Victoria NilePersonal travel impressions in stories and pictures from Victoria Nile, Uganda. Click on the pictures to enlarge, send as a free e-card, or download for personal use. You can locate Victoria Nile and navigate the world using Google Earth Show on map
N 2° 17.196
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While the sun was burning on our heads and shoulders, we embarked on a boat on the bank of the Nile, or the Victoria Nile, as this stretch of the mightiest river of Africa is called. As soon as we got moving, the temperature became agreeable again. Very soon, we spotted the first hippos, turning their little ears around, and looking at us in surprise. We were excited to see this group of enormous animals, and you could hear cameras clicking all around. It got more exciting when we spotted a crococile on the bank, being disturbed in his afternoon rest and moving into the Nile. After a while, we also saw a group of elephants on the river bank, but they also spotted us and moved away.
We continued to see hippos, buffaloes and crocodiles, and several times, we spotted beautifully coloured birds as well. Especially the crocodiles were impressive, their capacity of almost disappearing in the water with their big bodies, always on the alert. No wonder these monsters are one of the oldest still existing animals on the planet. In a distance, we saw the sky turning grey, we saw clouds coming in, we knew what was coming up. As long as we could, we enjoyed the views and the animals, but at a certain point, we had to go down, since suddenly the rain came down in huge quantities.
Although the boat took a lot of water, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, and when we opened the protective covers, we saw many pairs of crocodile eyes staring at us from the surface of the river Nile. We had a look at Murchison Falls from a distance, the boat gently rubbing its nose against a rock in the river, and then the sun came back and lighted the landscape around us. We did understand why in some languages the hippo is called horse of the Nile, as this river was full of them. Under a warm afternoon light, we saw one lonely elephant walking along the bank of the river, before we returned to our point of departure.
