Father - Son Trip : Rafting on the Nile

Over the Easter Break our family went to Queen Elizabeth and dad and I went rafting on the Nile! It was awesome! We went with 5 other father-son combos on the trip and rafted on Grade 3s and 4s. Here is a basic outline of our schedule:

Day 1: We got up very early to get all the way to Jinja, and then arrived at the pick-up point. Then, we got suited up and took off to the river (which seems like a name of a water body that doesn't even come close to the vastness of this "river"). We took 2 rapids before stopping on an island to eat a spectactular lunch brought through the rapids by an expert kayaker, and swam through some small rapids. Then we hit two more rapids before arriving at an island where we would stay the night, called the Hairy Lemon. There we played American football and volleyball in the water, and played some games at night.

Day 2: Again we got up bright and early for the next part of our journey, which was by far the best part of the trip and almost definitely the most exciting thing that I've done in Uganda so far! We let our rower do all the work for the first calm 15 km of the river while we swam and pushed each other off the raft. Then, we came to a grade 4 rapid and went through it. We then took an upstream current to an island right by the rapids and had lunch. There, we went boogie boarding on the rapids, but not how you would think. This is going to be an in-depth explanation so get ready...
It was stationary! Basically, the water flowing downstream hits a rock jutting out of the riverbed and is forced to go around. Then, an upstream current is formed when the water fills in the spaces behind the rock. However, the water falls off of the rock and collides with the water coming downstream, making a sort of wave, but it doesn't move. The island that we stayed at was very close to this wave so we just waded as far into the water as possible and leaped into the current. You had to kick as hard as possible so that you wouldn't get washed over the wave, and then, once you caught the wave, you just enjoyed the ride. The only thing that you had to do was keep yourself facing straight. Since there was so much water coming in both directions, it felt as if you were flying at about 100mph, even though you were going nowhere. It was sooooo much fun. Then my 8th grade friends and I got adventurous and waded against the current as far as possible and leaped out so that we got tons of momentum going down the rapids, and then tried to catch the wave.

Aftermath:
Extreme sunburn!

I really want to thank Dad for taking me on this great trip!

O ya, and sorry that I don't have any pictures. Only one dad was smart enough to bring a camera and he hasn't sent the pix around yet. If I ever get them I will definitely publish them.

Babies, Babies Everywhere! A post from mom.

Believe it or not, even a baby warthog is cute. Disney had it all right. Baby anything is cute--baby hippo, baby warthog, baby mongoose, baby elephant, baby waterbuck, baby crocodile & monitor lizard (not so cute). The only issue with baby anything is that the mothers get nervous around anything that they find threatening. The third car in our 3 car caravan risked trampling when an elephant herd with many babies (including a 1 week old elephant) crossed the road behind them. On our walk back from the Mweya Lodge (quite beautiful and where we will put up visitors who brave the trans-Atlantic flight...hint...hint) we passed a mother hippo with her baby and were worried enough to walk in a giant pod with flashlights all turned outward. Spring safari is highly recommended. It was amazing to see all the little ones and worth braving a few downpours during this rainy season.

Yuka

Queen Elizabeth National Park Trip

Our latest trip was to Queen Elizabeth National Park, which is considered to be one of the best places to go if you want to see tons of animals in a short period of time (perfect for tourists in other words). It was about a 7 hour car ride there, plus traffic, and so basically we were on the road and unloading and packing for two of the four days that we were there. At the park, we did multiple game drives at sunrise and sunset, and a cruise on the channel cutting through the park. We camped with two other families that we know very well, the Willisons and the Nobles. The Willisons have 5 kids, and the Nobles have 3. We are close friends, and we saw TONS of game. And literally TONS. We saw hundreds of elephants, traveling in herds of about 10, hundreds of hippos, traveling in pods of about 20, lots of mongooses, traveling in packs of about 10, hundreds of water buffalo, and hundreds of water bucks. All of these animals, apart from the mongooses (yes it is mongooses, we looked it up),weigh extreme amounts, and could tear us and our cars apart easily.
And, since it is spring, we saw the babies of every species of animal that we saw. Mom will be posting on their cuteness.
Also, we saw just about every type of bird imagenable, including fish eagles, hawks, egrets, and weaverbirds.
We were a little bit dissapointed that we missed out on the cats who are supposed to be in the park, such as lions, leopards, and cheetahs. And we had hoped that we would see a hyena.
We had lots of fun and hope to do it again with some family members who are visiting. Wink, wink, cough, cough.
The pictures for this post will be put on a slideshow on the sidebar on the homepage.

Here is the site for Queen Elizabeth:
http://www.game-reserve.com/uganda_queen_elizabeth.html

O ya, and a post is almost ready about the DDR. We just need to take a video and upload it!

DDR: Thanks for the present!

DDR has been great! I'm still confused as to who sent it, but I think that it was from the whole family. Thanks from this whole family. We have really enjoyed it, and, just like with the Wii, many of us are sweating after a hard session. And of course, the "best" dancer in our house, besides Jack, is dancing like there is no tomorrow, and singing the tunes afterward to himself (it's dad). If possible, a video will soon be posted

My Swimming Gala

I just went to a swimming gala which is where you competitively swim against other schools. Since this was my first one I wasn't as good as some people there but I did better than I thought I did in butterfly (which is impossible). On freestyle my time for 25 meters was 17.96 seconds in the gala. I did all the strokes which include freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and an individual medley. Then I was told I was doing the relays next. I had a great relay team but the others were better and so, we got 4th and 3rd place.

Sorry, no pictures of this one.

ISSEA: International Schools of South and East Africa

If anyone didn't know, Dad decided to take a coaching job in Uganda, just like he did in the States. He assistant coaches the ISSEA girls basketball team, and just got back from the tournament in Dar es Saalam in Tanzania. This is the high school team that "travels East Africa" like Mom had said. They came 5th out of 6, but did a pretty good job, considering that one of their best players was out for the tournament in the first game, tearing 3 ligaments in her leg/ankle.