lions, and tigers, and bears (OH MY!)

On Tuesday (april, 24), the group (Brenda, Irene, Rebecca, Richard, Joel, and I) went to the zoo! We were planning on going to this amusement park at first, but it happened to be closed that exact day! So, Joel had the idea of going to the zoo… and let me tell you, AFRICAN ZOO’S ARE MUCH MORE EXCITING THAN AMERICAN ONES! Hahaha, in fact at first when he said that, I was like…….. uuugh.. This is going to be boring. I was wrong. It proved to be one of the most exciting days I’ve had in Africa yet!

First of all, it started raining as we rode the taxi all the way to Entebbe; we got off the taxi and had to walk a ways down to the actual zoo (and it was still raining). I was in a strange mood that morning, because I had some sort of allergy attack, and the result was a very itchy face, so I took allergy medicine (aka DROWSY DROPLETS), which did help a little bit… or at least I thought it did because I was too distracted by my sleepiness. When your so drowsy like that, and having to move from place to place, it gets exhausting really fast… and I was moody: P we walked and walked (it was just us girls at first. the boys were to meet us later on), and finally reached the zoo… but as we were entering, we were not INFORMED that there were free-range monkey’s that are attracted to grocery bags (we brought our own food), and they will do anything for food. At first we pointed and commented on how cute they were as they peered at us through the tree’s, little did we know that they were planning they’re attack method. HAHAHA. Brenda is a fearful person; things easily scare her… so she was the only one that was on the defensive side as we walked by the monkeys. Well, soon enough, the monkeys started jumping towards us, and I thought they’d be scared of humans, HECK NO. They’re AFRICAN MONKEYS. They came closer, closer, and of course went right up to the one scared person in the group, Brenda… until the monkey was trying to grab the bag from her…. SHE SCREAAAMED… I was LAUUUGHING. It was so hilarious. Those monkeys were actually pretty scary… if you tried to scare them off and act big, they would just fight back. We didn’t intimidate them a bit—there focus was solely on our food. We got in the park, with a trail of monkeys following us, beginning to reconsider our choice of place.

 I figured out that I had to pay 10 thousand more shillings then the rest of the group, (so unfair) just because I’m white. So, I paid 15 thousand. L … We paid for the boys ahead of time, so they could just walk in. as we waited for the guys, we decided to eat our lunch… so, with MUCH caution of the killer monkeys, we found an eating area, where (for some reason) there were NO monkeys! After the boys finally came, we started our foot safari, up a dirt hill. Then onto more rural path… and then onto an even more rural path, and walked, and walked… soon figuring out that this probably was not a path tourists are supposed to go on… and soon figuring out (to my horror), that this path was infested with MASSIVE black spiders. You could walk and ALL OF A SUDDEN, to your surprise there’s a spider your about to walk into. We finally got out of that horrid situation… and proceeded on a much more civil path. We saw leopards, rhino’s, lions (tigers and bears. Oh my!), hyena’s, different types of birds, chimpanzee’s, peacocks, warthogs, zebra’s, buffalo, antelope, lots of different types of monkeys… aaaand the snakes. This was a pretty exciting part of the trip, we happened to come to the snake exhibit just as they were relocating the 30 year old python to another room. But, instead of just relocating this snake, they decided to take it outside on the grass for us to touch. This python was HUGE!! I mean this thing, could eat a grown man… so, the girls (and Richard) were really freaked out. After this, we went to beach. (There were no more animals to see) so we were just enjoying nature at this point. There was a looong dock that we ran onto, and let the wind blow through our hair (my hair.. hahaha), it was seriously so beautiful there.

But we couldn’t leave just yet, we figured out that when we paid ahead of time for the guys, when THEY came they paid there way as well (it was really our bad, because we didn’t inform them), but we went to try and get a refund… which proved to be a harder task then we thought. Eventually we got the money back, and the boys decided they wanted to go back in to get our REAL money’s worth. The boys went off on their own, while us girls went to the park next to the lake. It felt like I was a young child again. We created obstacle courses and raced each other… hung upside down on the monkey bars (TAUGHT them how to hang upside down.. Brenda and Rebecca were both deathly afraid, and it involved a lot of screaming on there part! Haha) but it was so fun! When the boys waltzed down to the park, we decided it was time to go, when something caught our gaze and stopped us in our tracks… golf carts… and idea’s struck. It was only 5 thousand for a 30 min ride. And BABY. It’s AFRICA. They don’t give you no drivers, you drive it yourself! HAHAHA.. I showed him my CALIFORNIA license! HAHA.. And he handed over the cart… in which we managed to fit all 6 of us on. We each took turns driving around the whole park, (some of us, definitely NOT READY for the simple task of steering a golf cart. nearly died at one point, because Richard was going down a hill, at a pretty good speed, and instead of continuing straight, turned sharply to the left, flinging both Joel and Rebecca out of the cart rolling. SCARY!) ß But other than that, we got the cart back to the owner, in one piece… with huge smiles on all our faces! And with that, we exited the zoo… starting our trek home; looking like hobos at this point I’m sure. Muddy, exhausted, and me with my sandal only partially on my foot due to it breaking multiple times on our “foot safari”.

the only picture i have from this trip... sadly. HEY.. but its with a zebra!