Monkey Magic? Tragic….
I was packed and ready to go, my special hire taxi came at 6.30am and i grabbed a quick breakfast and went off to see the chimps or 8am. Or so I had hoped. When we got to the NP I had enough for the trek and to get me back to Kampala…. or so I thought. I had about 120,000 and they wanted 176,000!! Im a dumbass, I thought it was $25, about 50,000. Gutted is the appropriate word. I didn’t have enough money, didn’t really know anyone there well enough to beg a loan (although there were some dutch people from the GH) and the town didn’t have an ATM and if it did the tour started in 10 minutes….
Some dutch guy suggested I do a swamp walk which was cheaper but upon asking that needed to be booked outside the NP. Not enough schilling, very little in the way of dollars,I was going nowhere…. I had a revelation ,’Can I pay in sterling?’ and the answer was yes, I checked my leather belt and had £50 in there that I had virtually forgotten, just the right ammount! I handed it over, I didn’t want to spend that much, I thought it was about £13 but I was there, what could I do? I joined the briefing and got put in a group of a german and dutch couple. We had the lovely Harriet as our guide and set off into the forest. She pointed out a few trees and plants, we stopped to look at some monkeys and she gave us a pep talk. We then walked for about an hour listening for them and asking the other groups over the walkie talkie if there were any sightings. Not a sausage, we heard some noise and the left the trail in that general direction. It was pretty dense, I had a minor shock when i briefly stopped at the back to change my video tape and then dropped my fleece, I nipped back to pick it up and couldn’t see anyone! I guess thats how you get lost so easily.
The only great apes we saw were other tourists all converging on the same spot where the noise came from, but then apparently there were some up in the trees. You could barely see about 3 of them, mostly from the dark outline up in the canopy. No big group, no forest floor, no 3 feet away… we waited around, everyone trying to get a better view point but it was very dissappointing. Ok, well, I saw them, but magical experience it was not. I wish I had left my belt at home :{ We walked back to the road which took about another hour, not much in the way of wildlife, got back in the taxi and got my bag and off to get the bus back to Kampala.
Tags: Travel, tourists, atm, money, guts, taxi, monkeyI wanted to leave today…!
Doing bugger all isn’t too bad, I went to look at the local market but couldn’t see anything worth buy despite my best efforts. I needed thread to repair my backpack and didn’t see any. I had fun and games at the local internet cafe with their appaling connectionn meaning I wasted 30 minutes faffing around while getting electric shocks from the PC. The guy was saying something about earth the building, or not, I had no idea, stupid bastard. I found somewhere else that worked and uploaded by blog and caught up on international news. Interesting Thai Coup I was missing, shame I passed on Burma… I had another apalling meal at the Ruwenzori GH in town, a egg sandwich is NOT a fried egg on fried bread, salad is NOT fruit salad (i sent it back and eventually got some fruit) and since when is Nescafe ‘African Coffee’ ?? They charged me 50p for milk too, bastards! Just the kind of place that really hate tourists and dont want you there.
The dutch couple at dinner had been to see the chimps that day and said it was great, they were all on the forest floor, they got really close to them and there were loads of them. Sounded good!
Tags: backpack, locals, shame, earth, Travel, tourists, blog, electricity, stupidity1 day / 4 sentences = very lazy day!
Didn’t do much, walked into town and got trapped by the rain which really came down at 2pm. Tried to book the chimp trekking for Wednesday, paid for the taxi only to be told it was full on Wednesday. Dammit, check before you take my money!! Had to settle for Thursday.
Tags: taxi, money, laziness, rain, TravelGoing Caving (in the very vaguest sense of the word)
I walked back into the town and hired a bike from the local tour company to go off and see the nearby caves. It was a nice ancient design with the crank all wobbly and off center. One gear so you had to push it up hills and a real bonshaker when going down them at speed. After a 8km ride along dusty roads, constantly waving at children laughting at the crazy Mzungu I got to the ‘caves’. Edward showed me around telling me a facinating story about how the cave came to be (its a big breast!). We walked into the jungle for 2 minutes and there it was, although to be accurate it was just a limestone formed overhang, no dark passages to explore, although the slightly camp Edward might have a sugestion for that :p We walked a bit more loking at a few more ‘semi caves’ and they really didn’t believe in cutting back the foilage, I think the fat americans would have a few problems getting through. I agreed to a quick walk around the nearby crater lake too (I had another £1.50 burning a hole in my pocket) and we set off up the hill. Had a good view of the town and saw a dry crater and one with a lake in the middle. The second had a big hill at one end too which I took the option to climb, didn’t make any difference as to how much it would shortly rain and when it came we were nearly at the top. Glad I brought my umbrella I can tell you, it pissed it down! We splooshed back after a few pics and then i sat waiting out the rain with a couple local women watch me unsuccessfully try to attach my umbrella to my backback so I could leave in the rain. It kept me busy for a while and I risked it when there was a lull and raced a local guy back in to town. He always caught me on the hills! The guest house was full so I moved into the drivers room which would have been a good saving if only someone hadn’t cancelled and gotten me moved back into a double. Dinner is a social affair there and most of the guests sit down together and pass the dishes around. Monday night was Germans, Danes, Dutch and me. At least I speak pretty good international English.
Tags: dishes, caves, Travel, umbrella, locals, camping, jungle, rainDeath Race 2000
I hadn’t packed, I was just so tired, I didn’t set my alarm and got up about 10am. No bus for me, I was going to have to take the worse option, a ’2 1/2 hour’ Matatu to Fort Portal :( Stupid lazy tourist! Breakfast and then off the taxi place, at least the sun was shining, as nice a day to die as any I have seen. The journey was thankfully without incident, but we had to swap halfway there, it took about 5 hours and at one point we had 24 souls in the same bus (or 25 if you include the chicken that was sitting at my feet. Poor little bugger!). I hate it when you can’t see out of the windscreen because of people crouching in the bus, hate it. I would have happily seen the driver arrested and us all have to carry on with someone else. Greedy bastards the lot of them. I checked into the Ruwenzori View GH and prepared to spend a few days relaxing in a nice western run place, they were busy but had a spare twin. Nice place.
Tags: Travel, laziness, taxi, sun, stupidity, tourists, journeyAnother night in a one horse town (with gas station disco…)
I left at 5am the next day, quite why they have to have so many buses all leaving at the same tmie, all on the same route, all not considering about leaving until full and all driving around for 1+ hours after the ‘departure time’ is beyond me. If they left at fixed times people would be there or miss it. Pretty frustrating, but when you’re ready for the idea you just wait and dont get too pissed off, what can you do? At least the buses are big ones, so they rule the road and hopefully give you a figthing chnce if you crash. Most even have seatbelts if you can dig them uot from under the seats, you might have to bodge together a couple of belts to get them to work too :p I bought a ticket to Mbrara, which is about 2/3 of the way back to kampala and my ultimate destination was fort portal where i was planning on seeing the chimps in the nearby NP. I slept most of the way up there, put on your music and sleeping mask and try to ignoring the person hiting the back of your seat or hitting your window to sell you some deat animal on a stick. I jumped off the bus and had to find an ATM as priority no one. I wandered about town sweating in the midday sun with my backpack weighing heavily on me, but i was stinky anyway and couldn’t get any worse. I restocked my funds and then thought about going on to fort portal that afternoon, as it was only about 12.30pm and enough time. Back at the bus station I was told if I waited in a certain place a bus would come about 5pm… bit too vague for me. I could take a shared taxi, which was the worst option as they really pack them in and any accident is a deathtrap for all concerned. The only other choice was a bus next day at 6.30am, looked like it was a night in Mbrara then! I got a desperatley bad hotel room for a couple of quid, no shower, just a bath, but it was too late to move and the shower option was much worse. All the linen was numbered for the room, I was in room 21 and stole a towel from 23. I dont know where mine was. I soaked some of my clothes and went to find some food. I passed by the post office and went in to ask when the post bus went to Fort Portal, if at all. It was sitting outside about to leave. I had had a guy nearly shouting at me in the bus station telling me to go and get on a Matatu to get to Fort Portal, I guess he didn’t understand its nice to have some idea of options, ie spend the night and go the next day, instead he thought Im disrespecting him because I didn’t instantly go jump into a 4 wheeled coffin. Some other guy listening to him ranting helpfully told me I was in ‘Black Africa’. Didn’t I just know it :p So I missed the post bus and since it was saturday there would be no service the next day. Bah. I had half the lunch I wanted and then the power came back on and I could order the rest :} Power cuts and load shedding were a constant source of frustration and annoyance in Uganda, you never knew if you were going to be able to charge something up or just have the lights go out at the most inconvinient time. The town wasn’t much, I went looking for a brush to help clean my clothes, which was hampered by the general maliase on the part of the shop workers. ‘Do you have a smaller brush than this?’ ‘No, that is all we have’ /ponts to other shelf ‘Um, what about this one then?’ ‘Ah yes’ I guess most of them are just there to spot shoplifters, they dont do anything else. I did my laundry and it started raining, great. The petrol station over the road was having some kind of disco with a massive PA pumping out annoying music all day. It rained and rained, I went out for a quick meal and a PA on a truck parked up outside and played competing distorted musak with some ‘DJ’ yelling nonsense. I uploaded my blog in an internet cafe and hid in my room, still it rained. What a great saturday night…
Tags: rain, wheel, seat, Travel, buses, lunch, atm, animals, clothes, sun, blogProperty magnate
I decided to stay another day and investigate, there was nothing much to do in town otherwise. Joseph met me at 9am the next day and we rode back out to have another look. I Itold him in no uncertain terms I would never send any money to buy something without being there and I would need a lawyer to ok it. Not some local guy either, someone in the capital. It was a backwards way of doing things but I wanted to go out, check it out again, see how the roads were in the vacinity, have a ponder but instead we spoke to dozens of people on the way and by the time we got as close to the penisullar as it was possible to get we had half a locals trooping behind us all chatting away. Asking Joseph for a translation was useless, I would ask what a 1 minute monologue from one of the alleged owner was and get a 2 second translation. We had a walk around the pensular, and it became clear there were actually 7 owners not 4, Just the kind of hassle I would have no interest in facing, all I would wanr to do would be to negotiate one price and let the owners split it however they see fit. WIth this in mind the couple of guys who owned part of it were very interested in showing me which potato and yam plantations were theres. I retained my healthy skeptism, especially when Joseph told me the lack of road would be taken care of by the local government and local people who would seemingly and spontaneously come together in some charitable act of improving the road already there and making a route for me. I doubt it…. the ammount of land needed to get a road there was probably 5 time the area of the penisular, hardly a good idea for the locals. I couldn’t even get an explanation as to where the quickest place to get from town via a boat would be ie drive from town to the first place on the lake and then travel on te water to the penisular. No one was going to want to hike through a load of fields in a muddy track for 20 minutes everytime they wanted to go anywhere, not even me. I was thinking more along the lines of buying and then leaving it for several years anyway, if at all, but the talk of free roads was setting off my bullshit alert. Even if it wasn’t the ideal place for a hostel it would make a great retirement place…
Tags: hostel, locals, Travel, hassle, possiblity, boats, hostels, moneyOn the lake without a paddle
We got back to the bike and started off down the hill. I wasn’t a sealed road but was pretty dry, we passed several buildings and people would wave and say hello, making the occasional comment to Joseph as we passed in the local language. Someone was standing in the middle of the road and this is when it got a bit bizarre. As I rode towards him I moved to right and he moved to intercept, I moved left and slowed down to pass him as, har har, he was having some fun with the tourist. But as I passed him he grabbed the handle bars! Im guessing he could easily have pulled us over, but i pulled against him and kept my balance but he did something and the engine then revved wildly like I opened the throttle full and we sped down the road for a second. I instinctly pulled in the clutch and braked a bit, but not too much as the guy was now behind us. The engine was on full throttle and smoke was pouring out the back, i killed the ignition and rolled some more until we went 100 meters and then I stopped to kick it back up. The engine was still on full revs and some nearby chap helpfully pointed out that the throttle cable had been pulled out when he grabbed the handle bars and it was an easy fix to put it back in. Stupid bastard! If he did that to someone who didn’t have their wits about them we would have been shooting down the road and heading for a quick and nasty accident. Apparently the guy was the local nutter but Im very suspicious that he knew exactly what he was doing and wanted to see me lose it. Still it would do no good to go back and lamp the guy so we kicked her up and got the f**k out of dodge. We didn’t head right back to the main road and town, but took a detour to the crater of an extinct volcano that overlooked the town. We hiked up with some local kids and I took a few panoramic shots with my camera, as well as some pics of the kids which they loved. It was a ogod spot to look up to the three huge extinct volcanos overlooking south-western Uganda, northern Rwanda and south-eastern Congo. Indeed one of the peaks was the border for all three countries, which I will have to hike up one day. We rode back into town and I had been so trigger happy in the batwa village I had to go and back up my photos onto my hard disk. Its a great little item, and saves me having to carry multiple memory cards. Although if it gets nicked or dropped I will be heartbroken! We then went west past the hospital with the sealed road ending as soon as we’d gone by. The bike was a pain to drive with the gears being the wrong way around but I was getting the hang of it by now. It was a beautiful day and didn’t look like we would be getting the late afternoon rain which had drenched the town the previous day. We passed a couple of cops and waved hello, well, how were they going to stop me even if they wanted to :p We turned off onto a dirt track and went a couple of winding kilometers down to the lake, ending at a new guesthouse that was being built, alledgely with the aid of the swedish government… We walked around to a little jetty and Joseph was yelling across the lake to a guy in a dug out canoe. He paddled furiously towards us and pulled it up on the bank. He collected a bunch of small branches of trees to keep our bottoms (semi) dry and we wobbled aboard. Now my arse isn’t *that* fat but you had to wiggle to get your hips into the thing. I sat at the front, Joseph behind and the fisherma behind. We kicked off and went in search of some otters. Pausing only to collect me a paddle (whether to make it more authentic or to cut down the work load, I dont know) we followed the lake bank around to the ‘otters garden’ seeing planty of birds flitting around, bright red dragonflies buzzing over the water and fish splashing off the surface as we interupted their feeding. A couple of ducks dove in search of food and seemed to swim for ages before popping back up. Apart from the wildife there was no human sounds apart from the plop of the paddle in the water and my panting as I did some work! But no otters! We had to go about 4 km and didn’t see a sign of them. We pulled up on a small penisular with great views of the volcanos and climbed up to have a look. Joseph and the fisherman were chatting away and he told me it was for sale. He said it was about £2k, which seemed very cheap for where it was, but there was no road (or electricty, running water or mobile coverage). There were a few rows of various crops and apparently it was owned by about 4 farmers who were trying to sell their various shares. We took a few pics and got back into the canoe. I was sceptical but intrigued. On the way back my sceptism was abated somewhat by the fleeing glimpse of an otter in the distance. So they did exist and weren’t just made up to get tourists to a scam ‘for sale’ penisular.
Tags: locals, birds, photo, guesthouse, borders, rain, photos, stupidity, tourists, brakes, Travel, arse‘Local Madman kills tourist’.
7.30 was when I ordered my breakfast for the next day and at 7.30 they knocked on my door to tell me to come get breakfast, but was there any breakfast to be seen….? No. Grrr. F**king tell me its NOT READY and i can go get a shower and sort myself out instead of stitting there like a TOOL for 20 minutes! Or put it on the table at 7.30 and let it go cold if Im not there. I mean, what was the point of telling them the night before… There was a change of plan in the days routine as apparently the pygmies would be going to the market so we should see them first. Since they try to keep themselves to themselves and apparently have nothing to sell and no money this didn’t make much sense, but I wasn’t going to argue. We set off on the bike with Joseph driving and as nice as the guy is I will still feel bad for stating he is a shit driver. We wobbled and swayed about, the roads were pretty bad but he had no confidence. At one steepish rocky part I suggested I walk and I turned around and he had dropped the bike. I suggested I drive. I did a better job than him and we got up to the part we would walk from no problem. The bike was weird, it was like a moped but with a clutch, so the gear shifts were the wrong way around and caused constant confusion whenever I came to change gear. We walked up through 500 year old lava fields towards the village of the pygmies, looking at birds on the way as Joseph recounted various facts and touristy information. After a bit of a hike we made it up to the ‘village’, more a collection of huts. The Batwa (as they are local known) are indigenous forest people but have bee evicted from the jungle over recent years and now hold themselves seperate from the local population, living on land donated by sympathetic people and growing some small crops and keeping a few animals. They live in mostly tradition houses and they were shockingly poor. The kids were running around in rags and no shoes and they had tiny filthy huts. Joseph showed me around and said that when they die they are buried in their huts forcing the survivors to build anew. Other people arrived from nearby and they did the usual expected tourist thing and put on a bit of a song and dance for me. I have no idea if it was traditional or real, but they seemed to enjoy it and all worked up a sweat. The local ugandan boys who looked after the cattle watch in amusement as their batwa friends danced. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable situation to be in, the poor people dancing for the rich white tourist, but what could I do? ‘I guess I’ll take some pictures then…’. They danced and sung for a good 20 minutes while the ‘chief’s wife banged a drum made of an old metal tin with some leather strapped on the end. Of course I had the usual problem of hw much should I give them. I had to give them someting, and there were a lot of people there, i guess… you can only believe what the person who speaks english tells you, but I dont think it was a scam. I gave them 50,000, since I didn’t have any twenties, about £14, which was probably 50p each. I dont know if it was too much, they seemed very happy with it anyway. They all started dancing again and all the men shook my hand. Was pretty sad. I wish they could all just go back into the forest and everyone would leave them alone. Including me. We hiked back down to where we left the motorbike and i gave Joseph a 10 minute lesson on how to take a photograph. He kept taking ‘a good one’ but since I put the flash on and hadn’t seen it was taking nothing at all. For a guide with lots of experience you would think he would know how to push and hold a button…
t be continued
Tags: jungle, tourists, shoes, money, photographs, job, locals, drums, birds, Travel, huts, animalsThe Gorillaz – kids with guns
My taxi driver warned me several times to be ready at 5am, he would be knocking on my door! I was up at 4.50, brushed my teeth, grabbed my gear and waited! typical, had he ran off with the deposit I had paid him or was he just useless? I called his number, nice waste of £2.40 to hear him say he would be there in 1 minute. Bleh! My mobile provider had also finally mailed me to say they wouldn’t unlock my phone as agreed theh day before I left as it was second hand. C**nts! He showed up and off went down some very poor roads. Very slow and no chance for any extra sleep on this leg, there were potholes and rocks galore. 5 am was a pretty stupid time to leave since we were there a good hour before time, I got him to play me some African music on the way up and he didn’t seem to mind the same 6 songs repeating about 10 times. At least it wasn’t Michael Bolton!
I bought him some breakfast, it was about a quid each and we waited for the other 7 people to arrive. Eventually a Australian Couple, Darren and Amanda from Brisbane showed up with their driver. Dressed in nice new jungle gear too! :p They took a lot of holidays too since they both owned their own businesses, and were usually independant travellers but this time they had opted for a tour. Fair enough, not many backpackers would be splurging £200 on an hour with some gorillas anyway! However I got the impression this wouldn’t be the kind of trip my mother would find easy, and the group we would be visiting were the newest and potentially most challenging to get to. The other 5 people never showed up and after a quick pep talk hired a couple of porters to carry our stuff and drove about 4km to the path. I guess I could have asked for my $25 park entrance fee back as I never actually went into the park because the gorillas had recently moved just out of it. They weren’t sure why, possibly because of competition with another nearby group but they were still pretty close.
We began the hike down the rather steep trail to the bottom of the valley passing through fields and past a few houses along the way. The gorillas are all guarded to protect them from bush meat poachers, and also keep them away from the locals who, as you can imagine, woud rather not have to deal with huge 200 pound apes eating their bananas and terrorising them all the time. We were also protected by a couple of guards carrying AK-47s, which was reassuring since we were only a few kilometers from the Congo, and a few years ago several tourists were killed in the same park by Congolese guerillas. Lots of dangerous types then! With straining knees we reached the steam on the valley floor in about half an hour or so, crossed over and walked for another 10 minutes to where the rest of the guards and guides were waiting. We could see their camp nearby and passed through a few old gorilla nests where they slept before. They were waing in a recently slashed and burned area on the hill side and we dropped our coats, staffs and non essential items, got hydrated and went gorilla hunting!
Well, it didn’t take long, about 30 seconds and there was a gorilla sitting next to the clearing munching away on leaves! He didn’t seem at all bothered by us, quite happy to sit and eat, posing for photos. Darren had a nice digital SLR with a good zoom, and I reckon he got some great shots. I blasted away on my little canon. 2 minutes of playing model was enough and he rolled into the bush in search of better food and less attention. We crossed over a rather tiny plank over a small gully into the uncleared jungle and found another gorilla under a bush also eating. I guess thats what they do best :p We got pretty close, about 3 meters and the guide hacked us a better path so we could see him better. There were other babies in the tree that we could also see, not too clearly but making a lot of movement. We moved back down the valley in search of the boss. We saw him briefly along with a baby, but he disappeared quite quickly and we carried on to the stream below. It was great fun, the jungle is no barrier if you’ve got a big machette and dont mind getting dirty. We were slipping down near vertical slopes and pulling ourselves through thick bush, sploshing in bogs and trying to avoid big holes as we clambered over big fallen trees. There was another gorilla up the other side over the river and we could see the bushes move as he pulled leaves from the branches but we couldn’t see him. It was ‘too steep’ to get up and have a look, but it wasn’t that bad. We set off back the way we came looking for the dominant silverback we lost just earlier. The babies were still swinging away, but you couldn’t get a good photograph.
We hacked a new path and found a way to the boss, Nkuringo, you could just see him through the trees. Our guide from the office, the little guy with the machette and Darren up in front about 5 meters away from us while I was gallantly helping Amanda through the brush when there was a mighty roar and Nkuringo stood up and confronted the 3 guys in front! I was glad I wasn’t in front as a fully grown male gorilla showing his teeth and lungs to you is probably not the most pleasant experience! Darren aparently got quite a shock (but no photos :{). The video was going and although I didn’t capture it I certainly got the sound! The guides were not too bothered though and just roared back at him, I guess they knew not to take any shit :p After we changed our underwear we sneaked up a bit more and found him happily eating away again in the clearing and you could see more movement in a nearby bush. We snapped away as the hour was nearly up and boy had it gone fast! We edged closer and Nkuringos son came out and started to play in front of us! Tiny little fella was rolling around and beating his cheat just a few feet away with his father watching patiently in the bush nearby. Cool!
We snapped away like mad until Amanda and my memory card ran out. Thank goodness for the video, which was better in the low light anyway. I had stupidly forgotten my tripod. At least I had spare batteries though! Eventually we had to go and left them in peace. Those gorillas are raking it in at £200 an hour, but what a great job! :p We hiked back up the hill, and I regretted hiring a porter but they made out it was miles and really difficult, which it wasn’t. Still Amanda had a hard time of it and they both had quite a trek to go as they had optioned a 2 hour walk through the NP rather than drive 5 hours around it. I was kicking myself for not being prepared for a lift north as they were heading my way. I had thought it possible but with my stuff everywhere and laundry being done it was not possible. Oh well. We got to the top and I went with them to the start of the trail in their 4WD, sending my taxi driver back to the office to wait for me. We had swapped emails and I promised to send them a DVD of the gorillas in exchange for their photos. Which is good because I suspect my photos were rubbish! They set off with their armed guards and since i haven’t heard about any tourists being kidnapped assume they arrived safe and well.
The cheeky s.o.b. of a taxi driver had accepted my suggestion I buy him lunch to the tune of 7,500 schilling, and told me there was nothing left to eat. I can believe it, the lying git would have cleared them out *if* he had eaten anything. It was impossible to spend 7,500 on lunch so my intention of tipping him went right out the window. Pity, I intended to give him more than he swindled out of me, pity for him anyway. And he cost me about 9,000 since i rang him when he was late! And he sealed his fate when we arrived back at the hotel and I struggled my bags, coat, sandals and various stuff off the back seat while he just sat there. When I managed to get it all in my hands he offered to help, nice one, goodbye….muppet! Back at the hotel, after i got over my heart attack over how much they had charged me for doing a few items of laundry I was soon tracked down by Joseph and we hammered out a deal for the following day. Local pygmy village, climb up a old volcano and off to see the fish otters in the nearby lake. We’d have a motorbike, I could drive if I wanted to.
Tags: possiblity, sleep, madness, bleh, locals, banana, photographs, stupidityRoad to Kisoro
Not much to report, got my rip off taxi at 4am, was on the bus at 4.30am. It left at 6.40 :p Am I suprised….? I put on my headphones and sleeping mask, blew up my pillow and attempted to ignore the preson behind me shoving their knees in my bag, occasionally pulling my hair and the lack of leg room. It was ok, no need for valium, although if you dont take it early you might be spaced out for the rest of the day. The bus held 69 people and they generally stuck to that. We had 2 boring hours in Kabale when they discovered the brakes didn’t work, happily that was in the bus depot, so we just stood/sat around as various mechanics crawled around under the bus. Eventually they got it sorted around 2pm (an hour after we should have arrived in Kisoro) ad we headed off into the hills. Nice trip after that, very steep in parts, winding mountainous roads with some good views. Got through one of my camera batteries. The local kids were shouting for all kinds of weird stuff like pens, batteries and god knows what else. At around 5pm we got there and I had to decide what to do. I had been trying to call a guesthouse by the gorilla treking office for the last 2 days and after another futile attempt at the bus stop I had to decide whether to go up there now and hope they had some room, or get a hotel in town go up early in the morning. I chose the later and went to get a room at the sky blue motel. I got a driver to drop me off after arranging to get picked up at 5am the net day. All these early starts were killing me! But if I missed my start time at 8am I would be £200 down, there are no refunds because you can’t be botered to get up! I walked into the town fow a quick look around and was immediately collared by Joseph, the local guide and I promised him I would think about a local tour the day after I had seen the gorillas. I put some laundry out for the hotel to do and exploded my backpack over my room. Dinner and an early night I reckoned, after first entertaining the local boys in the middle of town who must have been really bored (I asked where the disco was, they didn’t have one :p) and chatting to the pastor who was also on the bus about theology. Not much happening here!
Tags: mountains, brakes, sleep, taxi, guesthouse, Travel, disco, backpack, localsI feel crook!
I got up about 10am and felt ok, had some breakfast, said goodbye to Dan. Surfed for a while. Decided to leave the trip until the next day which was just as well as around 1pm I felt so bad I lost my breakfast. Ahhh, much better now! Pity I didnt manage it the night before. I sat around chatting to Joanne, the engish girl we were talking to the previous night. I also found out there was a bus from Kampala to Kisoro 400 km away early the next day which was only 50km from the gorilla tracking place. Perfect, I would head down to the bus office and book my ticket. If I didn’t leave on tuesday I would be stuffed and have to hire a taxi (or special hire) all the way down, costing me a fourtune (ie thirty quid!). I gt ready to leave… and then it started pissing down! Daymn! 2 hours later I got my ass in gear and jumped on a boda into town. Half an hour later I was clutching my bus ticket with strict instructions to be there before 5am which is when it left…. right! I wandered around for a few hours, bought some batteries for my mp3 player, one for my SLR which was hopefully going to make another appearance to capture the gorillas. I went for drinks at the nice posh wifi cafe and wasted money on a lemonade with no sugar (why would the waiter even ask if I didn’t want sugar!?!). They provded sugar, but you will be stirring for hours to get it to dissolve in cold lemonade! I ordered a frappe too (ie icy coffee) and god knows what they brought me. Eventually I got what ordered and carried on futiley stirring. I shouldn’t have paid for that lemonade… The waiter was a trainee, very camp and useless. No tip for joo! I headed back to Red Chili, pausing to buy some food for the bus and some drugs. I stupidly bought treatment for gardia, when I meant bilharzia so that was 4 quid wasted. I also bought 10 valium for 200 schillng, ie 5 pence which are good for if the bus is really, really bad. You just dont care! The camera battery didn’t work, but since I haven’t put a film in it for about 3 years I guess I shouldn’t have been suprised 
I had dinner with Simone and Ohart and packed my bag back up. I also chatted to some english girls heading up to Murchison Falls and gave them the task of retrieving my padlock which I left attached to one of the tents up there. Fingers crossed. I packed my bag, and got my self ready for for the bus journey by charging everything up for the journey. Mp3, camera, phone, Nintendo DS. No boring journey for me if there is nothing to look at!
Last day on Banda
Well, the next day I was up at a reasonable time in order to get some breakfast and pack my bag. I also wanted to explore a bit more as apprently there was a nice big garden where all manner of produce was being grown. Steve told me later this was a lie :p However there were several acres devoted to pineapples which I located, while hoping not to get bitten by a local snake. I had a bad night the night before when I discovered there was a huge spider sitting on the rocky wall by my bed meaning I had to put up my mosquito net in the dark. I guess the chances of it walking across me in the midde of the night were rather remote but the idea was enough to force me into action. The boat could arrive at any time between noon and two thirty, or very possibly any time at all so we were all ready. Even Steve was moving on but then it looked like Dom had done nothing since Tuesday it was probably just as well (by work I mean making sure the staff were still building his super toilet by sneaking up on them out of the jungle). Dan, Limone and Ohart were not looking forward to the return boat journey as the boat in was dangerously overfilled and broke down several times and this wasn’t heled by stories of boats taking 17 hours to go 20 miles, but when it turned up it looked ok and apart from the stink of fish being taken off to market was a pretty good boat. We waved goodbye to Dom and set off in the mid afternoon sun. Great whacky place, I hope I can go back one day. Three uneventful journeys later (boat, bus, taxi) we were mostly back in Red Chili in kampala. Dan and I enquired about dorm beds while the 2 Israelies put up their tent. Dan ordered a beer, I had one too, and another and another. I went to dump my backpack before I got too hammered and went back to find Dan talkng to a English volunteer and 2 Zimbabwean white guys who were off to Banda the following day. We were joined by a couple of Israelies. We then proceeded to get absolutly hammered, the bar closed at midnight and we carried on drinking outside until about 2am. I went off to attempt to be sick and came back to see everyone had gone. Just as well, I didn’t think I would be up early to head off to the gorillas in morning…
Tags: beds, locals, dorms, chili, Travel, taxi, boats, drinks, backpack, possiblity, sun, stink, toiletsPlaying doctor
My only task today was to charge my depleted camera batteries with the inverted we replaired, but we had to top up the batteries and let the sun do its thing first. One of the dogs ate a chick which was a shame. The only other thing of note was one of the staff telling Dom one of the other guys had been stung on the lower lip by a hornet and did we have any drug for it. I went and found some anti-histamines and gave it to him. He looked in a bad way, his lip was massive! Apparently he asked Dom later if there was anything he could take and Dom had to suppress a laugh and saying ‘Yes, a photograph!’. Would have made a nice one! :p Luckily it wasn’t the carpenter/cook so we had another couple of stunning meals to keep us going. Shame the beer wasn’t cold, but you can’t have it all. There was a delivery of Coke from the local boat um, I looked for unusual rocks on the beach. We played Ludo for a bit… I was perfetly bored and perfectly happy. There was nothing to be done, but I had gorillas to trek soon so it was getting time to more on. The next day would be time to leave, and I absoutley positively had to get on the road south on monday!
Tags: photographs, shame, Travel, drugs, boats, beers, localsLazy day
It rained in the morning and when I dragged myself up I found everyone eating breakfast in the room next to the dorm. It looked like a building site but I spotted a Yamaha acoustic guitar and made a mental note to check it out later. After breakfast I got out my tuner I was carrying with me (you never know…) and had a go and getting it in tune. Once I had oiled one of the pegs broke a string, restrung it with the part left ad gone through the tuning up again it sounded… awful! And it wasn’t just me, the neck had actually been broken on a boat ride and Dom had rescued it and glued it back together. I guess he shouldn’t have bothered because you could tell it was f**ked. I gave it up and returned to the routine of reading, wandering around, making coffee and skinning up. It rained a bit more later on but soon the sun made a comeback. We had evening drinks on top of Doms ‘castle’, discussing in depth how to destroy the evil local fishermen who were stealing all the islands fish. Lots of fish eagles circled overhead as the sun went down and right on cue, thousands of fruit bats lifted off from the forest in the jungle in search of their evening meal. Then we retired back to the beach and sat around chatting until it was late. ‘Nother perfect boring day!
Tags: rain, Travel, dorms, drinks, circles, guitars, jungle, beaches, sun, locals, boats, wanderings, lazinessRobinson Crusoe meet Survivor
I dragged myself up at a very respectable 11 am and wandered down to the beach in search of breakfast. Everything looked very nice in the morning, the guys were playing backgammon, the three dogs were racing about as they do and Steves daughter, Lisa, or Busy as he always called her, was poking things with a stick. There was some breakfast left so I grabbed some and sat down to watch the game. Seems like they do this quite regularly and apparently once a year there is a tournament. I sat drinking coffee and listening to the rambling commentary that unaccompanied every game, each roll and move being dissected. The island was about 1 km by 2 km, and although it is possible to walk all around it, it is kind of tricky in places and Dom had never bothered. It was probably easier to kayak or sail around it and there were several wrecks of water vehicles all in a state of near ruin. The pirate ship, a sail-less catamaran, a small dingy, and several windsurfers with no sails. There was also a blue kayak which looked the best bet, but only had a single paddle, the kind for rafting, not the kind for kayaking. I wasn’t going sailing then, and Lake Victoria is full of Bilharzia which attacks your internal organs anyway, so it was probably just as well.
I did my laundry as it was that time of the trip and relaxed for the rest of the day, reading and wandering around. Dom had built himself a huge house, but it was half finished, another in a long line of semi abandoned projects and ideas. His latest invention was a huge long drop toilet in a big round hut, with the toilet dominating the structure. I didn’t quite understand the logic of spending so much time and effort on one big building for crapping, especially when the more vital parts of the facilities were in such a state of disrepair but I’m sure he knows what he is doing. The island was dotted with buildings, some with solar panels supplying low energy lighting during the night. The bulb in the toilet worked intermittently, I suspect someone had left it on. They also had a couple of solar ovens which reflect the heat of the sun onto a pot in the centre of the dish. Nice.
I had overheard a girl ask at the bar in Red Chilli the day before about Banda and chatted to her briefly and it seemed she was arriving later on that night as planned along with her boyfriend and someone called Dan. We hoped it was short for Danielle :p The fire was built, the sun went down, we ate a rather nice diner and sat waiting for them, amusing ourselves taking long exposure photographs with my camera.
Still it seems to take forever, the boat owner texted to say they were about to arrive but we still didn’t hear the boat for another hour. Finally they bobbed into view and we lit up the fire and swung paraffin balls around our heads. Dom managed to miss his head this time :p
They also swung around to the other side and pulled up to a jetty of rocks in the bay and …. sat there. No one said anything to anyone, no greeting, no waves, we just sort of sat there looking at each other as well as you can by lantern light. Freaky. I think they were expecting the Spanish guys that were heading over to another island to do or say something. They must have been mad anyway. I was 11 pm and they had another 2 hours to go before being dropped off on a deserted beach before walking 2 km over the island in the dark. And crazily there is a new ferry that takes them most of the way during the day for the same price!
Eventually the Israeli couple got off along with Dan, a fellow pom. We all hiked over to get fed and watered and have a good chat. They all rejected the dorm which was good, but since I had the only working toilet on the island I would to be see plenty of them passing through :p I guess they were just as freaked out by the strange set up as I was, with Dom ranting off at random tangents, but at least he wasn’t as pissed as the night before. Steve and Dom were actually desperate to get to bed, and I wasn’t that far behind, although I had the benefit of more sleep. Another beer and we all sloped off to bed, another shitty day in paradise.
Tags: madness, crap, rocks, toilets, wanderings, beers, dishes, briefly, drinksParanoia!
Hmmm, looked like I was the only guest, or everyone else was off partying
somewhere else. In any case I had no choice as the boat was shoved off the
beach and i was now stranded! We walked over to the other beach where the
bonfire was still burning and I was presented with my supper. Dom talked the
entire time, showing me where I could help myself to drinks and where I
should mark my tally. He was slightly worse for wear having apparently spent
most of the day drinking, Steve was also pretty drunk and had arrived earlier
on with his daughter for one of their regular marathon backgammon sessions. I
told Dom in my text that I only ate fish, but he somehow interpretted that as
not eating fish. Anyway I got some beans and chapattis which I washed down
with a bottle of warm beer. I refused the local liquer which apparently ‘make
you more intelligent’ after finding out they reckoned it still had plenty of
non alcoholic chemicals in it.
Instead I ws presented with a huge tin box of, um, shall we say happy plant?
Assured there were no police present on a virtually deserted island on Lake
Victoria I threw caution to wind and helped myself. Well i didn’t want to
appear rude to my host did I? Dom had a severe case of verbal diarrea and
never shut up. However I learn some valuable facts, he was born in 61, had
owned the island for over a decade, unmarried, couldn’t stand people who
pissed him (and everyone else) off and had evicted several such ‘guests’ in
his time, had made his fortune in minerals and mining and had actually bought
the island to mine it. More facts would be forthcoming in the foloowing days,
but since he had a tendancy to bullshit it was not always possible to
seperate fact from fiction.
For instance, is there a village of locals on the other side? Did he really
have 18 people in his employ at one point? Did he really build the pirate
ship abandoned on one of the beaches and sail it up from Tanzania? Other
incredible stories would be related in the following days, but he seemed
friendly enough if rather pissed. Steve said goodnight and went off to bed
leaving me and Dom to admire the moonlit lake with only the lapping of the
waves, nocturnal insects and Doms inceasingly bizzare comments to break the
silence. We had a few more smokes and if I was feeling worse for wear I can
only imagine what it was like for Dom he was absolutley mashed! I got up and
said I had better get some sleep. ‘Ok, sleep well!’ he said. Um, someone had
taken my backpack, apparently to the dorm, and I had no idea where that was!
After three attempts Dom somehow managed to get up and we staggered off into
th jungle in search of the dorms. ‘Gravel is good’ he said as we crunched
along with only my weak mini-maglite to show us the way. Things were rustling
all around us and up ahead there was a building either in a state of
disrepair or being used as a lumber yard. We negotiated ourselves up the side
of the building and around the large stairs on the outside to find ourselves
in the dorms. Outside was a rather grubby toilet with an equally grubby
shower room across from it with 8 bunks just inside. Thankfully my backpack
was sitting next to a made bed. Not having seen the movie ‘Hostel‘ but
knowing it was about a crazy murderous backpacking place was probably worse
as my imagination is always in overdrive when Im stoned. What a whacky place,
and when dom suggested he sleep in one of the other bunks rather than walk
back to his house I was certain I was going to be murdered. It reminded me of
how Ewan McGregor felt when they were met in the middle of the night by some
hotellier and taken to some weird place. I lay there imagining that all the
scariest horror stories are ones that you never read about, because they
actually happen and after being chased through the jungle and hacked up by a
machette and eaten, there is no one left to tell the tale.
With these happy thoughts, I somehow drifted off to sleep… only to be woken
up by strange scratching noises, things moving around, distinctly non hippo
sounds this time. It seemed to be all around me, something was coming to get
me, and it sounded like it had talons, bright eyes, furry coat, huge tongue,
a big wagging tail… I remembered Dom telling my that the dogs used the
upstair room as a bedroom. Looks like I was going to make it, going cross
eyed by keeping an eye on each of the doors on opposite sides of the rooms I
somehow fell back asleep….
The Legend of Banda Island
 did some research on how to get to Banda and found I had plenty of time, I
texted the number on the internet as confirmed by a poster in the hostel and
headed into town for breakfast and to find out where the bus left from. I
didn’t want to be wandering clueless around the main minibus station like I
had done in Accra and gettng hassled by touts and everyone while carrying my
backpack but Kampala was amazingly organised with signs giving destinations
and minibuses fillng up and others waiting their turn. They even didn’t fill
the buses to more than capacity, which is nice in a fatal crash! I burned off
a couple of CDs of my photos so far and went back to Masala for fish curry.
Yum, but Dom on the island still hadn’t gotten back to me and it was getting
late. I texted him again, asking him to confirm I would be able to come.
Turning up on some random island with no idea of where it is, if anyone will
be there to greet me (or more importantly cook for me :p) or how the hell I
will get back is an adventure too far even for me (although it would be
cool!).
I went back to the Hostel and just when I was thinking I was going to have to
give it a miss I got 2 identical texts in short succesion telling my to get
the boat ‘Big Fish’ at 3 or 4. Hmmmm, it was 3.38 when I got them so getting
to the harbour in 20 minutes was going to be a problem. I ordered a taxi and
headed into town after first stowing my most valuable items in my video
camera’s underwater housing. African boats eh….? Typically the most time
was spent getting the minibus out of the bus park but once going it wasn’t
too far. The pier is down near the Airport, about 30km most of it on a nice
sealed road with only the occasional goat, chicken or child to get in the way.
Down at the pier I followed the instructions on the Internet and went to the
shipping container cafe with the Banda sign to wait. And wait. And wait some
more… I am a patient guy, but some idea of when we were leaving is always
nice. Still I guess I was better off there than getting dragged onto some
random boat by people occasionally wanting me to come with them. At about
6.30pm I was told to get up and go, some guy with arms like steel cables
would carry me to the boat, give him 500 no more. After he carried me over he
wanted 5000! Despite being there while the cafe owner told me in front of him
to only pay 500. I gave them 1000 for me and my bag and turned my back. It
was a lovely evening, lets go!! hmmm, more waiting….
The sun sunk low in the sky, more people got on, they loaded more stuff, lots
of ice and still we waited. At least there was no danger of sunburn, the sun
then set! It was 2 days to the full moon though and it shone in the Africa
sky. I kept singing that Paul Simon song t myself off Gracelands
‘homeless, homeless, moonlight sleeping on a midlight lake’
Not quite midnight but it might as well have been.
At 7.43pm it was fully night and we sent off! …. for 100 meters anyway,
until the engine died. Not a good start by my standards, however at least we
couldn’t load more stuff! They fiddled with the engine for 10 minutes and
got it going again. I was soothed by the fact they had a spare engine on
board, although why should they need one….? We chugged out of the little
bay and off into Lake Victoria, the pilot seemed to know where he was going
as he pointed it into the inky blackness and kept the same course with
nothing to guide him. I sat and read ‘The name of the rose’ on my phone,
squashing my backpack and trying to relax. It was slightly rough when we
started but the wind died down and so did the swell. Most people fell asleep
(including the 2 babies on board).
I could see a light twinking in the distance and slowly vague island shapes
emerged from the horizon but we were going very slowly. Just before 11pm we
came near the island with the light and people were scrurrying on the beach,
there was a parafin induced whoosh and someone lit a bonfire followed by some
burning ball and chains being spun around madly. Looked like I had arrived,
only we went right past and kept going… I asked the pilot but he just
ignored me, he obviously knew what he was doing so I let him get on with it.
He pulled around the headland and into the next bay, someone came and
collected my pack and i jumped into knee high water. Dom and his friend Steve
were there to greet me on the beach, ‘Welcome to Banda!’.
 To be Continued….
More bumming around
I was up earlyish after a quiet night, although the f**king danish wankers
that arrived at 1am and then proceded to take an hour getting into bed while
bumping my bunk every 10 minutes didn’t help. They performed the same rick
the next monring at 6am… Newbies… I went into town to get breakfast at
the 1000 cups coffee place. Seemed ok, although I couldn’t understand why
they had one table and loads of empty space. I got it and the people after
had to sit at the breakfast bars. I also started writing my journal as I was
approx 8 days behind at this point. (As I write this I’m 10 days behind, so
its getting worse!).
I choose to walk towards the UWA, but knew I would have to get a bike
sometime as I only had a vague idea of is location. I walked past the
Scandinavian Bus Company who have routes all over East Africa and went to
have a look, and there were Sindy and her friend waiting to get on their
Tanzania bus. Had a quick word and told her I would see her in India….
maybe! Strolling on I came to the British Council so after some rather
excessive security checks I went in for a quick look and sat reading the
papers for an hour. But time was pressing and i still didn’t have a gorilla
permit.
I took the first Boda-boda that waved at me. He didn’t speak english… Still
some helpful passerby translated that i wanted the UWA by the British
Embassy, agreed a price (rather too quickly) and off we went. 1 minute later
we were at the British Airways office with him expecting the quickest buck he
had ever made! I knew where it was from there after my random wanderings of
the day before so I directed him back to it, paid my $375 (gulp! £200!!!) got
my permit and had a look at the Musuem next door. Expensive day or what!
Still I was now set, and since you can’t see them any cheaper anywhere else
with the prices fixed in the neighbouring countries I decided to grin and
bear it. At these prices I think it might well be a truely ‘once in a
lifetime’ experience for a change.
On the way back I walked all the way into town and must have been offered a
lift 20 times. Of course it is crazy to walk when you have the money (or so
the locals think) but its nice to see new things at your own pace and is good
excercise, even if it was mostly downhill. My reward was finding a great
little India Restaurant called Masala, so I stuffed myself with great curry.
2 days was enough in Kampala though so I was determined to leave the next day
(in fact I could have done everything on monday morning so I was really
slacking). I had read about a place called Banda Island on Lake Victoria
which sounded quite enigmatic so I planned on heading there the next day.
Hunting a Gorilla (permit)
After I had been relocated into the dorm by the persistent knocking of a member of staff I had to go hunting a gorilla tracking permit. I took a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) into town and went looking for the Ugandan Wildlife Agency behind the Sherraton. Kampala is just a load of hills, so after puffing and panting up a few I realised the bloody thing wasn’t there. After going 1km up a dead end road and having to walk back down I admitted my error and gt another boda. The UWA was miles away by the British Embassy! Whats more they were fully booked for 6 months as advised by the dutchies. Hmmm. The woman in the office said her colleage would check and after a funny african conversation to tell her how disappointed she was at not seeing her in the office for so long, she told me to wait. I went up to the white water rafting company upstairs to see if they were still doing the full moon rafting as advertised on their posters. They weren’t. Back downstairs I was informed that there seemed to be a space to track gorillas on the 13th at the new site of Nhgagiro. All the site are pretty close together, but this was the most remote and ‘pain in the arse‘ to get to. Still, if I wanted to go I would have to take any option I could. She wouldn’t let me pay a deposit but woud save it for me as I wasn’t carrying enough cash. I texted mum to ask her to transfer some cash as I hadnt had the chance to use the internet since arriving and my travel account with Nationwide didn’t have enough money in it. Good old mother! I spent the rest of the day wandering around Kampala exploring and trying to find somewhere nice to eat. I found a rather posh cafe filled with well to do locals and tourists using their laptops with the free wireless they were providing. No suitable african dishes so I had tortillas. I guess I would be ok if I like Zebra…
Tags: wanderings, money, arse, hunting, laptop, locals, tourists, dishes, laptops, dorms, Travel, taxiBack to Kampala
For some reason I will never understand we left at 8am. Everyone on the other
bus wanted to get back to Kampala as soon as possible, but they left at 8.30
am. That makes sense… I had made a concious effort the night before and
ordered some breakfast, so wasn’t starving all morning like i was in the NP.
We all jumped on the bus and headed for the top of Murchison Falls nearby, no
rain today. it was gonna be a scorcher. Once there we were met by a friendly
female guide and she took us to a variety of viewing point whie reciting a
litany of interesting and informative facts about the area, all of which I
have forgotten. Im sure you can google them… The top of the fals was pretty
impressive up close though, with the nile rushing through a rather narrow gap
in the rock. Out guide and driver seemed convinced we were going to fall into
the water, despite being 5 meters from any danger. I guess they lose too many
tourists that way.
One ‘Obligitory photo session’ later we were back in the bus and on our way
back to the capital. I even tipped the guide about £1.50, I must be getting
soft in my old age. We stopped for another disappointing lunch at ‘the best
restaurant in Masindi’ and then bumped back to Red Chili. Few jourrneys could
be so boring. When you didn’t see anything interesting on the way there and
you’re now absolutely certain you’re not going to see anything interesting on
the way back. But you can’t go north as the Lords Resistance Army will make
mincemeat of any tourist foolish enough to do so, as proved by Red Chilli’s
owner Steve who was murdered up there last year.
I got a twin room as ordered but it wasn’t to last as I was kicked out the
following morning, which was annoying. However the evening was spent drinking
with Neil and watching the apparent slow death of his relationship with
Philipa as they would both shortly returning to their respective countries.
Kinda sad, but you never know… We were forced into taking the BBQ option as
they were not serving food, but I ended up doing better than Neil, despite
the poor veggie options. They both planned to head off early the next day to
see Mt Edgon in the east. My lack of tent and sleeping bag (read planning :p)
prevented me from excercising any such similar option.
Lotsa Beasties!
We had to be up and off at 6.30am exactly since we needed to get the 7am
ferry. We didn’t envision this to be a problem since we had walked down to
the ferry in about 10 minutes the nigt before, so it was really close. As it
was we ended up waiting aroud for teh ferry as it just left as we arrived. We
spent the time in taking photographs of the hippo that was lying in the river
about a meter from the shore. The guard with a gun wasn’t impressed with us
all getting close to it, but the real danger with hippos is when you get
between them and water. There was no danger of that happening. It didn’t look
very healthy, with a couple of big gore marks down its flank but it was a big
bugger!
The ferry came back and we all trooped on after the vehicles, the great big
dirty thing spewed out diesel fumes as it ferried us across the nile. It
looked nothing like a proper boat, just a big lump of steel with a huge motor
and steering wheel strapped on the wrong way. Across the other side we paused
to photograph a coule of antelope by the river, and a troop of baboons near
the crossing point. Nothing special though, our driver herded us back into
the bus (now happily with the canopy open) and we joined the other buses
heading into the park proper.
We had a bit of a convoy going on there for a while, but we really only
stayed with the other red chili bus and soon lost the others. The wildlife
was great, but it was threatening to rain so rather dark. I was cursing my
stupidity for leaving my spare camera battery still on charge at the
campsite, but with then LCD display off I still managed over 100 photographs,
and I had my video camera as backup. We started by seeing plenty of antelope
and deer, lots of species, then some buffalo and giraffe. We had the
highlight early on however as we saw a lioness about 300 meters away, magic!
Big Five strike one! But it got better as the lioness was followed by 2
younger cubs. Not babies, but only half their mothers side. Great stuff! Wild
lions!
Progressing through the park (the largest in Uganda) we saw heaps more
giraffe, a few herds of elephants up close, large herds of buffalo, warthogs,
large birds, plenty more deer and antelope. It only rained a bit, but we
could see big sheets of it off in the distance. Rather luckily it didn’t come
our way. It was a great morning, much better than Ghana (although with the
extra expense) and the afternoon promised to have much nicer weather. Check
the photos! :p
We went back to Red Chilli for lunch and then back down to the river for the
boat trip up the nile. I remembered my battery this time! :p We had plenty of
people on the boat right away but went over to the otehr side to collect even
more. Not too crowded though and they have the rather sensible policy of not
allowing more than 14 people on the top deck at once. We cruised up the nile
with loads of Hippos and Crocs on the way. Our driver told us to sit on the
left and that was the best suggestion ever as that was the side that was
closest to the bank going up and returning. We saw big fish eagles and
various other birds (ask a birder!), pretty good, but not as good as the
morning. The sunshine made it better in someways though, and after about 2
hours steady cruising we were at murchison falls. We couldnt get that close,
as the water falls pretty fiercely, making rapids and turbulence at the
bottom, but we ran upstairs for a few pics and stayed there for most of the
way back.
I chatted to a Danish guy who was married to a rather nice Uganda girl and
they had a cute toddler crawling around, also called Mark! Awwww. Going back
was more of the same, only punctuated by the silence of the engine stopping
followed shortly by some white guy coming up t inform us ‘I dont want to
worry you but the engine has just died!’. Hey ho, no worries here, just chat
away and float down the river. A 5 hour delay would make a more exciting
annecdote, but after half an hour the engine was going and we carried on. Big
deal.
Back at Red Chili I made an effort to chat to the people from the other bus.
They comprised of a missionary group from England (mostly unrelated) who were
on a whirlwind mission of mercy to feed lots of people and do a few tourist
things, a couple of American girls and an English girl. I had a talk with the
missionary lot about what exactly was munching around the night before, they
favoured the hippo idea, I was in the warthog camp. Since no one had actually
got their lazy asses out of bed to look it was still open for debate. We
begged to differ on this one.
The American girls had been here for 2 years volunteering and we all did the
usual bitching about America and it politics. They were both heading to
Tanzania for a while and Sindy was heading off to India for 6 months to study
yoga. Cool! I told her I was also thinking about going to India in the early
winter to learn paragliding. Turns out the place she would be studying is in
Pune, just outside Mumbai, which is where the paragliding place is. Hmmm ;p
Might have to look her up eh!?! Maybe ‘drop in’ :p
I then played ‘guess where you’re from’ with Katie, the English girl. After
chasing each other around the country it turns out she was from Blythe Bridge
in Stoke. Which makes her random Stokie number three for me, lovely girl,
shame she was going home the next day. She got my email so Im expecting a
message from her any day now…:p We all chatted and drank Nile beer by the
Nile but it was getting on and we all had to be off in the mornning. But then
there was some excitement in the camp, the dutchies came back and said there
was a Hippo running rampage through the tents. Ok, thats an exageration, it
was calmly eating some grass, but it had been a fun day. Wildlife,
breakdowns, strange female coincidences, a crazy hippo would have been a
prefect end to the day.
You’re not supposed to get between them and water, and more people have been
killed by Hipps than any oter animal, but the nile was a good 20 minutes
wadle away. A few people took some flash photos, crazy idiots were gonna get
us all killed, but the Hippo didn’t seem to mind. I climbed the wall of the
gents (protected by a handy gate on the door) to take a few pics and it just
kept eating. The flash only really works if you’re about 2 meters away, so
along with lots of other people we got a bit bolder and chased it around the
camp for a while. No gorings, no casulaties (apart from the grass), everyone
got bored and went to bed. Including me. The muching moved off and slowly
came back and the Hippo snagged my guidelines as it walked past, the same
thing that had woken me up the previous night. Mystery solved! He walked past
my tent so I spent s few nervous minutes with my camera poked out the tent
flaps as he walked past, just a meter or so away. What a great day, and I was
only 27 hours into my African trip.
Fauna trouble…
I was woken by something crawling across my face, not too big, and I was under a mosquito net, however its never a nice sensation, especially when you have to slap yourself on the forehead. and I missed! Happily it seemed it was a one off so no infestations of bed bugs or crabs to worry me further! 
The shower was a first, no cold water and the hot was far to hot to stand under, no shower for me! Quick breakfast and then jumping onto a minibus with a Dutch Mother and Daughter, American girl, Japanese girl and a Irish/Portugese couple. Not a bad mix, everyone was very friendly but there wasn’t really much to do apart from look out the window until we got to lunch up in Masindi. I was sitting next to Neil from Dublin, decent bloke and we chatted as we bounced around the road. The destination was Murchinson Falls NP, pretty far north, but no so north that there were problems with the LRA (child solider guerillas). I knew virtually nothing about the trip, i just knew that if I turned up to Kampala with no plan I would posibly end up sitting around the hostel, wandering around town gnerally doing nothing as I had done in Ghana. Not that there is anything really wrong with doing bugger all but thats pretty much all I had done in Dubai so it was time for some action. The road was fine (apart from all the drivers with death wishes) until we stopped for lunch and then it was onto the dirt. But the majority of the journey was over and we soon entered the park. As explained by the hostel manager who gave us a talk before we set off, the park was full of wildlife but we didn’t see any, apart from an occasional troop of babboons crossing the road. Eventually we found our way to the campsite, and luckily for some (not for me) there were a couple of bandanas free. I was in a tent, but I didn’t complain, it wasn’t too warm up there either and I wouldn’t be sleeping very much with my busy schedule. We arrived about 4pm so after a quick shower and walk around the camp I walked down to the Nile with Atsuko, the Japanese girl. This is the point when Im reminded to go out and buy some binoculars because they would have been very handy at this point. Still, there were a fair few hippos quite close to the bank we were on, or ‘Hippo san’ ;p It was also the ferry crossing point, so we watched a group of tourists head over to the savannah site of the national park in their various 4WD vehicles, as the Hippos grunted in the dusk. Cool. Hiking back up to the camp we stopped to take a few pics of a warthog that was muching away at the grass in the camp. Seemed pretty tame, but you have to watch it. I put my spare camera battery on charge behind the bar and had a couple of beers, just to pass the time you understand 
Got chatting to a Ozzie bloke called Scott who was on his way home after a good while away. I had dinner with the people off the bus which was ok, and actually arrived in a reasonable ammount of time. Shocking after the appalling service at Mole NP in Ghana. We sat and watched the bats fly around the restaurant but everyone scooted off to bed pretty early as we all had to be up for a 6.30am start for the game drive. Scott got his ipod and speakers out to entertain the staff and we had a good chat about the decline of coldplay and whats good in Australian music at the moment. He was buying sodawater and mixing in scotch from a plastic bottle in his pocket. The staff didn’t seem to mind but eventually he was hammered and stumbled off to bed. I did the same. I was woken up twice, once by weird noises, the second time by something bumping into the tent. I was quite desperate for a piss as I had drank quite a few beers, but I wasn’t getting out of the tent. The electricity went off at midnight, and although they had left a lamp burning outside the tent it was 40 meters to the toilet block. I lay there listening intently and then I oculd hear a steady munching noise. Probably the warthog, but I wasn’t going to go and find out. I slipped back into a uneasy, troubled sleep..
Back in the heart of darkness
Ah Africa, its good to be back! I didnt have a visa but that was no problem. However I had no local curency or dollars either which was fixed with usual African ingenuity. The customs offical wrote on my entrance form I was getting some money so I walked past the bagage claim area, through customs, out into arrivals, used the ATM and went back into reclaim my passport and new visa! I was very happy to get through customs in a reasonable time, the Ghana immigration took about an hour and a half, in the same time I was nearly in the Kampala after surviving the slightly dodgy 40km road from the airport to the capital. I had arranged a night in the Red Chili hostel which seemed like a pretty cool place. Pretty good bar area, free internet and Uganda was lovely and cool to boot. Not hard after the oven that is Dubai, but considering we are very close to the equator I was pleased to feel how mild the weather was. I dumped my bag and had a drink in the bar, it wasn’t that busy. I confirmed my tour for the following day and chatted to a big dutch guy for a while. He had just gotten in after a 14 hour bus journey from Nairobi, I dont think he liked me telling him the Emirates flight had flown via there and it only took me 55 minutes ;p but then I had spent slightly more than his $25, that was how much the taxi from the airport was.
Tags: weather, chili, ghana, locals, hostel, immigration, drinks