Blogs we like

9/19/09: Nkuringo, Uganda

I was heading to the toilets to pee when a large animal ran across my path. It was well after sunset, so through the beam on my headlamp I struggled to make out the mighty figure rushing past me down the hill toward the village. A jackal? A lion? A woolly mammoth? Any of these things could eat me alive, so I made the firm decision then to pee right where I was (outside the neighboring cabin’s door). As the figure disappeared into the night, I figured out what it was: the campsite’s dog. Oh well.

I finished up and was about to head back into our cabin (side note: this was the first night we’ve spent not in a tent since the London Heathrow) when our tour group and a guide from the campsite came around the corner, clearly rushing to go see something. I grabbed Zhou and joined them.

We rounded the corner and turned off all our headlamps, and our guide pointed to the faint light of a mountain that he told us was less than 200 kilometers away. As we sat there watching, the light turned red – it was very faint, but it was clear that the mountain was not a mountain at all, but instead an active volcano. We sat watching it for ten or 15 minutes, turning red, then back again.

It was not the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s just another example that when you allow yourself to experience things, you never know what else you’ll see.

I wasn’t able to get a picture of it erupting, but I did take one the next morning.

_____________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards

Rhyme Time! (Solve all three of these African flavored rhymes)

Noodles cooked on the African plains
Makeup needed in the African desert
A short segment of the longest river in Africa (and the world)

_____________________________________________

Picture of the Day: Our two closest Belgian friends on the trip: Shaun and Kwi. Shaun’s usually a normal-looking white guy, but I was trying out the Color Swap feature on my camera.