As we wait for the car to be loaded up for our long drive to the Serengeti, I chat with one of the camp staff. Inevitably we end up on the subject of marriage and kids. As a greying, balding foreigner, presumably advanced in years, my unmarried status usually raises eyebrows, and I've long since decided to be honest by declaring that I don't want children (the constant lying in India about my fictitious wife and future brood proved too stressful). He chides me for not wanting children, saying that the Bible orders us all to go forth and multiply. I don't actually take orders from the Bible but, not wanting to add atheism to the list of my dodgy qualities in his eyes, I tell him that I would make an appalling father and it's ... read more

The day's delay means that I will be joined by M and his girlfriend K who has just flown in from Germany. There is one other customer, a New Yorker called P who lives barely a block from where I was in my Chelsea days, and when I ask about the Kiwi woman I'm told she has decided not to come. The suspicious part of my nature is fairly sure this was all a ruse on the part of the safari operator to eliminate the possibility of having to send me out on safari on my own. No matter, as the four of us bond quickly, all late-20s or older. It's good that there will only be four of us - the Landcruiser seats five but previous experience has shown that that's barely comfortable for plain ... read more

The minibus I catch to Bujumbura originates in Kigali, and I'm the only new boarder so I have the least comfortable seat available - and that's without taking into account the sizable lady next to me nor her luggage which is taking up all my legroom. However - and it's possible I dreamed this - the minibus also has aircon so I may be cramped but at least I'm cool. The border with Burundi is reached in barely half an hour and immigration is a model of efficiency. I'm stamped out of Rwanda, stamped in to Burundi, and even have time to change all my Rwandan francs at a price little different to that on Yahoo Finance - all within 45 minutes. Two hours later, after a hilly journey little different to those I took in ... read more

I warm further to Rwandan minibuses when we leave Gisenyi on time and only half full but the comfort levels drop at Ruhengeri when the remaining seats are filled by other Kigali-bound passengers and their luggage. There are many wooden cylinders in various roadside trees, and it's only later that I figure out that they are beehives. We pass numerous signs along the way - I can't read any Kinyarwanda but the word "Jenoside" in red letters presumably means the obvious, and I come to the conclusion that these are memorial sites from the madness of 1994. There are many. Like in Uganda, carrying one's luggage/goods on one's head seems to be popular. We drive through one village where I see several people wearing Father Christmas hats, presumably for warmth, as well as one fellow in ... read more

As instructed by the Horizon bus company man the previous day, I arrive at the bus stop at 7AM in order to catch the service linking Kampala to Kisoro that passes through Kabale. This is also where the shared taxis depart from and one of the drivers tells me, in tones so solemn I assume he's BS-ing, that the bus passed through 2 hours before. I wait for 15 minutes but there's still no bus, and the shared taxi guy then tells me he's about to leave if I want to go with him. I look inside his car and discover that the stars have aligned for me - not only is he going to leave without a full complement of passengers, but the two women with whom I'll share the back seat are small and ... read more