Rhinos just outside the ladies dorm, don't go outside without scouting for Nkulas first!
Today we arrived at the Nile River Camp right outside Jinja, Uganda! Our last week was spent at the Ziwa Rhino sanctuary and we made some insane memories. With the rangers and guides, we closely followed grazing rhinos, caught some friendly frogs, and watched some the immense beautiful birdlife. We've seen birds of every color of the rainbow – even turquoise! We learned so much about the gorgeous trees there. One of which seems to have toothpicks growing from it in every direction and it's called acacia.
We toured some of the electric fence that surrounds the sanctuary, as well as hiked and canoed through a swamp during a lovely sunrise. We learned a ton about poachers and hacked away at some invasive plants.
One of our afternoons was spent at the Hakuna Matata Daycare on site. We played games, took pictures, laughed a lot, all while learning so much about their culture. Us "muzungus" (foreigners) are pretty fascinating to them too!
The people here are so friendly and generally so happy to be in this country. Uganda is beautiful, with 10 national parks and every kind of habitat, and the people here have such a strong sense of community.
Tonight we spent a relaxing evening overlooking the Nile, preparing for our rafting adventure on Sunday! Sending a lot of love to our friends and families!
-Cat
Nkula Group hitting the town!
Later, from Kampala
We've been in Uganda for about 2 weeks now and it has been the craziest and most eventful weeks of my life. I'm just sitting here now in awe of what I have just done. We started off our week in a rhino sanctuary where rhinos would hang out right outside our windows while we were sleeping. And instead of waking up to an alarm, I'd wake up to the monkeys outside. Then this week we went to Jinja and stayed at a beautiful place overlooking the Nile river and from there we went to the river to go rafting. This was my first time rafting and me along with another girl in my group were terrified. Despite being terrified we forced ourselves to try and it was very worth it! I may have not followed the directions our raft guide was giving us at first because I was holding on for dear life but eventually I got the hang of it. The last rapid we went over (out of about ten) was massive and flipped the entire raft. It was a crazy experience and we got some gnarly pictures! Overall I have been loving every second here whether the locals are yelling muzungus (foreigner in swahili) at us or we're swimming in the Nile it's been great. Anyways, more updates to come soon!