Queen Elizabeth and Bwindi

The sunrise the next morning was unreal, you could look at the sun and it wouldn't hurt your eyes!

 Hyena 

A shop in the middle of the park

Birds nest

A shot of the whole tree with all the birds nests

Now to Bwindi, how cool is this picture? It almost looks like islands on water but it really is mountains over the fog.

The next morning we got up early to go gorilla trekking! I had been working at the Smithsonian Zoo with the gorillas and this was part of the main reason we chose Uganda to travel to, to see the gorillas. I have fallen in love with these gentle giants. Did you know that although they are the largest primate they do not eat any meat?

So these are the mountain gorillas, there are only about 800 of them left. As a hint from the name, they live in the mountains. I knew it would be a hard hike to find them but I had no idea it would be as hard as it was. The forest is called the impenetrable forest for a reason. The trees are so close together that you sometimes either have to squeeze through them or crawl under bushes. Our guide was in front with a machete trying to clear somewhat of a path for us. These mountains had a very steep incline and falling while going up or down was inevitable. All around us there was stinging nettle that made you itch like crazy and it stung of course. But having to go through all of that to see the gorillas made it even more worth it to see these amazing animals.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the first gorilla. He was so close to us.

This girl was literally an arms length away from me. 

A silverback, hint to why they are called silverback

My favorite picture of the whole trip

 Although it was the hardest hike either of us have ever been on it was one of the best days of my life!

Kibale

The next morning we woke up early to go chimp trekking. The hike was easy and short. The group we tracked was about 120 but we also saw about 20, all ages and all sizes. It was amazing, we were only about 7 feet away from them!

We were about 7 feet from this guy when he started to get upset, watch the video!! Chimp Charging video (skip to one minute)

Chimp Charging video

I got ants in my pants literally on this hike!

After chimp trekking we were off to Queen Elizabeth Park. We stopped to get our favorite baby sweet bananas.

First time in the southern hemisphere!

At our next hotel our shower was outside and I am pretty sure we could be seen from anywhere!

Mustafas family lives near Queen Elizabeth and we were able to meet them! We met his two year old son Isaac and his wife Lausa. It was so much fun! We love them.

They cut up some jack fruit for us to eat, it was delicious!

Although these two didn't speak the same language they had loads of fun together. 

Lausa and I

Murchison Game Drive 2

We woke up even earlier the next day to make sure we would see some lions. 

Hyena

We had been looking for a bit when our driver Mustafa saw some kob very alert and staring in the same direction. Mustafa pointed out that it was easier to spot the kobs anxiety than it was to see the lions. What a genius! We drove over to where the kob were staring and sure enough we found three lions. They were only about 20 feet from our car, it was spectacular! They were chewing on some kob.

This is the older male of the two and you can see that he has a missing leg, Mustafa told us that he got caught in a snare and had to have his leg removed so he could live. He told us that the other lions in his pride do the hunting for him and share the food with him. What amazing animals.

The younger male

Giraffe

we saw lots of homes like this in the villages

More dirty face from sitting in the back of the car with the windows down

After our game drive we headed to Kibale where we stayed in these awesome tents in the jungle. I can't tell you how awesome it is to go to sleep to the sound of monkeys and other animals.  We also woke up to hot chocolate outside our door; it was paradise.

The next morning we left early to go chimp trekking (and one chimp came awfully close to Nathan and me)!

First Game Drive in Murchison Falls

The next day we had our first real game drive. We left early hoping to see some lions. While on our drive we saw this little oribi in the middle of the road thinking he would run as we got closer, but he stood his ground and we noticed he wasn't moving because he was going to the bathroom. I think we scared the pee out of him.

Giraffe

Hartebeest

Kob

Our guide, Mustafa (who is the funniest and kindest Ugandan around) is known as the Lion Man. He works with the tree climbing lions in Ishasha. He saw this footprint and hoped it would lead us to the lions We didn't find the lions today, but we did the next day!

This elephant was pretty close to us

A hippo and I

Hippos and egrets

Nathan and our car

African Fish Eagle

More giraffes, there were about 30 in this group!

 This guy was right next to the road

 We took a little boat cruise on the Nile and saw a herd of about 45 elephants

Crocodile 

This big guy was outside the window of our hotel room

Our room

It was a very successful game drive, but tomorrow we see the lions!