Animals!

This pic is from a spot along the road from Kampala to Mbarara, on our way out to the mine camp. Apparently the area is renowned for the quality of the meat - we picked up 5 kilos of beef before heading on, at a price of 5000 shillings a kilo (about 2 dollars). You can see a couple of very large birds on the roof, known as the garbage pile birds.

On Barb's final day here in Uganda, we visited the Wildlife Education Centre. A nice thing about knowing locals is that you get the chance to experience things that most tourists might not get to.

Chimps are pretty amazing creatures - they have some great facial expressions. Looking into the eyes of the chimps here was a really wonderful experience. You realize just how closely related we are when you watch their behaviour and look into their eyes. We came across a shirt here in a tourist shop recently that seems appropriate, it simply says '98.7% Chimp' across the front. Heh.

We were excited to get to see this baby elephant that was brought in recently to the Centre. Elephants are very social animals and it's usually not a very good idea to keep them alone, but this baby had been abandoned and was rescued from drowning in Lake Victoria just a few weeks before we visited. It had a few injuries and it seems like it's getting very good care. Hopefully when it gets better it will be returned to a group of other elephants.

Rhino! We've seen a rhinoceros before, but it's still stunning to be so close to such an amazing creature. The keeper called this one over, and we got to pet the horn and scratch his hide a bit... very rough to touch! The keeper was using the sole of his boot to give him a rubdown.