It's a jungle out there

As we rose for a 6.30am breakfast, we were slightly apprehensive to see that the multi tasking waiter was serving us again today. The difference this time was that there was actually some food ready to be served and unlike the jam lined hawaiian pizzas of last night, this food actually looked tasty.

So after a few cups of Ugandan coffee, some super thin Ugandan pancakes and potatoes, we packed up and got ready for another super long drive to the Safari.

7am Kampala traffic is suprisingly navigable and before long we were on the road to Murchison. The first creature that became increasingly visible on this safari drive was the Muzungus.

They had been ultra rare over our last few days in the south west but Muzungus were actually visible now. All with a matching grumpy appearance to their faces and curled lip towards any other creature that was even slightly different to their Muzungu variety of the species. They popped up at every restaurant that looked even slightly westernised and they all had a beige covering with a matching beige hat, ready for the safari that they were heading towards. When you approached them, they seemed shocked and surprised to be talked to and smiled at by another human as they preferred their more native locations of London or New York where eye contact is ill advised and where communication between the Muzungus is only done via screens.
We stopped for lunch at a safari themed diner and the array of local arts and crafts was so hugely tempting that we purchased a few pencils, hats, bags, Ugandan coffe beans and hair clips. There was a range of safari books as well including the tales of a small deer called Dik Dik. Mrs Pitt saw the book and exclaimed 'I love dik diks'. This led to a burst of laughter from Team Uganda that meant that today's Donkey Donut award was being passed on from Genevieve.

At our meal last night, Jamie,Charlie and Tom had compiled all the donkey donut awards from the trip and were even creating top trump cards for everyone on the trip. These will all be revealed at our meal on the final night.
As we left the diner after a suprisingly good meal, we knew were were less than 2 hours from the edge of the park. 2 hours now seems like a 15 minute drive in Cheltenham and so excitement was almost tangible.

The entrance to the Murchison Park was a huge archway that reminded people of Jurassic Park and as we stopped to sign the visitors book, we met a group of students from the UK that had come to Uganda for a month to build a new children's playground.
We headed into the park and within 5 minutes of driving on the main road, we saw our first wild animals; a whole family of Baboons. We stopped for enthusiastic photos and the baboons seemed to get closer and pose for their chance of stardom.
The next troop of baboons had a beautiful little baby baboon that drew almost as much attention as the alpha male of the group who seemed to get quite excited at seeing us. Rather than describe what happened let's just say Jamie exclaimed,
"Mrs Pitt loves dik diks".
The next hour's drive was all inside the National park area and we did not believe that it was possible to get so used to seeing baboons.
It was then as we were crossing the bridge over the Nile that Katie cried out,
"ELEPHANTS!"
Moses knew what he had to do. He pulled to the side and we all spent the next 20 minutes staring and taking pictures of this amazing family of elephants. We watched them drinking, playing and feeding and just sat in awe at how nature has the power to transfix you. Around the elephants we spotted some water buffalo, warthogs and even a hippo in the distance.
This was all before we had even gone on a safari.

We reluctantly carried on driving and before long we arrived at the Paraa Lodge (Fenella won the arrival time sweepstake).
As we walked in, we were greeted by a group of staff who presented us with mango and passion fruit drinks. We walked through the Murchison Lodge (kitted out as if Mr Murchison was still on his adventure of discovery) and walked out to the back of the hotel.

The view is breathtaking and the pupils genuinely turned around to ask if we knew we had booked somewhere this nice!

After dropping our things off in our rooms (and again being stunned by the view of the Nile from our balconies), we made our way down to the pool for a swim and a few drinks at the swim up bar.
We are now sat out having a coffee overlooking the slowly drifting water of the Nile from our room balcony.
It feels dreamlike and slightly surreal but after the last few days in Ibanda; the smiles that these students have put on so many faces and the day in the slum school - they genuinely deserve this treat.
There are still some grumpy looking Mazungus at the safari lodge but we will do everything in our power to make sure that we are not part of that type of Muzungu crowd. And judging by the trucker tan that Jamie has on his arm from having his window open and waving at so many people on our way here, I think it is safe to say that we are going to develop our very own species of mazungus that really could change the world.