Finally

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Yeah! No early wake-up needed this morning.  Breakfast was going to be served at 8.15 in the apartment of Wendy and Martine.  We especially requested this, as the view from their terrace was A-MA-ZING.  We all were very relaxed but unfortunately some of us where very tired, after a party-all-night-long….  It were not my colleagues who had been having fun all night, but the neighbors…  Music only stopped early morning.   I am lucky I am a good sleeper, so I had a very good night after a busy day yesterday.

Before we left for Queen Elisabeth National Park, we stopped at the house of Tony, a mentor where Martine worked with when she was in Uganda in 2016.  He showed his house,  which he is very proud of.  He built it himself and is still working a lot on it.  Also his little boy was excited to meet “white” people.  Martine left some childrens’ clothes as Tony has several children.  He and his family were victim of a burglary some time ago, so extra items where very much welcome.    It gave Martine a warm feeling, getting more insight in the life of the mentor she has regular contact with.  Tony will be attending the Summit next week, so looking forward meeting him again.

And then we took off for Queen Elisabeth National Park (QENP).  I was so excited because there was a possibility I was going to see my first elephant in the wild.  For those who know me better or longer might recall I collected elephants when I was very young (yes, long time ago 😊).  All kinds and sizes of elephants were decorating my parents’ apartment and my room. 

It was a long route to QENP, with a lot of potholes.  How these brought back memories of my trip last year.  The journey gave me some time to reflect.  Some time to think about this opportunity I got but also took – being in a wonderful country with beautiful people and nature.   Time to think about my family and how grateful I am having 3 wonderful boys, all of them growing up to be fine young men.  Time to think about my relationship.  Missing my partner beside me when going through all these once-in-a-lifetime experiences.  Wanting to share every moment, every minute of this adventure and realizing this is not possible.  Knowing that all you experience here, cannot be told in words or pictures.    In my thoughts, I was with my dear friend, who’s father-in-law passed away last Monday.  Wanted to be at her side during these last days, and especially today.  Thank God we have mobile phones who work also in Uganda.  Grateful we were able to be in close contact and still will be the next coming days. 

Some kilometers before the entrance of QENP, we stopped by the Ugandan Equator.  And since we are on the road with scientists, we had “the” experiment….  If you pour water in a recipient, in wat direction does the water turn?  Is there a difference on the Northern or Southern side of the Equator?  Some of us are convinced the experiment was a success, but I still have my doubts 😊  Anyway, it was fun to prepare this experiment still at the hotel and to look forward to the arrival at the Equator.  We were there with a mission 😊 and not only for some nice pictures. 

Upon arrival at the visitor’s center of QENP, we were welcomed by Fiona.  She is the lady with whom I was in close contact for the reservations of the lodges, boat trip, game drive, ….  She is such a nice lady and took care of everything.   As usual, Wendy did her job (she is promoted to the financial mgr of our group) and paid for the entrance. 

Ibs drove us in the park and we started looking for animals, but not really convinced we would see something already.  I thought that would be for tomorrow, during the morning game drive.  Initially we only saw some nice birds and we drove deeper into the park.  And then…… I sshouted “an elephant, Ibs, an elephant, Ibs, stop the car!”.  The others had not seen it yet, but I had seen his “big but”.  Ibs put the car in reverse and drove a bit backwards.  And there it was….  My wish came true.  My first elephant in the wild…  So impressed by its beauty and by its posture.  The elephant was rather at a distance, but hey, I was happy.  Mission accomplished…  All the other animals I might see during this trip, are a bonus.  And so we drove further. 

And is it because my colleagues did not want to see him, but after some time, it was me again who saw the next elephant.  I was promoted to be the elephant tracker of the group 😊.  And of course, same photoshoot for this one…

Because we were getting hungry, Ibs wanted to bring us to the lodge to check-in.  He could not have known, that after some minutes of driving, a whole family of elephants was having lunch close to the road.  And a family, with little elephants included, means taking a lot of pictures.  Do I need to tell you about the “ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohs” and the “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahs” again?  This time, these were said in silence, but one cannot not be surprised being this close to these massive creatures of nature.  When the family decided to cross the street, the little ones turned out to be so cute…  And the older ones to be very protective. 

We drove to the UWA-lodges, a very basic place to stay.  We have a bed, shower and toilet, so that is more or less all that you need when being on Safari.  We were welcomed by a bunch of warthogs (Pumba from the Lion King), grazing everywhere we could see. 

We had lunch at the UWA-restaurant, with a view on the lake, accompanied again by ….  Warthogs.  These animals are so ugly, they turn out to be cuuuuuuute.  It was obvious Wendy is a big fan of these animals.  Pictures were taken again and again and again.  By the time our lunch was served, it was already 4 pm.  But hey, we are on holiday, so no stress.  After check-in and installing in our room, we decided to go the the Mweya-lodge.  This lodge is located within walking-distance from ours, so some “exercise” after a trip in the car felt good.  This evening, we were going to meet Kathleen, Hilde and Paul, some other colleagues from Janssen.  They will also attend the Leadership Summit, but traveled to Uganda one day later than us.  It was nice to see them and to have dinner together.  They wanted to know more about the chimp tracking but we did not want to tell too much details, as they will be visiting them on Monday.

After a very nice dinner, we returned to the UWA-lodge.  Since Ibs had the car parked in front of the Mweya lodge, we drove to the UWA lodges.  We were informed we could expect hippo’s to spend the night around the lodges.  They come and drink water.  But when we turned around the bush to our lodge, all I could say was: 

“Oooohhhhh….. my…… God…..”.    There they were – a family of elephants – standing in the middle of the square in front of our lodge.  The male elephant was scraping his head against the tree and the rest of the family was grazing peacefully.

What do you do at that moment?  You stay in the car and wait…  Since it was clear they had no plans to move, Ibs drove very carefully along the elephants.  And when we wanted to get out of the car, we noticed hippo’s and waterbucks…  All these animals in front of our lodges… 

Can you imagine how excited we all were?  Some were afraid, other weren’t but all of us felt privileged to be part of this wonderful event.

And this is how we got to bed, excited but also very tired after again a beautiful day.

Good night and write you tomorrow!

Heidi