Grampa planned us an exciting day around Masindi, although the kids thought it was a lot of driving. First of all, we went to breakfast at the hotel across the way. When travelling with kids, even going to breakfast is an adventure! We ate most of our meals at the same place, which had a couple of bandas set in a nice lawn so the kids could run around like banshees, and hopefully not pick ALL of the ornamental flowers.
Then we started off in another small sedan through the countryside. (Yes, seven of us in a sedan. The driver was very proud that his car had air conditioning, though!) We passed giant sugar cane fields and a sugar processing plant, as well as local consumed crops like matoke and cassava and sweet potato.
It took a lot of driving through the countryside until we made it to the top of the Great Rift Valley overlooking Lake Albert. Going to the Great Rift Valley is one of those things that sounds awfully exciting and exotic! The children were not so impressed, and mostly wanted to escape the car and run off into the bushes. That is, until the driver warned them about snakes!
After a long winding drive downhill, we finally made it to the lake side. Now, if we had been reading the "Family Guide to Travel in Uganda with Small Children" instead of boring old Bradt, we would have known that this was a genuine beach with genuine ripples of water, and we should have brought toys and swim suits and, most importantly, several extra changes of clothing! (That is a joke. There is no guide for travelling with young children in Uganda; I think we are crazy!) My husband will read this and freak out about the swim suits, immediately thinking about cistosomaisis and how we should avoid getting in the natural water bodies lest the little bugs come and live in our bodies for the rest of our lives. I simply must inform him that, after a two-hour car ride and presented with a beach, it is simply impossible to keep three children from getting themselves wet. We tried, we really did, but it is like a giant magnetic force that is significantly stronger than three mere adults.
The driver had this idea that we would look around, take some pictures, and get back in the car to go see the next exciting thing. Apparently none of his other clients read the "Family Guide to Uganda" either! All three children immediately took off and started in on the activity appropriate to their personality. Emerson started building a giant edifice out of sand, and stayed totally focused on his project whether or not waves came over him or into his moat. Hibiscus, our little fish, was soaked to the skin almost immediately, and then bounded around the beach and kept finding bits of trees and garbage to add to the moat-building and water-splashing. Buttercup wandered around trying to copy what everyone else did, her pants falling off her skinny little bum as she disturbed whatever Emerson was building and got wetter than her two-year-old self was ready for while following Hibiscus!
After a while, we were able to exert all of our influence and pry the children away from the beach. The children did the car ride back in their wet underwear -- on our laps, of course! -- while we held their clothes out the window to dry!
We ate snacks at our hotel and headed out in the opposite direction, through another small town to the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Rhinos became extinct in Uganda during bad management during their years of dictatorship, and this reserve has imported some white rhinos and is hoping that they will breed enough to start re-populating the national parks. It is a huge area and the rhinos and other animals can just wander around and do what they like to do, and there are rangers who will take you out rhino tracking. They warned us that the rhinos usually sleep during the day, and we would be lucky to see anything up and moving.
We took a short car ride through the reserve, wrapped Buttercup and took off. My little explorers were excited to get going and see what we could see... until the rhinos came in view! It was all we could do to keep Hibiscus from screaming, and she quickly hopped up onto Gramma's back and stayed there the entire rest of the visit -- it turns out that Gramma should have had the wrap, not me! We did get amazingly close, and the rhinos were amazingly large.
We were so lucky! Not only were the rhinos were up and active, they were plural. They normally wander alone, because they will fight with each other if they are together, but children don't fight with their mothers even as they mature. So we saw a mother rhino, who is actually about to give birth again, with two of her more-grown children and another juvenile "friend," all moving together. They were grazing and moving from one meadow to another. We got to watch them from only 10 or 20 yards away, depending on how much greenery was between us and them. They paid us no attention at all, which comforted Hibiscus somewhat, but not significantly! We followed them and watched them grazing in several different meadows, and got to really appreciate their size and grace. It was an incredible experience.
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