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Published: January 17th 2007
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British overlanders, Jinja campsite, UgandaTuesday morning was completely wasted in Jinja trying to change money. I didn't want to change US dollars because I'm getting really low, but the ATM we were first sent to didn't accept visa & the next two wouldn't give me any cash, so I was forced to change Kenyan Shillings back at the Forex. To make the walk around town more annoying, I’d neglected to put a t-shirt on under my jumper & started stewing in my own juices come noon.
Returned to camp cashed up, changed, had lunch & went quadbiking for a couple of hours in the afternoon with Becky, Rachael & Dianne. We started off on the practice circuit to familiarize ourselves with the machine for a half hour, then headed out to the surrounding area. We roared through local villages, waved to children & adults alike, churned up a muddy field & returned wet from the rain, covered in mud, but totally pumped. Was an awesome experience & I can’t wait to go again on the sand hills in Namibia later in the trip.
Back at camp the showers were cold again due to a power outage, so I am going unclean another night.
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Quadbiking briefing, Jinja, Uganda If we’d arrived back earlier in the day it wouldn’t have been an issue, but it was nearing sunset & I didn’t fancy a freezing shower or walking around with wet hair half the night.
The whole cold shower business was more than made up for by the pig on spit that we had for dinner. Romy had some extra kitty money available from yesterday’s breakfast & dinner that were provided by the whitewater rafting company, so she had the campsite make up an awesome feast. There was so much meat left we broke the no taking leftovers rule & will make up a stir-fry with it for tomorrow nights dinner.
Began Wednesday with another early start as we had a lot of kilometers to travel. Had lunch at a cute, yet overpriced café on the Equator & checked out some stalls selling local souvenirs. Decided to wait until I get confirmation from dad that he’s meeting me in London before I start purchasing any large items, because shipping costs can be pretty nasty & there’s no guarantee the stuff will get home.
Set up camp right next to the main highway at a place called
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Quadbiking, Jinja, Uganda Pan Afric. It’s a tiny little campsite, which resembles a mini golf course & we had to cram our tents onto tiny patches of grass. Was devastated when I discovered the hot water system wasn’t working & the inside shower head was also broken. It meant I either had to have a cold shower, or wait an hour & wash out of a bucket. After four days without bathing I opted for a cold shower, but was NOT HAPPY with the whole situation. It’s one thing to know there isn’t hot water available, but when you are told there is & are looking forward to getting clean as much as I was, it’s a HUGE letdown.
Up early on Thursday & crossed the border into Rwanda around lunch time. Visited the genocide museum, which was very scary, but extremely informative. Can’t believe one million people were massacred a little over ten years ago, in only a three month timeframe & many murderers will never be brought to justice. Apparently the tension has subsided between the Hutus & Tutsis, but it still feels strange driving through towns, knowing that so many people on the streets are murderers!
We
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Quadbiking, Jinja, Uganda are spending the next two nights in a hotel in Ruhengeri, which will be a nice change from tent life. All I was craving was a hot shower, which we were told was available, however Rach & I had some unwanted plumbing issues upon arrival. Am beginning to believe I will never feel warm water on my skin again! After finding & turning on the hot water service, I returned inside to shower, but the thread on the tap was busted & I couldn’t turn the water off. If the water was hot it would have been ok, but it was still cold, so we had to find a maintenance man to fix it. Hours later, they’d managed to stop the water flow, but not fix the tap, so once again I am going another day without a proper shower. I just want a hot shower dammit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alarm didn’t go off Friday morning but still managed to get up on time at 5:30am, because everybody else was making enough noise to raise the dead! We were all well excited because today is gorilla trek day - at last… After breakfast we jumped into minivans & headed off to
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Rachael, Nicolle, Dianne, Becky; Quadbiking, Jinja, Uganda the meeting place & were allocated groups to trek in for the day. I was in with Rachael, Blair, Emma & two other couples from England. We were told our group consisted of nineteen gorillas; one silverback, his eleven wives & eight children, some of which were only a couple of months old.
The minivans took us to our starting point & we trekked through the jungle for a couple of hours before the action began. We had to leave everything except cameras with the trackers before going into the gorillas lair, so to speak. We had a full hour with the group & it was just THE MOST amazing experience. We weren’t supposed to get within five metres of the gorillas, but the space we had was so confined, when they walked past we had nowhere to go & they got so close they actually brushed past a couple of people. There were two little ones playing & they tried climbing on one of the English ladies, but the guide shooed them off. Partly because they don’t want humans passing on disease & also to protect us in case the Silverback gets possessive & attacks.
We got
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Rachael, Nicolle, Becky, Dianne; Quadbiking, Jinja, Uganda back to the hotel mid afternoon & a miracle had occurred - our hot water was working & I was able to have my first ‘real’ shower in AGES. I got some washing done & even blow dried my hair before taking a mid afternoon nap. Dinner was a goat stew, which was nice, but I didn’t get a knife & it was difficult to extract the meat from the bones, so I left most of it. Hung around long enough to wach the dancers & drummers perform; both before & during the power outage. Decided to have an early night & hit the sack well before the performers started dragging audience members up on stage - I just wasn’t in the mood…
We were supposed to stay in nice accommodation near Lake Bunyoni on Saturday night, however that plan changed due to the copius amount of recent rain. Romy was worried about the truck getting bogged on the dirt road en route to the campsite, so we ended up driving to Kabale & staying in a nice grassed camping area in town. I managed a couple of hours on the internet, which was nice to catch up
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Nicolle at Equator, Uganda on all my emails. The cook group made yummy burgers for dinner & we ended up moving the tents under shelter due to the rain.
Took a boat ride across Lake Bunyoni on Sunday & visited a genuine Pigmy tribe. They performed a welcome dance, but weren’t really what I was expecting because they were dressed in western clothing & like everywhere else in Africa, the children all demanded money &/or pens from us. I swear a bunch of westerners must have travelled the globe, randomly giving out pens, lollies, chocolates & money to all the kids because that’s all they ever ask for; it’s really frustrating.
Back in Kabale we bought lunch & left mid afternoon for Mbarara, where we set up camp again at Pan Afric (mini golf land). Once again, the security guard with the very large gun got drunk, only this time I managed to avoid getting into conversation with him about shooting people who try to get into the campsite.
Had a terrible sleep, exacerbated by the security guards 3am radio show. He must have gotten to the sleepy drunk stage & decided to turn his radio up full blast
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Gorilla mountains, Rwanda to stay awake - right next to our tent! The raucous seemed to go on for ages & I wanted to get up & shut him up, but was too tired & worried about him shooting me.
On Monday we entered Queen Elizabeth National Park & lunched on the decking at the visitors centre. Saw loads of elephants on the drive in & took a boat ride on the river in the afternoon. We saw a lot of bird life, which didn’t really interest me, but we also got up close to the hippos, which I really enjoyed. My cook group made a yummy pasta with white sauce & vegetables, & we set up bush camp on the cliff top next to the river. It was another proper ‘bush camp’ with long drop & no straying from the tents after dark. Right before bed, Becky told Rach & I that hippos are more than capable of climbing the steep cliff paths up to our camp area, so not only were we afraid of being mauled by lions, we were also worried about being trampled by hippos in our sleep…
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