Holidays - SW Uganda

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Hello!

Think I left off where we were being escorted to the taxi by the police in Gesengyi! From here we just wanted to get the hell out of Rwanda so crossed the border to Kabale back in Uganda. Here we stayed at lake Bunyoni - a massive lake in the mountains with 27 islands. We stayed on a little island called Byoona Amargara (a secrect hideway not in the travel guides!). Its a community development type place - absolute paradise! We had to paddle for 50mins in a dug out canoe to get there but it was well worth it! Fantastic views of the lake with towering volcanoes, sun, beer amd great food. Its also one of the few lakes you can swim in without getting Bilharzia!- so Ian did laps of the island before breakast every morning! Our one night there soon turned 3!

From here we split with the boys who wanted to go and conquer mountains further north and were joined by Cat and Alice who had just been Gorilla trekking in Bwindi. We decided to visit Queen Elizabeth National Park for a bit of safari. We only stayed one night as the rooms were so extortionately priced (10 pounds). We did a game drive in the morning, got really excited at hearing lions had been cited only to break down in font of them! Luckily some people stopped to help and we managed to hot wire it going again! We also did the famous boat launch trip where we saw loads of hippos and buffalo.

Next stop was Fort Portal for a couple of nights - more reasonably priced at 3 pounds including berakfast!! I didn't really like the town all that much. Its in a beautifull setting in the Rwenzori mountains but the smog and dust from the roads are so bad you can't see anything. Luckily it was market day when we were there so we took a drive out to check it out (which was up in the mountains) and bought about 20 headscarves between the 4 of us. No calling me hippy when I get back!! Can't believe I've only just discovered them!

After a couple of nights here it was time to head back - holidays were over! Arrgh! It all went so fast and I'm really going to miss hanging out with eveyone.

We were back in Jinja Thursday as we had top-up training over Easter weekend (not fair!). As much as nobody wanted to be training it was a really good to chance to catch up with everyone and hear what they got up to over holiay before we all head back to our villages for the second stint of placement. We had a wicked reunion celebration on Saturday night clubbing in Jinja. Followed by antics back at the YMCA which we do have recorded on flim and pictures but unfortunately aren't suitable for publishing! All I can say is its the best drunken story EVER - ask me when I get back!!!

Well thats all folks. I'm off to my village now, a little apprehensive after being away for so long but I'm sure all will be fine.

Love and hugs xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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