East Africa in Depth - Part 1

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Hi everyone
Sorry for the delay in getting the travel blog up and going. It was much harder than we thought getting access to internet while in east africa, and when we did it was either crap or we were too tired or had too little time to make the most of it.

East Africa was amazing.
Of course our trip didn't start off with easy sailing. For starters our crappy ticket had us flying to Sydney before flying back over Perth on the way to Johannesburg. But at least it didn't stop over in Perth, that would have added insult to injury.
Our flight was due to leave Perth on Thursday 28 June at midnight. We arrived at Perth airport to find that our flight to Sydney had been delayed by just over an hour. great. We were so tired as we had only finished packing up and cleaning our house (with a lot of help from my sister) and packing our bags to leave at 8pm that night. Not my usual level of organisation i know.

After that things continued to be painful. Our flight from Sydney seemed to be running on time and all was going well until we ended up sitting on the tarmac for about an hour while we waited for delayed passengers on a connecting flight. I didn't think they did that sort of thing - but our flight did. Then of course, we were settling in for a long flight filled with books, movies and food (to ease the boredom) only to find that Evan and I were I think the only two lucky people on the plane who didn't have a working video screen! After putting up with it for half the flight or more we moved to a couple of crappy seats right in the middle of the plane to watch a movie.

Finally we arrived in Johannesburg and of course we walked off the placne with "fresh tourist" written all over us and got stooged straight away by some guy who "works at the airport" and wanted to show us where to catch our shuttle bus, and then of course asked for a tip. It was a fast lesson.

We overnighted in Jo'Burg at an airport hotel and then caught a connecting flight to Nairobi, Kenya to start our tour the following day.

The Kumuka tour was great. We were really lucky that the 23 odd people on our tour were a good bunch and everyone got along really well. I think there is quite a few new friendships out of that, and a couple of relationships too!!

Our first stop was Nakuru National Park in Kenya where we got to have our first game drives. It was amazing to finally see all those animals we had only ever seen on TV or in books. The highlight was probably the rhinos - we saw heaps including a baby rhino which decided to run out into the road in front of us. It was awesome.

Our next stop of interest was a place called Sippi Falls in Uganda. By now we had learnt that not unexpectedly white people were walking targets for a lot of sales people, but here we got a glimpse of how young it starts. We went for a walk through rainforest like territory with some local guides to a few waterfalls (which were amazing) and then walked back to the campsite along the road. Along the way there were children everywhere and they came running down to the road shouting 'mzungu' (the word for 'white person' in Kiswahili - you hear it everywhere in east africa) and after a quick hello they stuck out their hands and said "Gimme money". It was actually really heartbreaking to see as was all the poverty. But most of the time we were really amazed at how happy the people seemed despite it.

Next stop was at Jinja Falls in Uganda - the source of the white Nile River. Here we stayed for 3 nights and most of the group went white water rafting. I was extemely nervous about the whole thing but didn't want to be a chicken so forced myself through with it. I had a great time, but don't really feel a desire to do it again. Twice being dunked in grade 4 or 5 rapids was enough for me. Luckily I survived to tell the tale.

The next few days were spent getting to our main destination - the home of the mountain gorillas. We passed through Kampala (capital of Uganda) and then made camp at Lake Bunyoni to start the final phase of the trip to the gorillas. We left the overland truck behind here and went in mini vans to Rwanda where all but two of us were going to see the gorillas.

We loved Rwanda. I learned later that Australia still had some warnings out about travel there, but it was amazing. First thing we noticed was that the people drive on the opposite side of the road - so you cross the border and change sides. Very strange. And of course, Rwanda was settled by the Belgians so it is a French speaking country, with French style making it very different to the rest of east africa.

Evan and I and our friend Aleisha were the only ones not seeing the gorillas on the first day. We couldn't all see them on the same day because there are limited permits. So instead we went off to see Kigali - the capital. Luckily for us our truck driver (who was actually our guide for this part of the trip) came with us. Given he spoke Kiswahili and some French it made it a lot easier although many people also spoke some English. We had breakfast in a local restaurant near our camp before taking the 2 hour bus ride. In Kigali we visited some tourist shops and had lunch in a local restaurant and then went to the Genocide Memorial Museum. It was an awesome and shocking experience. The stories and photos of the atrocity are extremely confronting. Not a great way to finish the day but it was an amazing experience altogether.

The next day was what we had been waiting for. Our trip to see the gorillas. There are 6 different families of gorillas in the Parc National des Volcans in Rwanda and we wanted to see the closest group because the whole tour group was heading back to Lake Bunyoni that afternoon, and the longer our trek took the later we would be leaving. Too late and we would miss the border crossing in Rwanda. Although we expressed this very clearly, we were unlucky enough to have a lot of older people also seeing the gorillas that day and they got priority.

As it was, it took us about 3.5 hours of trekking to find and reach the gorillas. Although they are visited every day by tourists, they can still move a long way in the intervening 24 hours. Despite the hard work getting there the scenery was awesome and the destination was unreal. We got to see the Suva family, and there were about 20 of them all together when we saw them including some very young gorillas - 3 months up to 2 years. And of course there was the Silverback. To be only 7 metres from such an awesome animal was unreal.

There is not really much that can be said about it except that all the effort getting there and the expense was worth it. It was an absolutely amazing experience.

After our hour with the gorillas we tried to walk as fast as we could to get back down the mountain to catch our transport back to Uganda. We got back to find one bus had already left, but our bus didn't leave until about 3pm so it turned into a long night. We didn't arrive back at Bunyoni till about 10pm. But we had an awesome time. We stopped at a pub on the way and then bought some Rwenzori (a harsh white spirit in plastic bags - very strange sales packaging) for the road. The trip back had a lot of talking and a lot of games, it was great. Some people carried on after we arrived back at camp and the night yeilded lots of interesting stories.

The gorillas were the main part of the first 2 weeks of our trip, so the next few days were mostly spent racing back towards Nairobi to being the second phase of the trip. When we got to a town called Naivasha our group split up. Some people were finishing their tour of Africa and moving on, and also our guide, truck driver and truck left us behind as it picked up new passengers for another tour. We, along with about 5 others, waited in Naivasha to be collected by a new truck with some new passengers.

It was extremely sad to be saying goodbye to our new friends many of whom I know we will keep in touch with.

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Photos

Rwanda
The roads are steep in Rwanda!

Silverback
What are you looking at?