Day 2 in the National Park…

After a good sleep in the hot (temperature) Banda we again woke up early in the morning to get a good start for the Game Ride, this is what they call a Safari here…

So we started in the dark to get ourselves out of bed into the next free toilet (which was not so easy at this time…) under the shower, into the clothes, packed everything what we spread around in our rooms into the bags, throw everything into the Pickup ourselves included and drove to the Ferry to cross the Nile into the northern part of the N.P. were the big majority of the animals are.

On the Ferry we were able to witness the sunrise over the Nile, a wonderful and peaceful experience weren't there be the noices of the Ferry-engines...

On the other side we started our Game-Ride with Ranger on Board and went out into the endless grasslands of the Savannah...

It doesn't took us long to see the first big animals, a small group of Giraffes walking slowly along the horizon... WOW!!

Marianna and I decided to get out of the cabin and into the back of the Pickup to stand there in the open air, able to enjoy a 360 degree view!! (yeah and free air condition included)

Its hard to describe this into words (especially in English which I still have to improve a lot I realized again..) but nothing matches riding on the back of a Pickup trough the seemingly endless grasslands dotted with more or less trees, all kinds of animals...

here the child memories came back into my mind from these mysterious places far away were all these big, strange, fascinating and so different animals are living in an extraordinary environment.

And now to the really interesting and rare sight U can have in this N.P.:

the "big cats" of the Savannah: Lions and Leopards!!

Somehow I can see myself as very lucky that I was able to get a glimpse of these ones, and it was really a glimpse, I was unable to make any movie with the video-camera nor a picture with the digicam, because it was a matter of seconds...

On the place where the Lions usually "hang around" as our Ranger says there was a big grassfield with really high grass growing around, and suddenly I saw in the distance something like 2 heads of a Lion!!!

But this was a matter of less than 1 second because as quick as I saw it they disappeared beneath the high grass, making it almost impossible to inprint this picture into my brain...

But another picture or lets say very short movie left a strong and everlasting inprint in my buzzy brain....

We were driving near the shore of lake Albert as we saw a horde of Gazelles watching all in the same direction! This is saying something!! Something serious comming up!!!

And than suddenly out of nothing I saw a Leopard just running away with high speed from us taking off into the bushes!! Jesus Christ that was an overwhelming sight that left a deep impact in my memories!!!

Absolutely incredible to see an predator like a Leopard in the wild running away from U because U were disturbing his attack on the Gazelles!!!

These were the absolute highlights of this Safari, not to mention that the big cats are anyhow my beloved animals since I was a little one!!!

After 4 hours of Safari on the back of the Pickup we were overhappy with all the sights and impressions we had!

After this we drove back to Arua, totally exhausted because of the fully concentration we had during this Safari!!!