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Published: March 30th 2009
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24th July Monday DAY 3 KENYA, ELDORET - UGANDA, JINJA
Had to get up for 6am to leave at 7am and it was hard. All I wanted was a quiet lie in for 5 minutes but Robin was making so much noise shuffling around in the tent with her sleeping bag and I ended up snapping at her. Today was our first border crossing day and all we had to do was give Helen our passports and $US30 and we were through. It did take a little time but we were plenty entertained with the locals, swapping magazines for bananas. I wanted to swap a book that would have gotten us a whole bunch but Julia cracked the shits. But you should have seen the pleasure they got from looking at the magazine, it broke my heart.
Once across the border we stopped on the side of the road for lunch, saw a massive spider, heaps of butterflies and some local men who got off their push bikes to see what we were doing, before one of them jumped into the nearby creek to wash himself.
I enjoyed looking out at the scenery, people, farm lands and we
People just walking everywhere
Just after the border crossing, we are in Uganda had so many kids running along the truck and waving to us. I couldn’t help but smile at everyone we passed and they would smile back with huge hearty smiles and would wave to you like you were famous. Everyone seems so happy, especially the kids, I even had one guy blow me a kiss, but disturbingly some parents would point to their kids and ask for money, and some even ask directly for it, very heartbreaking.
We arrived at our next site, Explorers Campsite, Bujagali Falls, (which is right on the Nile River, not far from its source) set up the tents and got stuck into a game of cricket. I started off well but after I hit a dog in the leg with the ball (by accident) karma came back and the ball hit me in the chest when i went wickie, owch. I did do a fabulous catch to finish the game though! After dinner we headed down to the bar for a few drinks and we played a drinking game challenge which I will call shock for a shot. I only played 4 times but never got a shock. I was the last from Acacia
to go to bed after chatting with a girl who is volunteering in a clinic somewhere in the area, I went to bed laughing.
Book 1 finished; The Game, really funny and interesting
25th July Tuesday DAY 4 JINJA
Almost everyone went white-water rafting, but I didn’t get much of a lie in after the sun hit the tent and I started to cook. I chilled out most of the day, hanging out down by the river, seeing a huge lace monitor in the water, heaps of birds sunning their wings and lots of butterflies. I even got to see Robin go past rafting. The river was very calming and meditating but the march flies attacking my back got annoying so I went back up to the campsite in time to chuck a footy around with Marcus. When everyone came back (Robin with a black eye and Clare with a sore nose; both being hit by an ore) we all headed down to the bar to watch their rafting video. After waiting hours for dinner a girl shared her birthday cake with us and we think there may have been something extra in it. Dandy had nightmares
in the night so maybe he got a stronger piece.
26th July Wednesday DAY 5 JINJA
Today the group spilt up again. Some of the group went on a village walk but the rest of us went on a tour of some of the schools and the local area with Soft Power; a registered charity working with communities in Uganda to improve quality of life through education. Their funding comes from overland groups, independent travellers and sponsors around the world (see www.softpowereducation.com if you want more info). The first stop was Kyabirwa preschool which was so much fun. We got to sit in the classrooms and the students sung and performed for us with us joining in too. We went out in the playground with them and they were all hanging off us and taking our sunnies and hats to wear for photos. We then checked out the health clinic and art centre which was still a work in progress but it's looking really good. We then headed off in the truck on a red bumpy road to the Kavubuka School and got stuck into some painting. It seemed a little unorganised and it was a bit difficult
Having a bath
Copyright Robin to get the job done when 2 of my brushes broke with the bristles all falling out (they were not properly washed and looked after; my Dad wouldn't have been happy!) and the kids constantly asking questions like our names, age and where we were from, but it was very cute. It was great to feel like I had done something useful while being here. For lunch we had chapatti and it was pretty good but then we got stuck back into it afterwards. I had blue oil based paint stuck in and around my nails, not even coming off with metho. Robin and I made a donation afterwards and it was hilarious to see Andy get attacked by kids when he started handing out pens. The boys all played a game of soccer before we left with the field covered in people! For dinner we had awesome pojtke and beer bread and ngali. The showers were priceless with only 3 walls giving me a great view over the Nile. We had a quiet night.
27th July Thursday DAY 6 JINJA to LAKE BUNYONYI
Left Jinja at 6:30am hitting the equator just before lunch crossing over into the
southern hemisphere (for the first time since I left Oz). Lunch was set up in a service station and we had some interesting onlookers wanting our food. To get to Lake Bunyonyi we climbed a mountain slowly to an altitude of 2000meters and arrived to a quiet picturesque lake, apparently one of the deepest (some say 900meters). It’s one of the safe lakes in Africa to swim in, free of bilharzia. We set up our tents right on the lake, Robin and I are usually the first to be set up (not that it’s a competition). We travelled over 600kms today so it was a quiet night after our buffet dinner.
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