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Published: January 30th 2010
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What a country. We have been blown away by the hospitality and friendliness of Ugandans. We left Kenya at the border in Malaba, leaving behind us the throng of touts and agents trying to sell soft drinks, biscuits, water, foreign exchange, taxi rides and everything else that goes with a typical border crossing / bus station in Kenya and arrived into Uganda. Silence. Hello? Nobody. Where do we get the bus from? We had to ask someone! Where are the several dozen people surrounding us trying to sell us anything and everything? Welcome to Uganda.
Being someone who enjoys symmetry, equilibrium and balance, our visit to Uganda is perfectly timed sitting on the equator, perfectly in the middle of Africa and almost exactly half way through our year long trip. It makes me smile.
Sipi Falls
First stop is slightly north of our border crossing in an area called Mt Elgon, to visit Sipi falls. An amazing region of natural beauty, with the largest of the three waterfalls standing at just shy of 100 metres. Our campsite was perched beautifully on the edge of the valley overlooking the falls. An amazing setting and (having arrived after
Source of the Niall
Stef, Mylo and Niall pondering whether or not they really have to go over that on a raft tomorrow? dark the night before) a spectacular view to wake up to first thing in the morning.
Niall is Born
So having previously visited Cairo and seen the final resting place of the Niall following its 6,500 km course (and to further develop on our slightly corny blog theme of symmetry) we headed for Jinja to witness the birth of the world’s longest river. At the top of Lake Victoria, Niall looks north, puts his head down and sets off on his mammoth journey. While Dee spent a day volunteering at a local school, Stylo and I put on our life jackets and jumped in a raft in an effort to tame the Niall. Thirty kilometers later, 12 rapids and with the 3 of us completely exhausted we let him go to continue the long journey north. Good luck Niall.
Dee Who?
Just to mention Dee for a moment here, we are slightly worried about her. She has turned inward; become quiet, isolated and introverted. On buses, in the camp sites, even occasionally on safari she spends hours, even entire days studying our Lonely Planet Guide. The pages are continuously being earmarked, flagged
and highlighted. Shortlists are being drawn up, selection criteria for further reduction and specifications required to make the final list. A tender is currently in draft to be circulated to those who are chosen. And why? Well, Dee happens to have a voucher given to her by some kind friends in London allowing her one or possibly two night’s accommodation in a top-end hotel / resort / villa. The competition is fierce, and after several weeks in a tent without flush toilets or warm water showers, living on a meager daily budget and accounting for every penny, the voucher is proving her only source of light at the end of the tunnel. I feel the tunnel end is close.
Kampala
Hustle, bustle, cars, bikes and buses, people, dogs, cats and large pelican looking birds (I kid you not). Kampala is reportedly the safest capital city in Africa, and just a fantastic commotion of activity. Our aim was to explore the city markets in search of the famed Tilapia fish in peanut sauce. In the process we found a man selling about 400 Vanilla pods for about £20 (they sell for about £2 each in Tesco), bought
some huge pineapples, bunches of bananas, chapattis by the dozen, drank the best coffee since we came to Africa and finally, on our last night found the night food market to gobble down our tilapia with matoke, yams, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, posho and beans.
Queen Elizabeth National Park
Enter stage left Nils and Lena from Cologne. Our informal overland tour is now up to 6 as we rent a van and head west to Queen Elizabeth National Park in search of Ugandan lions. The park is really lovely and a good sample of Ugandan safari to whet our appetites for the Serengeti in Tanzania. Birds a plenty, several families of warthogs, elephants, hippos, buffalo, antelope of all kinds, two hyena and a single lioness - a great few days. So much fun. And we even camped in the park, all the more interesting having witnessed the animals all day to fall asleep to the roars and groans of the park animals all around us. We did sneak off to find a bed on the second night however, needing at least one decent night’s sleep safe from four-legged intruders. We were glad we did, as it
Lake Bunyoni
The View from our Tent! was an eight-legged intruder (aka a tarantula) that Stef found outside the tent that night. We slept peacefully indoors all night.
Lake Bunyoni
What an amazing place. Imagine this gorgeous country, in which there are amazing views around every corner, and then topping it off by heading to a small island in the middle of a lake, over 2,000 metres above sea level to spend 3 days camping on the lake edge, swimming every morning, take a canoe out in the afternoon, go for a walk around the island or borrow a book from the camp library. Watch a movie in the evening. This is chill out for people who thought they could not chill no more.
So Stylo have headed off in search of Gorillas just over the border in Rwanda and we are taking an extra day or two this side before we follow them over to meet up in Kigali in a few days time. Rwanda here we come.
Will be in touch,
Niall and Dee
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Matt S
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Uganda
I was just telling someone yesterady, it is amazing when you cross into that Uganda border, it is so lush in comparison, to the East coast of Kenya. Jinja is also great fun. I really enjoyed Kampala, is one of the only African cities I enjoyed.