This week has been filled with so much I am not even sure where to begin! I forgot to mention in my last blog the arrival of 2 very important things, If you can recall back to my engagement blog you will remember that I had left my engagement ring at home. Thanks to a family visiting the States last month and my Mother in Law going to meet them I finally have it back!! I forgot how pretty it is 🙂 So exciting!!! The second item, which for those of you that know me can imagine how excited I was when it arrived was my Diet Dr.Pepper! Oh the sweet taste of America never tasted so good!
Does anyone ever experience those little moments where you see yourself becoming more like your Mother or Father? This week I have actually felt like I was becoming my Aunt Carole because our home is turning into the Scoville Zoo! My Aunt and her kids have always loved animals and at any given time it is more likely that there are more animals in the house than people. When we got here the score was: Humans – 2 Animals -1
So we took in black kitten (at least until we can find him a proper home) last month and last week we just found out that one of the families here was returning to DC early for a work opportunity and was trying to find a home for their dog Charlie…. Charlie is a water dog mix who happens to be about 20 times the size of Gumbo…. In fact I think Gumbo might be the size of one of Charlie’s feet. So new score: Humans – 2 Animals – 3
Ok, so we were only outnumbered by 1 at this point, no big deal…. until the gardener came home with 15 baby chicks on Thursday. Final Score: Humans – 2 Animals – 18
So after all of our domestic animal excitement we decided to step it up a notch! Patrick had a colleague in town this week and he had some free time over the weekend so we decided to take him away for the ultimate African weekend! We were also joined by Olivia and Huw. Our journey started on Friday afternoon and we traveled to the Budongo Forest located about 3.5 hours or so from Kampala. I’m sure some of you are aware that Uganda is most famous for their Mountain Gorillas but considering a Gorilla permit will cost you your first and second born children and you must plan way in advance we didnt get to see those… this time! But we did get to go chimp trekking! It still required me to wake up early but this time it was for chimps and not birds so I was a bit more enthusiastic. After walking through the jungle for almost 2 hours the disapointment began to set in that we might not find them. But just as we had given up all hope they began to appear! Pictures cannot even do the experience justice….
After our trek we headed back to the lodge for lunch and then continued our journey to board our river cruise! We saw tons of hippos, a few crocodiles, warthogs and antelopes! I got a little sun but I promised I wouldnt complain because I had refused the sunscreen. This is me simply making a statement and not complaining…. because it doesnt hurt at all and I am proud of my soon to be hopefully tan not sunburnt skin 🙂 We also were able to see the amazing Murchinson Falls!
After our boat ride we headed to our new accomodations, enjoyed a nice dinner and woke up early again… but I put on my favorite sweater and grabbed the scarf before heading off on a game drive at Murchinson Falls National Park.
Here we saw tons of animals to include giraffes, elephants, water buffalo, bushbucks, waterbucks, oribi, hartebeest and lots of other things! Unfortunately Murchinson does not have Zebras and that made me a little sad 😦 No cats this time but we still enjoyed the experience.
Ive grown accustomed to African toilets and sometimes lack of… but I must say I was surprised at how “untouristy” some of our options were on this trip I was even more surprised to find 3 mosquito bites… on my butt. I’ll spare you an actual image just this time!
We ended our trip with a walk up to the top of Murchinson Falls and said our goodbyes…
I would say it was a pretty successful weekend! Tomorrow I will be going with some of the Kids Club crew to purchase the shoes for our Katanga kids! We are hoping to hand them out on Friday!!
Thanks for stopping by!
The Traveling Scarf 