After our teacher training module finished (on Karl’s birthday) we set out for a few days of rest and relaxation to celebrate… and to give Rayleen (our Canadian visiting teacher) a chance to see more of the beauty of Uganda. We spent one night at Lake Mburo National Park where we went on a horseback safari and then travelled on to Queen Elizabeth National Park. We really enjoy Lake Mburo, as it is so close to the Timothy Centre so is not a long, arduous journey, and it is small and relatively quiet . It is brimming with wildlife (zebra, eland, topi, waterbuck, bushbuck, Cape buffalo, monkeys, baboons, impala, wart hogs, all sorts of birds….and is a good place to spot leopards). This time we decided to enjoy the wildlife on horseback, as one of the lodges there has stables and takes visitors on safari to get close up views of the animals. It seems that the animals, especially the zebras, find the horses very non-threatening and so it is easy to feel ‘one’ with them as they graze nonchalantly and calmly with the horses around.
The park also offers night safaris, with a guide who comes along in the vehicle with a large spotlight. In the past, we have seen leopard on the night safari but they seemed to be hiding this time. However, we saw the nocturnal bush baby (smallest primate), and the white tailed mongoose along, along with the animals normally spotted in the daytime.
In the morning, while we were having breakfast in front of our tented camp, one of the vervet monkeys that like to hang out and cause mischief nearly ran off with my purse. One always has to be watchful when camping in a game park!
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