Gorillas in the Mist - and finally some African photos....

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"Jambo" from a very hot and sticky Uganda.....

Im pleased to say I have found an internet cafe which has been able to cope with my uploading rather a few pictures so here you go.....perhaps not to be viewed all at once.....

Kenya Part 1 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=187769&id=691995235&l=c44454e16f
Uganda Part 1- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=191343&id=691995235&l=67cc95bb21
Rwanda Part 1- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=191348&id=691995235&l=800fbca36a

Trekking after the mountain gorillas on the misty lush rainforested slopes of the Virungas in Rwanda a few days ago was a unique experience. We hiked up to 2700m above sea level through thick foliage....the trackers had gone ahead at 6am and located the Group we were going to follow and so it made the job of negotiating the dense jungle a little easier knowing what direction we were heading. However, there were few marked tails and it was a question of bashing all sorts of luxuriant vegetation including some monster stinging nettles out of the way.

One of the Dutch guys in the group actually got bitten or stung by something which subsequently turned into a festering wound and those of a squeamish disposition,look away now..... something laid eggs in the bite and a few days later he discovered maggots in the wound. Thankfully, his veterinary nurse girlfriend squeezed them out..i didnt even want to look.....but he handled it very well...i dont think i would have stayed so calm knowing maggots were gorging on my flesh....


Youll be pleased to hear, no such dramatic encounters with insects have happened with me although i have had my share of unfortunate intimacy with crawling things.... In addition to quite a few mossie bites (Im chomping my anti-malarials!), i was attacked by a load of angry red safari fire ants in Rwanda which literally crawled up inside my trousers and into my pants. These little bstards bite and i was dancing around , tearing my clothes off trying to get them off me. Alison and I had "ants in our pants" and trust me, when these creatures bite you on your bum, it frickin hurts! Couldnt stop laughing though once we had maNaged to de-ant our underwear!


Anyway, our gorilla encounter was something very special.... to be so close to these majestic creatures in the wild...literally, a matter of metres was something else. This species is critically endangered...there are only a few hundred left in the world and although the price to see them is high - the permit costs $500, it was worth it. To come face to face (aka David Attenborough in Life on Earth) with these giant ancestors of ours was something i will never forget. You can see how close we were from my photos..


The Rwandan government makes c $16million a year from gorilla tourism...15% goes back to conserve and educate further, whilst 10% goes back into the local communities and the remaining 75% goes to the government themselves. These gorillas are Rwanda's second biggest revenue generator after coffee....we are talking a fair whack of dollars.


If you want a taste of what its all about then Gorillas In the Mist by Dian Fossey is set exactly where we trekked....of course the poaching of these gentle giants is now more under control and none of us ended up decapitated unlike poor Ms Fossey - herself buried between the volcanoes in a cemetary of gorillas....


Sadly, our time in Rwanda was very limited and we popped back over the border into Uganda yesterday coming to Jinja via Lake Mburo National Park. One of the less famous game reserves, we camped on the shores of the lake and slept with the sounds of hippos gurgling and grunting in the waters, warthogs prancing around and baboons eyeing our food hungrily. Talk about close encounters.... the hippos tend to head back to the waters of the lake at about 5am and quite a few people managed to see them from the "safety" of the tent. You wouldnt want to get into a fight with these monstrosities... tonnes of pure muscle lumbering at you ...they may be vegetarian but i wasnt gonna risk it. I was happy to sleep and let them do their hippo thing....!


We are spending a couple of nights in Jinja - the Queenstown of Uganda. Here, bungee jumping, white water rafting in the nile and quad biking are the activities on offer. Im taking it much more chilled today , catching up on getting all you peeps my photos and going for a swim in the less turbulent waters of the world's longest river!


Tomorrow we head back towards Nairobi... many of the Group leave but some of us are continuing onwards. Sadly, there is no respite in kenya's capital. We arrive, get an overnight in the hotel and leave early the next day for another fortnight on the road. Next up is the Serengeti, the Ngoronga Crater and Mount Kilimanjaro befiore we stop in Zanzibar for a few days. Ill be so ready for some beach time and scuba diving by then....


Bye for now and hope you enjoy the pics....i do realise there is a lot of them! but ive made a promise that i must stop taking photos of people carrying things on their heads!


Hope all is well.


hannah

xx

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