4/4/09 Safari and Murchison Falls!

Sorry this is so long! It's been a fun week!

To carry on where I left off in the last one, Saturday I arrived at school bright and early ready for Junior Orch - which definitely did not happen despite Julie having texted everyone to say it was on. Oh well! Surprisingly Julius was one of the only people to turn up so I gave him quite a long lesson in the absence of Orch. I then had the fun job of going to the bank to get money for safari, but the bank decided to block my card coz they thought it had been stolen. Stress! So spent most of the rest of the day making expensive international calls to sort ot out, which after 3 attempts - it was! (apparently..) Other than that was practice etc and after dinner we turned out all the lights in the house in support of that 'Earth Hour' thing. To raise awareness about global warming and I think it was quite a big event worldwide. Nice to feel we're doing our bit! Went for a drink with Julie at a bar nearby which was fun. Sunday too was a chilling out day with the family and more practice and general lazing about. Would have gone for a swim but it rained! I think the rainy season has finally started, not that it's any colder! Just occasionally wet and muddy!

Monday was the day the house was 'infumegated' to get rid of all the bugs so we all had to be ready to leave by 9 when the men with the spray arrived. All the windows were opened in my room and everywhere sprayed. We were all given funny gas mask things during the process. So then it was time to vacate the house and let the smell leave. I was off to the bank again to get the money I so desperately needed, only for the same stupid message to come up again so more phone calls had to be made! I felt like screaming/crying! But after about half an hour it was eventually sorted and I got my money thank god. And after all that stress I decided to treat myself to a coffee and a chocolate croissant from this posh place near the bank. Yumm. Just what I needed then. Next was retrieving my passport from Internal Affairs. But that too was unsuccessful as the lady I'd handed it in to had forgotten to get me to sign something so it had to be resubmitted and I'll collect it next week. Met Carys for lunch then it was off to beauty school to do more pedicures and the massage to go with it. Carys used sooo much oil on one of my legs it was practically dripping off, then she managed to pour nail varnish remover over my freshly painted nails! Hilarious times..! Had a duet rehearsal with Sam after, and after a little coaching from Julie we were sounding pretty good! It's more a question of getting our individual parts good then working on phrasing etc together. It'll be fine!

Tues was teaching - Michael and Soloman, Disan had exams or something I think. It's all going well. They're both getting the hang of the left hand and tuning so I've been working on sound and tone production more recently. Getting there! Went home for lunch and get ready for safari. Met Carys at school once she finished teaching and we set of to the Red Chilli Backpackers place we had to go and pay and where we were staying the night before leaving at 8.30am the following morning. They were very respectable dorms, and we had such a yummy breakfast in the morning - I had bacon and eggs! I've been missing bacon a lot seeing as we don't have it at all at home (muslim family...) So that was fab. By the way 'we' here is me and Carys. Sam made a last minute decision he'd like to join us but sadly there were no spaces left on the trip we were going on. He can go another time though I'm sure! It was about a 6hour journey to Murchison, stopping for lunch and the occasional toilet break in the bushes. Passed the time with ipod listening and sleep so it was a fine journey really! When we arrived we were shown to our tents (very nice, and big, with real beds!) and told not to panic if we saw warthogs or hippos wandering past our tent (we were very near the Nile). We did actually have a babboon wander past our tent once. And there were lots of warthogs around! Then Carys and I decided to take a walk and investigate our surroundings. All very beautiful. Saw hippos, and amazingly coloured lizards and babboons and beautiful butterflys. Lovely stuff. Then went back and showered - was very hot! At dinner it clouded over and we were in amongst a huge thunderstorm which was quite exciting. Could see sheet and fork lightening all around. Luckily the tents were sturdy enough to withstand the storm! Bed fairly early as we had to be at the van at 6.40 the following morning to go on our game drive.

Got a packed breakfast which we ate in the car and got on a ferry across the river to where all the animals were. Drove around from about 7.30 to 11 or so seeing so many animals! It was still quite nice and cool/cloudy so no worries about getting burnt! We saw lots and lots of giraffes, buffalo, wildebeast, wart hogs and baby wart hogs (they're like very cute baby Pumba's from the Lion King!), waterbucks, bush bucks, moniter lizards, lots of different types of birds including the absinnian ground hornbill, weaver birds and my favouite - the black bellied bastard! We saw 2 lions from afar (with binoculars) but then drove closer and so briefly saw them up close before they ran away. Which was cool. Then as we were diving back to get the ferry, we came across an elephant, who wasn't particularly happy with our presence and tried running at the car! Very exciting! Got a few good photos though because it was so close to us. S0 it was back to camp for lunch (Burger! Yumm) and a bit of a rest before we went on our boat trip in the afternoon. It was great. We saw millions of hippos and crocodiles and elephants drinking at the waters edge. Lots of pretty birds too. Was nice and sunny by this point too. The point of the journey was to see Murchison Falls - which are amazing! We were allowed off the boat onto a rock to take some photos. It was so beautiful! That evening we had a delicious (though expensive) dinner - I had pasta bake, and Carys had Beef Mousaka and we shared them. Sooo good! The place was fly ridden though, probably because it hadn't rained like it had the night before. So we escaped the bar and went back to the less fly-ey tent and played silly but fun alphabet and story games to wile away the evening before falling asleep (pretty early again - we had been up since 6!).

The next day we had breakfast at the camp - pancakes! And payed our bills. Food was pretty expensive there so we had to ration our money a bit. But we did ok! We then set off to walk up to the top of Murchison Falls. Which was AMAZING! We were so close we could actually feel the spray! And almost dip your foot in a little pool - but we were told not too. It's an incredible sight. It's 50metres worth of Nile dropping 45metres through a tiny 7metre gap. So powerful. Wow. That's all I can say really! Took so many photos on the trip my camera battery completely died, though luckily not until I was looking through all the photos on our journey back, which we started after we'd seen the falls. We stopped for lunch in the same place and slept most the journey - travelling's tiring! The driver very kindly dropped me right outside my house as we'd actually nearly passed it on our way so I asked if he could drop me near there on the way back, but he took me all the way home! Fantastic trip. Had a great time. Set everything to charge when I got back (everything had run out of battery!) and went and washed the travels off me and tended to my many many bites which are driving me insane! I've got a really good cream but still it'll take a while for them all to go. Ouch. Oh well, I'll live. Had food and was just about to crash out in bed when I received a call asking me to go out to which I felt obliged to say yes as my time here is running out! So Ben picked me up and we went round collecting everyone who was coming and we partied - for a long long time! Was very fun. Though by about 4am I was definitely very tired! We left around 4.30, after all having a go on the random driving games they have in the clubs here. They also have films on the TV's which I find very strange!

Problemo was we were all meant to be at Junior Orchestra at 10 this morning! That didn't happen! I arrived at school about 10.30 which isn't too bad really, would have been there even earlier if our road hadn't been closed because of the helicopter on the airstrip opposite the house so I had to walk all the way to the end of the road to find a boda boda. Was kinda drizzly too, nice it's not so hot and sticky at the moment. Luckily orchestra didn't seem to have worked out this week either so my lateness was excused! Taught Francisca, who I hadn't seen in a while! She's doing well. Again working on sound as her left hand is pretty in tune. She might play a piece in the informal concert on Thurs which would be good. Next was Julius, who really needs to work on his technique still - don't think it helps that he only comes to school on Saturdays so can only do a small bit of practice before our lesson every week. Oh well. We'll do our best. Then Charlotte. Am trying to make up for the lessons we missed this week. Her slurs are definitely improving though she says she still finds them hard. She'll get there! Spent the rest of the afternoon trying to out put photos on facebook for you all to see but it's not letting me! Will keep trying... Time to rest lots I think! Hope there arn't too many April Showers at home! See ya'll soon :D