Wally Wanders the Jungle Cruise

Intrepid Explorer Wally rushes to the aid of friends treed by a rhino

- by Walter Octavius March, January 24, 2011

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KUNGALOOSH!

My fellow Explorers, what a harrowing experience I had today. My three friends were treed by a rhino! Luckily for them, I heard about it and hastened to Adventureland.

Once there I made my way to the Jungle Cruise Expedition dock to commandeer a boat for the perilous trip down-river where my friends were last seen. After the boat was underway, my river guide pointed out the indigenous animals such as a butterfly with a wingspan that ranged from 12 inches to 1 foot.

Soon after that we floated past Inspiration Falls bound for the Congo River. We then passed our guide's base camp, but as it had been overrun by gorillas, we didn't stop. My guide - looking on the bright side, as he always does - was happy that the gorillas got his jeep to turn over since it wouldn't start for him that morning.

click an image to expand:

Signage for the Jungle Cruise

The fellow on the bottom gets the point

Chief Name stays a-head of the competition

We continued to float along until we got to the Nile River where we passed some elephants standing on its banks. We also passed a plethora of animals that had come to the river to drink. Then, finally, we reached our destination.

Not only had my friends been treed by the rhino, their faithful African guides were in the tree with them! A very large and angry rhino had chased them and so they had all decided to climb.

My river boat captain wouldn't go ashore because he was afraid the rhino would turn and charge us. So I told him to anchor the boat offshore and I swam to the rescue of my fellow Adventurers.

As I was swimming, I formulated my plan and when I got to the shoreline put it into action. I jumped from the water yelling as loudly as I could and waving my arms. Of course the rhino stopped looking at the others and chased after me. When I got him to chase me into the jungle, I knew the explorers in the tree would have time to climb down and swim to the boat.

As the rhino chased me, I ran in circles through the jungle, and every time I passed the bamboo trees, I would grab another armful of bamboo reeds. After running around in this circle a few dozen times (luckily, I am a world-class runner), I started to put the bamboo posts down, next to each other. After many passes, I had made a small cage into which I led the rhino and then staked my last few bamboo posts into the ground, trapping the beautiful beast inside.

I then returned to the boat and we continued down river in good spirits.

But our adventures were not yet over. As were traveling through crocodile country, a herd of hippos appeared. We scared them off with a gunshot but then we saw some natives doing what could have been a war dance, and so our river guide just kept the boat moving right along. We didn't need further trouble on this trip.

We did, however, go through a waterfall, then ended up in an underground canal that took us into a cobra-haunted temple.

When we emerged from the temple, our guide became much more relaxed and pointed out some of the interesting vegetation in the jungle. He even pointed out Chief [Name], the 'head' salesman for that particular area. Because sales were shrinking, the Chief offered us a two-for-one sale but none of us accepted his offer.

Finally, we made our way back to River Cruise headquarters. We thanked our guide and headed off for some Dole Whips and the opportunity to share our adventure with any who would listen. What a wonderful way to end a great adventure here in the Magic Kingdom.

Until next time, KUNGALOOSH! And keep your eyes open for Adventure!

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