Saturday

Our First African Adventure

Chuck and Nancy Watson’s
African Adventure*

*Chuck and I went to Africa in December 2002. At that time I was not blogging so I was not able to share our adventure with the world. I sent the pictures and commentary in email format. This is a copy of what I mailed to family and friends.


Chuck and I have just returned from a three week trip to Africa. We had a wonderful time and
would like to share our trip with you. We left our home, Tri-Cities, Washington, on December 17 for Johannesburg, South Africa. We arrived there on the evening of the 18th.

The next morning we flew to Kenya, where we met Carol and Frank Ogden, (Chuck's sister and husband). They are Free Methodist missionaries in Africa. We spent a couple of days in Kenya before traveling to Rwanda.


This is the home of Karen Blixen. She wrote the book Out of Africa. They made a movie from her book starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. If you saw the movie then you will recognize this house, the outside of it was used in making the movie.


Chuck, Frank and Carol are enjoying lunch in an outdoor restaurant near Karen Blixen's house. It is hard to believe, looking at this picture, that it is December 20th.



While in Nairobi, we went to a restaurant that serves Wild Game. It is called the Carnivore Restaurant.



Here is the menu for the evening we went there to eat. I ordered zebra and Chuck ordered ostrich. The food was very good.


This is me with the doorman at the restaurant.

Chuck and I had originally planned to spend more than a couple of days in Kenya. We had planned to go on a safari before going to Rwanda. About two weeks before we left on our trip there was, as you know, terrorist activity in Mombasa, Kenya. We altered our plans at that time so that we would be in Kenya as little as possible. We do not regret this decision. As you will see later on, we had many nice wild animal experiences (besides eating them).

We flew to Kigali, Rwanda on December 21st. Our flight was diverted to Uganda because the weather was too bad to land in Kigali. We set inside the airport in Entebbe, Uganda a couple of hours before leaving again to land in Kigali, Rwanda. I am enclosing the only picture I made of Uganda. These pictures were made from the airport window. The view was enough to make me want to return and visit Uganda one day.


We finally arrived in Kigali and it was dark and raining. We were met by a friend of Carol and Frank and taken to the missionary way station to have a good nights sleep before heading out on the long overland trip to Kibogora.

Here is one of the helpers at the mission way station. I cannot pronounce his name, but Frank told me it means "Gift from God."



Papayas growing in the back yard.



After a good nights sleep we awoke early to begin our trip.


Chuck is helping Carol in the kitchen with breakfast. Frank is anxiously awaiting the results.

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