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Published: August 24th 2007
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Hi all. For all of those who have travelled with us, you will be aware of the travel curse that we often talk about! For those who have not been lucky enough to travel with us, there are always problems/events/things that go wrong to us when we travel. JB and Macca are aware of it, so is Jonny. Well it has not only reared it's ugly head, it has slapped us not only across the face, but also in the stomach this time. Here's what happened since our arrival into Africa.
We arrived in Nairobi after a great flight with BA. We had a row of chairs to ourselves so were able to stretch out and enjoy the flight. Our pre organised airport collection was there to get us (so far that's 2 good things, no bad things) Arrived at our backpackers where we spent the night. The next morning we were due to meet with the guy that had organised out tour to Rwanda to trek with the gorillas. He had written the previous week that all has been booked and confirmed and all we had to do was pay on our arrival at the backpackers. Well no-one knew
anything about our tour, the guy was nowhere to be found with no phone nor had he left any information regarding bus times etc or how to get there. (2 good, 1 bad)
We had a lovely lady at the reception who helped us out and we found out that our permits were waiting at a resort in Uganda - no worries, we'll get a bus there. We were "supposed" to get a 7am bus on the 13th to Kampala in Uganda, but we thought lets just get on the road. We got a night bus at 10pm from Nairobi on the 12th and were told it will take between 12-14 hours to get to Kampala. 3 hours later we were stuck in a traffic jam on the main "highway" (made by only dirt and after a bit of rain - no good) A truck had bottomed out trying to pass a bus and had in the process stopped both lanes of traffic. 2 hours later, we were back on the go, bouncing our way happily stuffed in the corner of the back seat of the bus. (2 good, 2 bad) Driving towards the boarder, the front window decides
it had enough and blows into the bus showering everone with glass (2 good, 3 bad) That stalls our journey to a crawl to the boarder where we change on another bus. Through customs and on towards Kampala, the heavens open upon us and the bus begins to leak onto the back seat where we are sitting (2 good, 4 bad) Fianlly into Kampala and the total journey time is just shy of 20 hours!!!!!!
Into Kampala and we thought that we should really keep going if we have any chance of seeing the gorillas. We caught another bus from Kampala to Kabale further south and left at 11pm. The bus was registered to hold 67 passengers, but the more the merrier over here in Africa. The driver grabbed our bags and reserved a seat for us at the front of the bus (3 good, 4 bad) but this almost turned out to be a disaster in disguise. Over-tired from travelling non-stop on possibly the worst road in the world, and we were literally thrust into head on traffic, in an overloaded bus in the middle of the night dodging pot holes. There were numerous times (about every 2
minutes) where we were leaning against the way the bus was leaning, hoping that it would level out and the trip would continue. I finally started to get some shut eye, when there came a muffled cry from Kris and fellow passengers and a few hail marys' later the bus had rejoined the road and on the correct side. (3 good, 5 bad)
We arrived in Kabale at 5am, and were immediately told to wait until day break to catch a cab. We finally got the the resort and looked forward to a warm shower and some shut eye, yet were told we needed to get to Rwanda today if we were trekking tomorow. A fair bit of argument went on, swearing about our so called "travel agent" who set up our trip, who never mentioned spending a night in Rwanda. $320US dollars later and we were assured our private vehicle would be here by 10 to take us on another 5 hour journey to Rwanda. By 12:30pm it had finally arrived and we were on our way, once again bouncing all the way.
We checked into a christian mission for the night after a $60 US visa
each for the 24 hours we would be in the country for. Our guide told us that he would meet us at 6am in the morning at the reception to take us to the park. 6am came and went, 6:20am came and went and the guard at the mission eventually told us to his delight that when we crossed the boarder that the time went back one hour.!! Thanks to our friendly driver for all this info!!
The trek to the gorillas took us through farmland and was sown with a number of different crops. We reached the park boarder and were given instructions as to how to act around the gorillas. They also said that we had to stay about 7 metres away from the gorillas at all times. That went out the window as soon as we got there! Our arrival to the goriallas sent a few of them into a spin and they raced around grunting. The trackers had to chase them with us in tow so that we woudn't lose sight of them. After a short time they settled down into general eating and family time that consisted of the Silverback grooming the younger gorillas.
The younger teeneagers were playing, rolling down the hill. It was amazing to sit and watch them, but at times you didn't really know who was watching who. We were about a metre away from them at most so were able to get some really good pics. The babies are really curious of humans and one came right up to us and touched Scott! You just want to pick them up and give them a cuddle but can't due to transference of diseases etc. The coolest time was after we had got all the pictures we wanted and we just sat with them, a group of ten or so humans, hanging with the 9 gorillas in the family we visited. They weren't bothered by us at all and we all sat quite happily hanging out for a good half hour. We thought the Silverback might have been more agressive with so many bodies about but he was as happy as larry. The reason we named this blog the way it is, is because Charles, the Silverback we visited, left his orginal group with a couple of females and set up his own family because he didn't want to take orders
from the Silverback of his orginal group. So a rebel, with a cause!!
That's all for the moment. Next blog will come from the Island of Zanzibar. If you want to have a better look at the photos, just click on one and a new pop up will open, making a the pictures bigger.
Hope everyone is well
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Jocelyn X
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Wow !
Despite all the bad things you had to go through, sitting chilling with a family of gorillas must be up there in your top 3 life experiences ! I love the pictures, beautiful.