Uganda

We left Nakuru on Tuesday morning and headed to Jinja, Uganda. It was an 8 hour bus ride with Kampala Coach and this is what i learned about buses in Africa:

1. They are very aggressive drivers...but they can only reach certain speeds because there is a gigantic pothole or speed bump every hundred meters.
   
2. You better love Usher because they played about 6 of his music videos over and over again.
   
3. No matter what it is, music videos or CD's, expect it to be played about 5 times in a row. By the end of that, you basically have learned the native language and can sing along.
   
4. There is a good mixture of music. Christian music is a lot better over here, even if they do play it over and over again. I guess its a lot like Praise 106.5 (Man i miss that stuff).
5. The buses are usually the biggest vehicles on the road, so if they want to use your lane, you better get out of the way.
   
6. We were blessed though because we had ample leg room

That was my bus experience. It was a good one. Hopefully our bus ride tomorrow morning is as memorable.

When we got to Jinja, we walked around, found a place to stay and rested up...because the next day we were going rafting on the Nile. The rafting was amazing. We hit class 4 and 5 rapids. Our group was sweet. Everyone wanted to hit all the big ones. We even hit a few that most groups miss because the paddling is too much. It was great. We got flipped twice, one of them our guide did on purpose we later found out. Haha. So much fun. The great thing was, we didn't run into any crocs. I guess we are too skinny these days for them to even consider.

After that we stayed at the campsite down the river. We went swimming in the Nile the next day. The currents are pretty strong, so we definitely had to be careful. Nick might tell you a story about that one day. Last night the rafting company gave us a free ride to Kampala, and that is where we currently are.

We leave tomorrow to go to Lake Bunyani. Its suppose to be unreal. We'll stay there for a few nights and then onto Rwanda to trek Mountain Gorillas.

God bless you all,

Love and Peace

Give me a S-A-F-A-R-I

On Sunday we decided that we wanted to go to the Maasai Mara for a safari. We were hoping to catch the wildabeast migration. So we called our friend Terri who said she had a friend who worked for a safari company. She called him and he gave us a pretty expensive price, so we decided to call this guy that approached us at the airport. We were a little skeptical about this guy because they usually prey on tourists, but we went with his company, Big Time Safaris. They picked us up monday morning and we headed off on the 4 hour journey to the game reserve. They had sweet trucks, which allowed us to stand up in them to see different animals. We got there and they put us in these sweet huts. Then we were out on our first trip to the game park. We saw thousands of animals. Lions, elephants, giraffes, zebra, gazelle, rhino, crocodiles, and hippos. Our driver, Joseph was awesome. He took us off the path a few times, literally 8 feet away from lions. On tuesday we were in the park all day checking out different animals. We ended up seeing a rhino at the very end of the day. The crazy thing is, there are only 5 of them in the park and they mostly never get seen. The only animal to allude us was the leopard, but we did see one of his kills in a tree. Overall, it was an amazing experience. The food was great and the people were amazing. What a great blessing.

Jumping with the Maasai Warriors.

Yesterday we hopped into this tiny truck with a friend of a friend, and he drove us to Nakuru, where Nick's parents have some family friends. There are families that live in this 20 acre compound and its beautiful. They are really nice and have provided us with a nice place to stay for a few days.

From here we plan on heading to Uganda to climb Mt.Elgon. Should be interesting.

Another crazy thing is the last 2 days it has been raining. Kenya was experiencing extreme drought and hopefully this rain allows for people to grow some good crops.

Thanks for all the responses.

Africa

Update time....

Lots has happened since the last post. First of all, after touring London all day, Nick and I came back to our hostel and our bags we not where we put them, so we went looking around. we found nicks bag with a slit in the top section. Someone clearly knifed his bag. Mine bag was gone altogether. We talked to the hostel people and they looked at the cameras and clearly saw a guy slit nicks bag and then pick mine up and leave. The police couldn't do anything, so i had nothing except what was on me. I was pretty mad...so i had to buy everything new again, lucky jarrett's friend tim was there to help us find stores. Tim is the MAN. My DAD is also the man because he gave me a bunch of his clothes later that night when we met them at their hotel. Thanks Dad. It was nice to see my parents before we took off to Kenya.

The bag being stolen has been a blessing in diguise because it has allowed me to spend lots of time reading the bible and praying. I know God is going to do some crazy things on this trip.

We got to nairobi, kenya at like 230 in the morning. i had contacted someone my Dad knew here and they were going to meet us at the airport. After waiting an hour, i called Bella and Richard. They came and got us. They have been the most amazing hosts. Provided us with rides everywhere, food and a place to stay. We have gone to a bunch of malls to pick things up, went out to eat alot, went to see some animals, and just seeing Nairobi as much as possible.

We are kind of just catching up with sleep and just getting used to this culture and lifestyle. Nairobi is crazy. The drivers are nuts...but Richard rules the road, so we are good to go. At 5:00 the roads are crazy with cars and thousands of people walking alongside the road. Its been a great experience so far. Looks like we will be heading out of the city on saturday and we will visit a Maasai village there.

I wish i could put some pics on here...when i have more time I will try.

I also want to say hello to my beautiful new neice Illyana. Congrats Joel and Tanesha.