US. I was walking my dog on our usual loop and a woman weeding her potato patch looked up and said, “welcome back,” even though we had never spoken before.
On the way out of town, I stopped at the Café for a quick drop off of bread and found Stephen, our 16 year old bus boy/manager semi-coherent and quite feverish. We piled him in the car and went to the clinic for malaria treatment. Of course the malaria test came back negative. It’s always negative, but with a 103 temp, headache and all the other hallmarks, they started him on treatment anyway. Once assured that Stephen would survive, we finally left Gulu. I tucked into my computer, bringing my head up briefly as we broke off from the tarmac road and entered the dirt road that led to the park. Before I had time to finish sifting through all of my offline email, I found myself suddenly approaching the Lodge. It felt like the quickest trip from Gulu. I’m sure it took the normal three hours, but on other occasions the trip felt longer, because my nose is usually pressed to the window spying for elephants, giraffes and maybe, just maybe, the wayward lion. I walked into the majestic, faux colonial hallways traipsed with dark mahogany pillars and superfluous colonial gear such as pith helmets and ornate looking glasses. As the view of the Nile appeared from the Lodge’s porch, I started to remember how freaking awesome this place is.
The oil meeting went well. My boss from DC arrived at noon. We’re excited for his visit. We have a lot to show him. The oil company gave another slick presentation. FYI, Uganda has a lot of oil. An estimated 2 billion barrels has recently been discovered. Ye-gads, I can only imagine the challenges ahead.
The first night I had a wee bout of food poisoning (not cypro level, but definitely immodium level). My boss and Hayden were getting up for the 6am game drive, but I thought that I would skip it to rest up and attend the last day of meetings. Besides, I just did the game drive two weeks ago with Samson and Babu. It’s cool and all, but how many giraffe shots can one take?
There is, however, a tugging allure about game drives. They’re addictive. During a drive, which is 85% uneventful, you’re always thinking that around the next bend you might strike safari gold and see an elephant wrestling a hippo while a giraffe is giving birth. So I decided to go…just in case. We were already far away from the lodge as the sun rose to full daylight. We saw lots and lots of giraffes. It turns out you can’t get enough giraffe shots. They’re just so cool. They run in slow motion! We asked our guide Dennis, who has worked in park for 14 years, to find us elephants and lions. He gave a coy remark that made me think, ugh, I should have stayed in bed. We drove and drove and saw not much other than the usual smattering of antelope.
But then unexpected treasures began to appear. We went off road to look for lions. No such luck. But we did spot two Ugandan crested cranes, the beautiful national bird. In three years here I had never seen one. A few minutes later Dennis spotted a leopard in a tree. I can’t find the words to describe this moment. Extraordinary? Surreal? Yes and yes.
After watching the leopards, we were satisfied. Anything else would be a bonus. And bonuses there were. Every kilometer or so a new gaggle of giraffes posed for us like something straight out of National Geographic. And then…the biggest prize of all, the king of the jungle himself appeared. When you see a lion in Murchison it’s sort of like crossing the finish line or hitting a home run. You exhale massively, with your arms shaking up in the air over your head in triumph while making (muted) whoops of joy. We found a male and female literally in the middle of the road and they were doing IT. I got some good lion porn video! So cool. We even got a shot of the lions with a giraffe in the background. It was a lion king moment.
As we raced back to catch the final session of our meeting, (yes, we ditched a little…but only a little!) we clapped each other on the back and assured one another that we were not that late and that we’d catch the elephants on the way out of the park. Just as we approached the lodge, a bit in the distance, we spotted a group of elephants. And scene.
So yeah, safaris are not boring at all. They rock and I’m a lucky ducky!
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