The first stop on our two-day budget safari adventure last weekend was the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary where we trekked endangered white rhinos on foot for a couple hours. Really the rhinos trekked us. Upon setting out, we immediately stumbled upon a group of 4 rhinos, which is really rare because they are solitary animals. They kept lumbering closer and closer to us as they grazed, so our ranger was constantly having us backpedal and swerve behind bushes. Rhinos are supposedly really dumb, and if they charge you're just supposed to stand behind a tree and they will soon forget about you. Next, we found a mother rhino and her baby, who was making whining calls. We watched as the huge mother lay down and let the baby breastfeed. The white rhinos had been extinct since 1983 in Uganda after civil wars. The sanctuary was started by rhinos brought from other countries. The first calf born in Uganda had a father from Kenya and a mother from Disney Animal Kingdom--so he was named Obama!
The majority of the weekend w
as spent several hours northwest of Kampala
in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda's largest national park at 1500 square miles bisected by the Nile. We saw the most powerful waterfall in the world and where we went on a six-hour game drive starting before dawn. We saw elephants, hyenas, baboons (so human-like), Patas monkeys, buffaloes, bushbucks, warthogs, a crocodile, thousands of kob (East African antelope),
vultures, and an eagle all right next to the off-roading van (walking around in the park was prohibited). We also saw a leopard and some hippos in the distance. The best moment was finally spotting a couple giraffes, but then more and more raised their heads and we realized we were surrounded by about thirty. We stayed the night for $6 inside the park and got about that value. We did a lot of mosquito net patching with duct tape and ate the ramen we brought to avoid buying expensive park food.
The first stop on our two-day budget safari adventure last weekend was the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary where we trekked endangered white rhinos on foot for a couple hours. Really the rhinos trekked us. Upon setting out, we immediately stumbled upon a group of 4 rhinos, which is really rare because they are solitary animals. They kept lumbering closer and closer to us as they grazed, so our ranger was constantly having us backpedal and swerve behind bushes. Rhinos are supposedly really dumb, and if they charge you're just supposed to stand behind a tree and they will soon forget about you. Next, we found a mother rhino and her baby, who was making whining calls. We watched as the huge mother lay down and let the baby breastfeed. The white rhinos had been extinct since 1983 in Uganda after civil wars. The sanctuary was started by rhinos brought from other countries. The first calf born in Uganda had a father from Kenya and a mother from Disney Animal Kingdom--so he was named Obama!
The majority of the weekend was spent several hours northwest of Kampala in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda's largest national park at 1500 square miles bisected by the Nile. We saw the most powerful waterfall in the world and where we went on a six-hour game drive starting before dawn. We saw elephants, hyenas, baboons (so human-like), Patas monkeys, buffaloes, bushbucks, warthogs, a crocodile, thousands of kob (East African antelope), vultures, and an eagle all right next to the off-roading van (walking around in the park was prohibited). We also saw a leopard and some hippos in the distance. The best moment was finally spotting a couple giraffes, but then more and more raised their heads and we realized we were surrounded by about thirty. We stayed the night for $6 inside the park and got about that value. We did a lot of mosquito net patching with duct tape and ate the ramen we brought to avoid buying expensive park food.
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