THE WHEELS ON THE TRUCK ARE STILL TURNING

WEATHER: Windows open 27C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Going for a safari walk

BUMMER OF THE DAY: First drop toilets on the trip and they were gag able

BUYS OF THE DAY: New giraffe bangle for 2AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: Oh Myyy God – Julius style

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Topi, red neck spurfold, waterbucks, impala’s by the hundred, baboons, a centipede, marabou storks, African ants, a dead zebra and vultures   

CAMP SITE RANKING:  AWESOME, bar overlooking the Nile, Wi-Fi, flushing toilets, showers (no hot water) but I am going to have to rank it 5 out of 5 stars

Well I am alive, today is a new day and I am ready to take it on.  I don’t have down days very often, but when I have them I am a tough crowd to break.  In my defence being away for 461 days, it is bound to happen and I just need to have the day, accept it and then move on.  After all I am living the dream, I am in Africa, with a great group of people and things that don’t kill us make us stronger.  So I have gotten up and I have dusted myself off and I am ready to go again.  I do have to say maybe I was in the wrong frame of mind when I wrote yesterday, there were people that knew I wasn’t myself and asked if I was okay, so I don’t want to paint my group with a brush that they are all nasty so and so’s, their not, so thanks for those of you who did come up to me – you guys are awesome and I am so going to miss you.

So a new day breaks, and we are up at 5am.  We have a safari walk this morning at 6.20am and we need to have everything packed up and ready to go by this time. As I now am in the tent on my own, I wasn’t sure how long it would take to pack it all away, but Jools came over and helped me and we had it all rolled and dusted in no time.  Thanks Jools.  We also have a really long day on the road today, so all round we are going to be stuffed no matter which way you look at it.  Liz had prepared a light breakfast to get us through till we got back in a few hours that consisted of some dry biscuits, cereal and bananas.  The ‘real’ breakfast was going to be waiting for us when we got back. 

This was the first stop where there was only the option of a drop toilet.  Every other place had them as well as a western toilet.  I put it off as long as I could, but I just had to go before we went on the walk.  I have to say it was the most vial experience I had had on my whole trip to date.  The smell was making me retch and I nearly lost it in there while I did my business.  Even with the shallow breathing, there was no masking that god awful smell.  Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – drop toilets stink - literally

We got trucked into the national park a little further and more on to the plains than the shrubs and we broke up into 2 groups and we each got a park ranger to take us around for 2 hours.  He was armed with his rifle in the event that we saw some unruly animals eg: the buffaloes again.  I didn’t know that they were so dangerous.  So we walked, and as we were still so early there was still a mist in the air and it was pretty amazing to see the colours of the sky in the hues of pinks and blues as we ventured around.  In the walk we saw Topi (a type of antelope), red neck spurfold, waterbucks, impalas, and baboons.  The impala was all over the park and at the end we got as close as a couple of a meters before they got spooked and moved a little further on.  Sometimes we stuck to the animal tracks, other times we literally went off the beaten track and legged it through the savannah fauna and also all the animal dung.  Considering how much dung we saw, where the hell were all the animals?  As it was still a little cool, this was part of the reason that we didn’t see too many.  The highlight I would have to say was when we climbed a massive hill, and when we got to the top, the view of the park and the valley was pretty impressive.  To think we were walking around a national park with only our guide as our savior should a lion appear or an unruly buffalo, it sort of added to the ‘danger’ element.  In saying that, the park only has 3 lions, so the likelihood of us seeing one was pretty low anyway – but that’s besides the point right?

We got back to camp at 9am, and our omelets, sausage and baked beans was all ready to go.  So we all ate, cleaned and packed up the truck and were ready to go at 9.50am.  We did have one more small thing to do before we left and that was to star in Ballbags video he is hoping to sell to Intrepid when he gets home.  He got Jools to dress in his Masai Mara outfit again and show us all how to do the Masai jump with the lake in the background.  It was so funny to see everyone jumping and I have to say Big Mike has a pretty good jump with a wad of airtime – who says white men can’t jump?  I also got my own video footage which turned out awesome and while we had everyone in a jumping mood (they were buggered) I also got them to do my group Bernstar jump! 

On the road at 10am and we are heading for Jinja today which is over 300km away.  We are expecting to arrive in, all going well, at 5.30pm this afternoon.  So after you take out the lunch stop of an hour, that’s another 7 hours we are clocking up on the bus radar.  We drove for 3.5 hours before getting to our lunch stop, which also happened to be the second time we got the opportunity for a photo stop at the equator.  It is a different cross point from the last time, and the sign looked a lot better as well.  So another opportunity for a Bernstar jump and another claim to fame.  No multitudes of school children this time though for the photo – oh well.  They had a bunch of local handicraft shops at this stop as well, but Jools was a bit of a ‘move it’ Nazi today as we still had a lot of ground to cover.  In saying that there is nothing like a power shop and I managed to buy a new bangle for 2AUD that had a giraffe print on it.  It looks awesome with my silver bangle from home and the zebra pattered bangle I bought in Ruhengheri.

So onwards we push for the final leg of the day.  The roads are still bumpy as, speed bumps galore, and they just aren’t a single hump, they are 4 in a row, so for those trying to get some sleep on the truck, it is intermittent as we pass over these speed bumps every 30 minutes or so.  It is also incredibly dusty, so we get a little pushed sometimes, if we close the windows to keep out the dust, it warms up like an oven, so we need to have some open and everything just gets coated in a fine later of dust, I am not sure how long my laptop will last, as it gets filthy, so I am sure those small particles of dust are not doing it any good.

I have had 2 proof readers that like to read my blogs as I finish them on the bus and before they are loaded and that is Paps and Sean.  I was a little embarrassed with yesterdays ‘Home Sickness’ entry, but we can’t always have rose coloured glasses and one has to take the good with the bad.  Needless to say when we arrived into camp at Jinja Em was the first one to help get my shell up of my tent, and Sean then came over and helped me with the rest of the set up.  Thanks guys, it meant heaps to have some help.  I am now looking at the other side of the coin and to have a tent of my own for the next 3 nights has to be some form of bonus now right?  I can spread my shit from one end of the tent to the other and not have to worry about anyone else.  See there is always an upside to a downside!

Having had no power for the last 2 days, my laptop has 16 minutes of juice left, my Playbook is dead flat, my IPod is running on 20%, my camera is on the last free battery and my phone has one bar left.  Everyone else is also in the same boat, so there will be a manic run for the power points when we get a chance. 

The camp itself is pretty amazing.  The bar is overhanging a cliff face that overlooks the Nile River, the beers are only 3000 shillings ( 1.20AUD for 500ml) the toilets and showers are in this pretty funky looking shower building (they are cold but we can’t have everything) and the toilets (which are plentiful) flush and have paper.  They also have a bungy jump here at the camp site, which is 40m, so according to Sean, it’s not a big one, but would be pretty cool to say that you jumped in Uganda.  Never fear, I wasn’t getting up there, but Sean was the only one out of the group that was giving it some serious thought.  So we sat in these comfy over stuffed cushioned couches and consumed a few beers before dinner.  The weather has been a little dicey towards the end of the afternoon, but held off over dinner, which I have to say I think I had the best chicken ever, and time for us to put everything away and head back to the bar. 

We had out nightly meeting and one of the guys from the camp ran over what optional excursions could be done tomorrow.  Majority of the group were going white water rafting.  Yeah….I’m not really a water baby, so that was no.  There was the bungy jump, which is probably the only thing I haven’t done, as I have parasailed and sky dived, but bungy?  I am not too sure about and then the third option presented to us was a jet boat ride on the Nile.  Okay now you’re talking.  How many people can claim that they jet boated on the Nile?  So for 75USD, me and 4 others signed up for the 10am departure.  How cool.

I made sure I wasn’t going to go ‘crazy’ tonight, not only to not be an embarashemnt again, but with jet boating in the morning, I would think you wouldn’t want to be hung over for that.  So I only drank beer and a lot of us went to bed at 10.30pm, which I made sure I was in that group.  There was a lot of thunder and lightning hanging around, so I made sure I had closed all my windows and my door flaps and then settled in for the night.

Only 3 more nights left of this tour when we will say goodbye to new friends made and the whole dynamics will change.  I hope my next group is as awesome as this one.  I have been so lucky with all my tours and touchwood that it continues.

TODAY I WAS HOMESICK

WEATHER: Hot and 27C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Finally getting out of the truck

BUMMER OF THE DAY: I’m homesick today = sad Bernie

BUYS OF THE DAY: Bottle of water at 1.50AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: Curl up in a ball

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Monkeys, leopard tortoise, 100 warthogs, water bucks, zebra’s, deer   

CAMP SITE RANKING: Very basic finally drop toilets for the first time all trip and ordinary shower - 2 out of 5 stars

I don’t know what I dreamt last night, but I had a very restless sleep and the minute I woke up at 4.50am I thought of home.  I miss my god-daughters, my best friend and my home which is no longer mine.  This was going to be a curl up in a ball day – I can have one of those every now and then right?

Up early, meant I beat everyone to get all my stuff to the coach, as we are leaving Rwanda and heading back into Uganda today.  I even had time to catch up on my diary with a cup of tea as the rest of the crew woke up.  What a grandma I am turning into.

So all packed and on the truck, we left our home for the last 3 days.  We have over 400km to cover today and a border crossing, so leaving at 7am Jools hoped to have us at camp by 5.30pm.  This is one of the longest travel days we are to have, so we need to suck it up, it was worth it to see the gorilla’s yesterday so bring on the 8 hours on the truck.

We only had to drive around 40 minutes to get us to the Rwandan border.  The process was similar to what we have done in the past, we get out, line up, show our passports and then we get stamped out of the country.  As I hadn’t had my globetrotter’s book stamped yet, I had nothing to lose on asking the immigration guy if he would do it, and he was more than obliging, so I now had my Rwandan stamp.  Yip yay.  Our passports then got checked as we walked the 60m through no man’s land to the Ugandan check point.  I was the passport collector with the 50USD fee, and I stood and got everyone’s passports cleared and stamped letting us back into Uganda.  He was a very thorough official, taking his time, checking all the pages and signing a proper signature in all 22 passports.  He was in no rush.  He wasn’t as friendly as the Rwandan guy, but I had nothing to lose asking him about my Ugandan stamp for my Globetrotters book and blow me down he stamped it no problems!  Yay – now all the countries are up to date.  The whole process for both borders took around an hour.  Crossing back to Uganda we lost an hour and wound our watches forward.

We stopped at Kabale at midday for lunch.  As we had a long day, we were given 5000 shillings to go towards lunch today.  This was also the place that we stopped at on the way through that had free Wi-Fi access.  I ordered a chicken burger that looked exactly like the beef burger when it came out and the internet wasn’t working to well, but it was good to get off the truck for an hour.

My tentie is back sitting next to me today, but still not much has been said to each other.  I think she is switching tents and moving in with one of the other girls, but she hasn’t said anything to me, so we will have to see when we pull up to camp this afternoon.  It really upsets me, the whole thing, as I don’t think I have done anything wrong and she is treating me like a leper, but I am going to have to let it go, otherwise it will ruin the rest of this portion of the trip.  Add that onto a few short text messages from the ex-husband and my homesickness, can this day get any worse?  Man I am really feeling down today. I need a hug from my little people; they always bring a smile to my face when I need it.  In saying that my across the way seat buddy, Jo, knew how I was feeling, so she brought a smile to my dial and leant me her toy puppy that she was given by her nieces.  So I pulled out my Elmo and they kept me company for the rest of the afternoon.  Jo is awesome and I will definitely be visiting her in Ireland next year.  It was good to have some-one to bounce some frustrations out with.

We drove for another 2.5 hours to a town called Mbarara where we stopped for 20 minutes, to refuel the truck and toilet stop and then drove another 1.5 hours to get us to our camp for the night at Lake Mburo.  As we finally pulled into camp there were warthogs everywhere just grazing on the grass, apparently they will be around us all night, but after watching some of the group getting their photos they don’t seem too flighty or angry, so it will be fun to have some wild animals in camp.  So off the truck we get and my tentie goes with Janet, so I am now in a single tent for the next 4 nights.  Gee that is really disappointing and a little humiliating.  So I had to ask Jools to help put up my tent, once the poles are in I can do the rest, and I am on the edge of the camp.  If my tentie wanted to still be friends, she would have at least explained what she was doing and at least offered to help with the tent.  In saying that no-one else offered or has checked how things are, so after dinner I am going back to my tent to crawl into that ball I have wanted to do all day.  What a fucked day all round really.

There will be a change of groups in Nairobi.  We thought the people going through to Tanzania would be on the same truck as us peeps going all the way through to Cape Town, but we have learned that 7 of the Tanzania’s will be on a different tour, and just 4 of us will be on the Cape Town run.  So I’ll get a new tentie and make some new friends, which could be just what the doctor ordered.  In saying that I have made and met a batch of amazing people who are either leaving in Nairobi or moving onto the Tanzania truck, and I am going to miss them and wish I was going with them.  It’s my Greek Posse equivalents but African L

Well once the sun went down we learnt pretty fast what Lake Mburo meant.  Mburo is a little fly and common to the area.  No shit, the second you turned on a light you would be swarmed by thousands of these fly things.  When you are in the middle of nowhere except the moon as your only light, it was necessary to turn on a light.  So the light would go on to plate your dinner, off goes the light to eat, light back on to go back to the table for the main meal, serve up, eating dinner in the dark, light back on to wash dishes and then it pretty much forced everyone to bed, but it was just after 9pm and we had to be up at 5.30am to pack up and leave camp by 6.20am for our safari walk in the morning.  I blew my nose and there were 3 flies, and I rekon I swallowed around 50 and the rest of the group was in the same boat.  Little buggers.

As we were camped close to the lake’s edge, there was a man walking around the camp all night with a rifle to keep the hippos at bay, should they decide to come anywhere near the camp.  There was an Exodus truck in and also some other random group and they were closer to the water than us.

There seemed to be a storm brewing, with a lot of lightening in the sky.  It was giving us a great display while we were eating dinner by the camp fire.  Would it rain?  When I went to bed, my window flaps were all open; hmmm should I get up and close them should it rain?  I thought I would risk it till this massive clap of thunder rolled over us and I decided to get up and out of the tent to close all my windows and roll down my door.  I also heard a few others getting out and zipping up their windows as well, so it was pretty funny to hear all the zips zipping.

Tomorrow is a new day – I’ll pick myself up, dust myself off and march on, but everyone is allowed to have a bad day and mine was today.  We are only human after all and we can’t be happy and smiley all the time.  I just needed a hug.  I know when my Bestie reads my text I’ll get an electronic one and that will make all the difference.    

Signing off unwanted and unloved today B

MEET OUR GORILLA FAMILY- BWENGE

WEATHER: A glorious gorilla trekking day of 25C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing the whole 13 family members of Bwenge

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Having to leave the gorilla family after an hour

BUYS OF THE DAY: My porter Dan was a god send for 10USD

WORD OF THE DAY: OMG – WOW – OMG - WOW

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY:  13 gorillas’ and numerous goats

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Same as last night – no change

Early start this morning with breakfast at 6am.  So there were all sorts of alarms going off from 5am.  I set mine for 5.20am to get the early toilet run in.  A note here to actually read and pay attention to your medication instructions.  As I was popping all sorts of pills for the gorilla’s this morning, I took my malaria tablet before I had eaten (as directed it needs to be taken with food) within 30 minutes I was running to the toilet and having a morning spew as I had not yet eaten.  Lesson learned for me. 

We were all like excited school children on a school excursion.  We were all breakfasted and ready to go at 6.30am when our 4x4 were to pick us up.  Well after a small delay, we left the mission just before 7am to drive the 30 minutes to head to the gorilla registration center, register and to get sorted into our groups and head out.  It was quite busy here, but there are other tours that also leave from here including the golden monkeys tour and tours that hike to Diane Fossy’s grave site and some of the gorilla’s she worked with are also located with her.

So we were broken into 3 groups of 8.  There were 2 medium treks and a longer trek to get to different families, so we shifted all the hikers around to put the fit people into the last group, at this point we still didn’t know what families we were getting or how far they were etc.  So one by one the groups left the area to head on their own gorilla adventure.  There are only 8 gorilla families that can be visited each day, with a maximum of 8 people per group, making a total of 64 people a day maximum.  I guess that explains why it is so hard to get permits as that is only 23,360 people a year that get to experience the Rwandan Mountain Gorilla’s, assuming they run on public holidays, which if they don’t, and taking into account low season, that reduces that number.  So we are doing something pretty special, which we knew, but the numbers show just how hard it is to get into see these magnificent animals.  There are another 10 groups of gorilla’s that are visited but only for research purposes, so these are not visited by tourists.  In total Rwanda have approximately 270 groups, 700 in total if you include Uganda and the Congo.  So even though they are endangered, tourism is not ruining an entire population of mountain gorillas.  In saying that tourism also helps these magnificent beasts with part of the permit money that is paid helps keep the trackers employed to keep the poachers out, making it harder for them and the gorilla’s safe.   

So we met our guide Hope.  He was super cool and he had an A3 colour copy of the gorilla family we would be meeting today.  We are visiting the Bwenge Family.  There are 13 members in the family, one male silverback, 6 female adults and 6 baby gorilla’s.  The story behind our family is that Bwenge is the son of Titus, who was one of Diane Fossy’s original gorillas’s and also known to be the longest serving silverback, strongest, and also the silverback with the most amount of children ever fathered.  So the Bwenge Family’s silverback named, Bwenge, was the son of Titus and broke away from his original family to start his own.  The twist to this gorilla story is that Bwenge’s mum also left the Titus family to join her son, and this is where it gets interesting, Bwenge and his mum then had a child who is now 3months old!  There’s a bit of gorilla gossip for you.  Apparently it is quite unusual for a mother and son to have a child together, but obviously the Bwenge Family don’t care.  Another side note about our wonderful silverback Bwenge is he only likes the ladies that are older than him.  All 6 females are older than him, so he is a bit of a cougar gorilla!!!

So we had to drive 30 minutes on a very dusty, rock riddled road through local villages to get as far as the 4x4 would get us.  When we got there, there was one guy with a rifle and 5 guys in blue waiting for us.  The guy with the gun (which looked like it was 100 years old) was there to not shoot the gorillas, as they are protected, but to keep animals like buffalo away from the family and us.  They were real bullets and he does shoot in the air first, but we were also told if you hike to slow, that you could also be on the hit list! Yeah ha ha I knew that would be me!!!!  The boys in blue are porters and you can hire them for 10USD and they carry your backpack for you and also help you while trekking if you need a hand up or help with anything.  Louise was straight onto it and was the only yes to start with, but as I am sure everyone at the start thinks they don’t need one, Hope bought along an extra porter just in case.  So after we were given our hiking sticks, we left our drop point and headed up the mountain.  We passed a lot of farmland, most of it potatoes, children saying hello, asking for money, singing, passing small houses with bleating goats and just walking on a small track that was going to lead us to the edge of the National Park.  It was tough going, not only due to my lack of fitness, but we were at 2530m when we started, so I am blaming the altitude also on my heavy huffing and puffing.  I ended up engaging the ‘spare’ porter, so he could take my bag and it was nice to have a steady hand ready to help me, when I needed that extra oomph to get me up that high step, skinny rock ledge, mud puddle or stumble, my porter Dan was there to help.  I think it was the best 10USD (plus 5USD tip) that I have paid all trip.  Hope was so good, stopping when he thought the group might need to rest.  I think he was using Jo and I as his guide as to when this was, as I am sure the exertion was showing on our faces.  I am a walker but not a hiker and Jo is just a smoker.  He would blame himself saying how tired he was and he needed a rest and then would look to us when we were ready to go again and the thumbs up from us.  He was really sweet.

So 1 hour and 15 minutes later we made it the brick wall of the National Park.  Hope kept telling us he had good news but wouldn’t tell us what it was, I was hoping the gorillas were just behind the wall waiting for us with open arms, but after a small rest and an opportunity to take in the view of the valley below, we passed through the wall and we were in gorilla territory!  We walked for about another 30 minutes where Hope then told us the gorillas were just around the bend!!!  So we had to off load our backpacks and hiking sticks, saying goodbye to our porters and then head further into the jungle.  It was also at this point we met our 2 trackers.  They get up at 6am to look for the family and then radio back to let gorilla headquarters know where to bring us.  It only took them 45 minutes to find them this morning, so we were lucky they hadn’t moved too far from yesterday.  One tracker came in with us, with his machete in his hand with Hope and the 8 of us makes 10.  The groups are small to minimize the impact of humans in the gorilla’s lives and once we are in and seeing them we get exactly 1 hour with them for the same reason.  There were a few tips we were told before heading any further and they were: no pointing, as they may think you are going to throw something, no flash, if you cough or sneeze to cover your mouth, as they can catch human diseases, if a baby is to come over to you to back off slowly otherwise the mother may think you are trying to steal her child, try and always stay 7m away from any gorilla, if an adult is near you to back off slowly and to not make too much noise.  Okay, that all seems okay to us, let’s get going!

So not even 10 minutes further into the jungle we saw our first gorilla.  And would you believe it was the silverback!!!  He was hidden a little bit in the foliage, but he looked massive and hard to believe we were actually seeing our first one.  He moved on, so we moved further on, with Hope and tracker making gorilla noises to keep them calm and let them know they were in no danger.  Our next and probably the most memorable were seeing the whole family cross in front of us heading back into the jungle.  There were 4 adults with babies on their backs and the star Bwenge who posed for us a little bit before moving on.  He is one magnificent looking animal, and we were lucky we were in a clearing, so we got awesome photos, and Hope did the rounds of getting our pictures with him in the back ground – this was my WOW moment and I know I must have looked like an idiot with my mouth wide open, but Emma T and I just looked at each other and went WOW – he looked fake, that’s how great he looked, so silky and clean looking and those eyes looking back at us – AMAZING!!!!!  It is so hard to put into words how the next 60 minutes flew by.  We just followed them around in the jungle, watching them eat and the babies playing together, swinging from branches and we got plenty of time observing the silverback in all his glory.  Hope and the tracker were awesome, making sure we all got to see everything, chopping braches and weeds out of the way so we could get photos and just being able to see everything.  As it was jungle, we had to be careful of nettles, which some of us got attacked by, and through our clothes as well.  They are bloody dangerous buggers, but they only sting for a little while, leave a mosquito looking mark and then they disappear after a few hours, but man they hurt when they get you.

So in the end we had an amazing gorilla experience and it was very sad that we had to leave after our 60 minutes was up, but we had to leave them to get on with their ‘gorilla’ duties and we leave with our AMAZING, once in a life time opportunity we got to spend with them.  Just looking around the group, we all had smiles from ear to ear and I couldn’t have thought of a better way that that experience could have been better.  AWESOME, INSPIRING, AMAZING can’t even begin to explain how great it was.

We had made lunches that morning to take with us, so we decided to eat them in the shade of the jungle before heading back down the same way we had come.  With Dan all packed up, our trackers tipped (we all put in 10USD each) we started to make our way back down the mountain.  Our final altitude was 2910, so we had climbed nearly 400m, it was time to descend which I have to say was a lot easier than going up.  WE saw some of the same children we saw going up and there was a cute little group that were singing to us as we passed.  Lots of waves, smiles and hello’s from the locals as we passed back through their farmland.  We all must have looked like we had all won the lotto with the air about us and the smiles on our faces.  So about an hour to descend back to our waiting cars, 30 minute drive to a small center where they give us our Gorilla certificates, conveniently there are some shops with local handicrafts, so as I still hadn’t spent much I bought 2 beautiful woven baskets and 2 baby ones for Zoe and Tess.  After saying goodbye to Hope and tipping him quite handsomely, we got back in the 4x4 and headed for home. 

Once everyone was back, there was a real buzz. Everyone had seen gorillas, everyone got great photos, everyone had stories to tell and we all saw something different and all our groups were different.  One group had a family of 32, the other 6 and we had 13, and it didn’t seem to matter which one you had we all had a similar experience getting up close and personal.  The old 7m rule didn’t apply too much, it is a good thing that the gorilla’s don’t know this rule as some of us were at times only 1m from these creatures.  People were talking to other groups at registration and there were a few people that went out yesterday for 3 hours and didn’t see a single one and had to turn back.  Imagine that, but I guess they are creatures of the wild and one would have to have something at the back of your mind that there is a slim possibility that you could come all this way and not be successful!!!  Holy crackers it would be disappointing all the same though.

I do also need to make a special mention to Lil.  Lil fell over 4 nights ago at Lake Bunyonyi walking down the hill to set up her tent.  Her foot swelled to a balloon, luckily we have 2 nurses on board and they pretty much bandaged it, elevated it and drugged her up.  3 days later there was no improvement so when we got to Ruhengheri, so went to the hospital and got it x-rayed and she has a small fracture – her gorilla visit looked doomed.  But we found out you can pay porters to carry you up in a stretcher for 200AUD.  So after a lot of thinking, coming all this was and already paying 500AUD for the permit, you could NOT go.  Lucky she is a tiny thing; imagine the porters trying to stretcher me up the mountain?  They would have a hernia.  Apparently they go on the ‘easy’ track and this is also the one the oldies go on so they don’t have a heart attack I guess.  From her photos it looked like there were 6 porters carrying Lil, but at the end of the day, she also got to see the gorilla’s which was awesome for her.

Dinner was in town at a local hotel set up buffet style.  It was nice to have dinner out, even though Liz’s cooking has been more than I could have ever expected, to pop on a change of clothes and some mascara on the eyes was a pretty awesome feeling, considering back home I was a make-up gal through and through.  The hotel then opened the nightclub just for us, but I have to say in a massive BIG room and only 16 of us in it, it just didn’t quite have the atmosphere for this little bunny to energize through.  I stayed for a drink and then walked home with Astrid and Emma S.  I looked like a piker, but I didn’t care, I was super tired and had an upset stomach and needed to get back to mission control.  As it worked out, most people came back after an hour or so and a few of the diehard’s stayed out till 10.30pm, a mammoth effort since we had been up since 5.30am!!!!!!!!

ON THE 121ST DAY SHE RESTED

WEATHER: WARM AND 27C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Having no plans all day

BUYS OF THE DAY: Rwanda is a little on the expensive side 5AUD for a packet of biscuits

WORD OF THE DAY: We’re off to see the Gorilla’s

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: None

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Same as last night – no change

Well it was nice to have a rest day that was actually an allocated rest day.  We got a sleep in till 7.50am with breakfast at 8am, what a luxury!  I had a list of things I wanted to get through today starting with the washing.  There was plenty of basin/wash space; plenty of line space, throw in a lot of sunshine and this was a washer’s heaven.  Everyone had done or was doing some washing and making the most of the wash opportunity.

A group of us then decided to walk into town.  The mission is pretty much located on the main road into town and after a 15 minute walk we found ourselves at the main local market.  We get a lot of stares normally anyway, and Ruhengeni being the gateway to the gorillas you would expect that they would be used to seeing ‘white’ people walking around.  In their defence it was a local market, so all fresh produce, meat, haberdashery, clothe makers, shoe sellers etc.  It was set up in a big square block, so we pretty much did a lap and then left.  I was a little weirded out by all the stares we were getting, I don’t think they were nasty, but as you walked past they would smile and joke with the people next to them.  Maybe because we are so beautiful maybe?  Once again a photographers paradise, with all the colours of the clothes, cute kids and stalls, but I think we may have been lynched if we had of taken a photo in there.  The good thing that came out of it was a young fella of about 8 latched onto us and asked where we wanted to go.  So he took us to another market a further 10 minutes away, but this was also a local market selling the baskets, clothes. shoes, hardware, pots and the bits and bob stalls.  After the boys had played soccer yesterday, they wanted to buy two balls, one for the club and one for the boys who can’t play with the club.  After the second seller we got a great price of 2 for 5000 (10AUD).  So that was nice of them. 

From there I had to make a visit to the chemist to stock up on my cold and flu tablets for my last ditch attempt to try and nip my cold in the bud with the gorillas tomorrow.  Sean was with us, so when I went in and asked for the tablets, he brings out the box, pulls out a packet and hands it to me.  On the back they were called Fluffy’s.  Hmmm name doesn’t install any medical faith, but Sean read the ingredients and it all looked okay so I paid my 500 francs (1AUD) for the packet and another thing crossed off my list.

The supermarket was the next stop to stock up in schnacks and water.  The prices are so expensive according to Africa, but still cheaper than back home.  We shouldn’t complain as we haven’t spent much money and I really hate it when people complain over a few dollars. For example there was a money changer that Jools got to come to the mission to help us get some Rwandan francs.  The rate was 590 for a small note and 600 for a big note, so they were trying to exchange a 50USD for the better rate of not even .10c to get 30USD change as they only wanted 20USD exchanged.  I mean really?  If it was large amounts of money getting exchanged, okay that makes a difference, but 20USD is a small amount in the scheme of things.

Anyway, rant over, supermarket done, post office and phone top up were on the list.  The MTN shop was right next door to the supermarket, so I got a 2000 franc card (4AUD), which doesn’t sound much, but that 4 buck gets me about 33 text messages back home – insane value!!!  The post office was hard to find, so after being in town for nearly 2 hours, I would work out how to get my Globetrotters stamp another way, it was time to head back to the mission.  By this time our new friend had a few more friends join him and he now had one of the balls the guys purchased, playing soccer with his mates as we walked.  How can you take that ball back off him now?  They had smiles from ear to ear, so when we got back to the accommodation, the guys gave it to him to say thanks for showing us around.  They ran off straight for the football stadium I am sure to show off their new ball.

The rest of the day was spent transferring photos for myself and others, trying to access their terribly unreliable internet but getting on long enough to upload 2 blogs and change my status update on Facebook before letting Em and Ballbags use my computer for some Dream team football competition thingy. 

There is an air of excitement on getting to see the gorilla’s tomorrow.  We have an early start at 5.30am, so people were just getting their gear ready and making sure all their batteries were charged and ready to go.  It is a bit of a process to get this done as there are only 6 power points for the 22 of us, but everyone just waits their turn and it all gets done eventually.  I wonder if it’s frustrating for people when I have like 4 things to charge (IPod, camera x 2, laptop, Playbook, phone – oh that makes 6) but I only charge one thing at an time, as I would be pissed if one person was hogging all six points at once.  Oh well no-one has said anything to date, so I can’t be annoying to many people with all my gadgets.

I also had a meeting with Jools in the afternoon as Kitty Manager to double check our spend and what we had, if anything, left in the kitty.  He was very thorough and had all his receipts and it works out we have a little bit of money over, so we are going to go out for dinner tomorrow night ( this will be nice), get lunch paid for on our travel da back into Uganda and then a final dinner in Eldoret.  Nice way to finish off the kitty.  There was a balance of 200USD, but I told him to keep this and split it with Chris and Liz and I would tell the rest of the group what has been done.  No-one would expect an 8.50USD refund.  Would they?  If I had to I would pay them the 8.50USD out of my own pocket if it came to that.

Early to bed, most of my dorm was tucked in at 8.30pm.  Most of us were reading for a while and then lights went out to wake up to a day of trekking with gorillas.  As someone said when the lights went out it felt a little like Christmas Eve with the expectation of a great day ahead.  This is pretty much the highlight for all of us on this tour.  Seeing everything else has been just an additional bonus.  I just hope all our peeps see and have the most amazing experience, as it will be no good, if one group comes back disappointed when the rest of us get an amazing adventure.  I have my fingers crossed.

GETTING CLOSER TO THE GORILLAS

WEATHER: Hot and dusty

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting news we are staying in dorms for the next 3 nights

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Feeling a little shady after last night

BUYS OF THE DAY: Didn’t spend a cent today – how cool is that

WORD OF THE DAY: Struggle Street

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Baboons

CAMP SITE RANKING:  We are staying in a mission for the next 3 days so not technically a camp site but a ranking would be 4 out of 5 stars

Talk about feeling a little shady.  After Jo and Sean getting me to bed at 3am, I woke at 5.15am on our tent floor with no mattress and no sleeping bag and freezing cold.  I still had on my same clothes and these I stayed in till we reached Ruhengeri.  Nothing like getting some wear out of clothes by wearing them 2 days in a row.  Needless to say I was still drunk, but I soldiered on and helped with the dismantling of the tent and getting all our stuff to the truck on time.  My mattress and sleeping bag were in Jo and Lil’s tent, so not really sure how they got in there.  At this point Afke is still not speaking to me, so I am still not sure what transpired there.  We had to pack our lunches today, as we have a big travel day of getting to Rwanda via Kigali and the Genocide Museum.  The bread here is really sweet, so I didn’t pack any of that and just did a salad with a banana and a popper.  I really couldn’t give a toss at this point after only getting 2 hours sleep.

So as Afke is still not speaking to me, she moved to the only other spare seat next to Jools.  So this gave me a spare seat to spread out on and get some sleep.  We were a little late in leaving camp, as En couldn’t find her camera, so there was a big search, tent unpacked, bar checked and after about 30 minutes they found it in the camera bag, of course!!!  This made me do a quick check of things and I had my camera, but not the t-shirt money, but for some reason I gave this to Sean for safe keeping so nothing was missing from my end!  Phew.  We drove back through town on our way out and stopped at the shirt man to collect all the shirts that we ordered last night.  They look pretty cool and they only spelt Em’s name wrong, so monies was paid and we were back on the road.

We drove for around 1.5 hours to get to the Ugandan boarder.  We had to hop off the truck, get our fingers and thumbs scanned and our stamp, and then we crossed over to the Rwandan formalities.  There were a few worried people that only had tracking numbers like I did and no letter, so they were a bit concerned that there would be an issue ( this is why I did my in London to be sure), but they didn’t have any problems.  If anything it may have taken a little longer, but they all got through so that is the important thing.  The whole process took around 1.5 hours and then we were back on the road.  Welcome to Rwanda.

As we have now crossed into Rwanda, they drive on the opposite side to Kenya and Uganda, tough switch for Chris!  We also had to wind our watches back an hour and start to practice our French, as this is one of the main languages spoken here.  Damn French have been everywhere haven’t they!

We drove for another 2 hours to get us to the capital of Kigali where the Genocide Museum is located.  The museum was built by 2 English guys who wanted to have a place for people to learn, morn and recover from this terrible episode that happened I their country.  It is also a burial place, currently there are 700,000 people buried in mass graves on the site, to give them a final resting place.  A lot of the bodies were found just in farmland and by the side of the roads, and still are today, so it is somewhere that they can be bought to.  What makes it even more shocking was it happened in this life time, in the 1990’s.  It is a real tragedy it came to what it did.  In 3 months a total of 1 million people were killed.  No one was spared, babies, children, mothers, fathers, the older generation, it was horrific.  They had no qualms killing the children as they were the future, and they tried to wipe them all out so there would not be a new generation of Tutsi’s coming through.  The museum was broken into 3 sections, the gardens outside that were dedicated to various groups, the ground floor inside the building where all the information was about the lead up, during and the recovery after.  We had personal hand held guides, so we just walked through the whole display at our own pace.  Some of the pictures were very graphic and to see children, these small people of the world who we should be protecting were heartbreaking.  They had 3 rooms also dedicated to those murdered.  The first room had over 2,000 photos of those who were killed, the next room had skulls and bones of some of the recovered bodies and the 3^rd room had clothes and belongings that were found in some of the mass graves.  The third section upstairs was a small area of other genocides that have happened in history including the Armenians, The German Nazi reign, Cambodia and also the Sarajevo conflict.  And in the last room was a dedication of the children killed.  They had 2x1m pictures of children on the wall and a plaque with their name, what they liked to read, their personality and then the last one was how they died.  I think it was the last thing I expected to see on the plaque and some of them died quite horrifically not to make it too gruesome, but we are talking like set on fire, a knife through the eyes, bullet to the head, and this is of children of 5-8 years old.  Just shocking.  We got 2 hours here, but I think you could certainly have 3 if you wanted to read everything and watch all the videos they had playing of survivors talking of their experiences. It was a very sobering experience.  I would have been 18 when this was happening. 

So back on the road for the last part of the drive of 2 hours getting us into Ruhengeri around 4pm.  As didn’t have tents to unpack, we were shown the dormitories that had 15 beds in each.  So we were split into 2 groups and we grabbed a bed each.  The first thing I did was have a shower.  I was terrible dusty from the roads and it is really fine stuff and my feet looked like they had been walking in mud.  The shower was freezing, but exactly what the doctor ordered and I instantly felt better.  Amazing how being clean will do that to you. 

We had some time to kill before dinner and the boys wanted to have a game of soccer with some locals.  As we drove in we saw what looked like junior team training.  So we walked over, and they were in the middle of training, but there were a lot of children just around the stadium with a ball, so Sean and Paps asked if they wanted to have a knock around which they did for around 15 minutes and then decided to play an impromptu game, it got as far as getting the teams sorted, Real Rwanda and Spain, and then the coach from the training came over and said that they were just about to use the whole field for  game, and  they want to join them.  It was a shame, as the other kids aren’t allowed to play unless they have trainers, so it would have been fun for them, but the coach had the final say, so they joined the trainers.  It was really cool to see them out on the pitch, but after the first 10 minutes they were sucking in some big ones.  In their defence we are at 1765m, so maybe the altitude has something to do with their fitness as well.  After an hour, it was 2-2, so they had a penalty shootout and Paps team beat Sean’s in the shootout.  What a great experience for them.

Dinner was served of vegetable soup, spaghetti bowl and pineapple and passion fruit for dessert.  Chill time again, but to be honest we are all knacked and most of us were in bed at 8.30pm!!  Remember we wound our clocks back an hour, so it really was 9.30pm, but I guess that is still early.  Some people went to the bar for 1 drink, but I was just so tired, so I decided to tuck up in bed and blog write.  We have a free day tomorrow, as our Gorilla permits are for Tuesday, which is great that we all get to go on the one day, as there was talk that some would go on Monday and others Tuesday.  There were some optional tours that could be done tomorrow, but some of them were quite expensive, which is mainly the park fees that pump up the price, so there are only 7 people doing something additional tomorrow, the rest of us are going to just chill and get diary’s, washing, internet and things organized.  It will be nice to have a day off the truck.

Tomorrow we see the Gorilla's

 

A REPEAT OF IOS IN UGANDA

WEATHER: Hot

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Camping lakeside

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Drinking way too much vodka (Shock)

BUYS OF THE DAY: 350ml of vodka for 4USD

WORD OF THE DAY: Vodka and coke/orange

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: crabs   

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Awesome, gorgeous view, flushing toilets, cold showers and an awesome bar overlooking the lake 5 out of 5 stars

There were no dramas with hippos or snakes coming to visit the camp site last night.  We could hear the hippos and people heard lions as well during the night, but they kept their distance so we were literally ‘happy campers’.  I forgot to mention that 4 tenters upgraded their accommodation last night to stay in these large tents under a shed like structure that had its own ensuite with shower.  It only cost 40USD total for the night and they did look pretty cool.

Leaving camp at 8am, we hit the road heading for Lake Bunyoni and our last night in Uganda as we head into Rwanda tomorrow.  We are hoping the weather stays fine, because if it is too wet, then the truck will not be able to get to the camp site as it is a dirt road and an Intrepid truck nearly rolled a few weeks ago going down there, so there was going to be a site change if the weather looked too dicey.

So another day in the truck.  Today won’t be as long as the previous days, so it will be good to have some chill time once we get to camp.  So things that kept us busy today.  We had another play for the Skittle-off challenge.  As we had run out of skittles last game, some of the guys went and stocked up last stop.  We used James packet today, and even though they were out of date (by only a month), they were still good in our eyes and so they were used.  So the score is currently boys 4 – girls 3.

We had another roadside lunch today which I think may have been the best to date, besides the sandwich stuff; we had a tuna mix and also sweet potatoes.  Delicious.  So from pulling up, preparing, eating and packing away we did it all just under an hour.  Are we getting good at this or what?  We had a stop in a town for an hour as Liz had to get supplies, so Jools pointed us in the direction of a café that had Wi-Fi and I was able to load all my blog entries up to yesterday – so it made 7 in total, and it was like a sense of relief that I was finally able to load them on.  As there were so many of us on the system, it chucked a hissy fit a few times, but overall the speed was really good.  This was also the place where we could get shirts made up, but as we were all on a mission to get onto the internet, people were too busy or thinking of other things that we didn’t end up getting any shirts done at all.  I also ran out of time to actually do some chores.  I needed more toilet paper, more water, postcards and to also top up my mobile phone credit.  Oh well, none of it is too imperative and I’ll have time to do some of this in RuhengerI.  

We were on a mission to get to camp, as there was an African Safari Co. truck also coming into camp today, so we wanted to get there first to get the better area to set up our tents.  Gap Adventures was already there when we got there at 4pm, but they have been there for a few days, so we wouldn’t have beaten them anyway.  The camp site is literally right on Lake Bunyoni, we set up our tents right on the water’s edge and were only a meter away from the water.  No need to worry, there are no hippos or crocodiles here, the lake is safe to swim in.   Some of our group was talking to some Gap Adventures people and they had done the gorilla’s, but from the Ugandan side and they had walked for 9 hours, NINE HOURS, and when they finally did see a gorilla, it was in the distance and not the best view.  Poor buggers.  I know most people only do the Ugandan side when all the permits have been sold for the Rwandan gorillas, but what a tough day for them.  Their truck looked pretty much the same as ours, their chairs also very similar and their tents looked a tad smaller than ours. 

So of the group headed to the jetty for a spot of swimming.  They had a tree there that you could climb and then jump off into the lake.  I would have to say it looked around 10m high, it looked scary, but Lisa and Sean both went up and did a jump.  I took their pictures on burst mode and they look really cool.  Preswick and Papster hired a canoe and went for a paddle around the lake and I decided to read my book with a cold beer in the hand.  It turned out to be a beautiful day and the sun was high in the sky.  It was a busy camp site, as it is where everyone stays to do the gorillas in Uganda.  So there must have been like 7 trucks in camp all at the same time.

Once Em and Paps got back, we thought it would be good to chill with a vodka and coke.  Time to crack out jet fuel Ugandan vodka.   Uh Oh – warning bells are ringing already.  I haven’t had a big night on the drink since my efforts in Ios nearly 4 weeks ago.  The vodka was actually quite alright and a bargain at the 6AUD each that we paid to share the bottle.  The coke on the other hand, after looking at the label, had a 2010 competition advertised on the wrapper – so we can safely let you know that it is okay to eat out of date skittles and to drink out of date coke all on the same day and still live to tell the tale.

There was a t-shirt man roaming the camp selling shirts.  As we all now had some more time, I ran around the group seeing if they wanted a personalized shirt for the group.  Out of the 22, 17 people all got a shirt which was cool.  We got them for 13USD each and they had on the front Hakuna Matata with all our names and on the back we got that we trekked with the gorillas in Rwanda with 2 footprints and two gorilla prints.  We are leaving quite early in the morning so Mac (t-shirt guy) was going to come back at 10.30pm to drop them off.  So I collected everyone’s money and we then sat down for dinner.

The Gap Adventures group looked like they were not having fun at all, so I sent around a Chinese whisper in both directions of our circle that when I count to 3 that we just all start laughing.  So the whisper got sent around and it came back to me that tomorrow is Sunday and the purple gorillas will come to visit!  Ha ha funny funny someone changing the whisper.  But the original one got around and I just said 3 and we all burst into laughter and then we didn’t have to pretend, it was hilarious and we couldn’t stop.  Maybe I feel a little bad now, as there is nothing worse than seeing another group having more fun than you.  I actually looked at that Gap departure, so realistically I could have been on that trip.  Luckily the tour gods were smiling on me when I booked the Intrepid tour instead.  Phew.  I am doing a Gap tour of Galapagos and also of Ethiopia, so I hope I get a livelier bunch.  My Gap Trans Mongolian was awesome – so it is what you make of the group I spose.  We ripped out another laugh when we were waiting in line for the main meal, so it was pretty hilarious.

After dinner, and ¾ of a bottle of vodka later, we headed to the bar that was around 1km walk.  So armed with the last of our vodka and head torch on we walked by the lake and up about 50 steps to get to the bar area, that was outside with table and chairs.  It was a pretty cool place.  Sean and I went up to the bar to check out the prices and you could get a vodka and coke, but you had to buy the 300ml bottle for 4USD and then the mixers separately for 2USD.  They had also run out of coke, so they only had orange left, so we started drinking vodka and orange.  Now this is where the night gets a little hazy for me and somewhere along the way, I have done what I did in Ios and I have fallen over somewhere at the bar.  I was on my own and when I came back I was in a right ol tizz telling everyone that I was bleeding.  I think Justin tried to apply drunken first aid to the wound, and for all my Greek Posse, we know what a bad drunk patient I am.  The upside is that the wound is on the other leg and it isn’t as deep, but it is sore as hell and I have also a few scratches on my other knee, on my scar from my ‘other’ fall.  I have 2 days to recover, as we don’t do the gorillas till Tuesday, so that will give it some time to heal a little.

Em and I walked back at 10.30pm to meet Mac (the shirt guy) and he wasn't there.  So we waited for about 5 minutes, at this point we are pretty pissy) so we decided to write him a note telling him he could find us at the bar.  We thought we were quite clever, but I think the pole we left the note on was behind the truck, so he probably had buckleys of seeing it at all.  But it was a great idea at the time – according to a drunken Bern’s and Em – we thought it was hilarious.

So if I can’t remember a fall I’m not going to remember getting back to camp, which I don’t.  I briefly remember Sean going for a swim in the lake, as his sister got married, and him prancing around in his jocks afterwards.  I am just grateful I didn’t follow him in as I was that drunk I am sure it would have sounded like a great idea to me.  So after that I am not sure what happened except Jo and Sean trying to get me into my tent and then me waking up inside the tent with no mattress and no sleeping bag.  What the hell happened I am not sure and my tentie Afke is not speaking to me, so I must have done something to make her cranky at me?  So in the end I think we got to bed around 3am and we have to be up at ready to go at 6.15am, so I only got a few hours’ sleep, and of course was still drunk packing the tent up.  At least a drunk pack Intrepid style only entails stuff left in the tent vs. drunk pack Europe style where I would leave things in the hotel and they are gone for good.

It was a great night though, but maybe I shouldn’t drink as much and maybe actually remember the whole night!  Yeah right, I have been saying that for years – good luck with that Bernstar!!

QUEEN ELIZABETH NATIONAL PARK

WEATHER: Overcast, slight rain and 23C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: We didn’t travel as far in the bus today

BUMMER OF THE DAY: The weather was a little off for the lake cruise

BUYS OF THE DAY: A bottle of local vodka that Em and went halves in at 6AUD each

WORD OF THE DAY:

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Ibis, encoli cows, egrets, pelicans in numbers, yellow beak cranes, cormorants in huge numbers, hippos – a lot of them, African fish eagle, savannah elephants and water buffalo.  

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Pretty good, flushing toilets, cold showers and an undercover to eat under, oh and a bar. 3 out of 5 stars

Well day 8 of the trip and 7 days of camping in the tent and I have to say I am quite enjoying the whole camping gig.  Our tents really don’t take too much time to put up, and we have got the rolling and putting away of the tents just about down pat, so this is probably the biggest hassle with the whole process which takes up 20 minutes of our day.  I’d only texted my old boss a few days before leaving London, telling her if she ever needs a good laugh, to think of me in a tent for 60 days, but I am happy to report I am loving it.  For those of you who know me, to imagine me camping one night let alone 60 nights is outrageous banter!!!

I’m finding I am waking up before my alarm even goes off which has been set for 6am the last 3 mornings.  It’s not so bad, as you get first crack at the toilets and getting onto the truck to avoid the morning congestion when everyone is trying to get all their gear back on the truck.  We left camp this morning at 8am with only 200km to drive today it should only take us around 4 hours.

I have a competition running and I have got the whole bus to guess how many pictures I will end up with at the end of the trip.  The guesses are listed below, so there will be no challenges next year saying that their guess was written up wrong.  The blog does not lie.

15,555 Janet

28,488 Paps

29,555 Jo

30,489 Em

33,333 Bree

32,873 Sean

34,245 Emma S

35,731 Lisa

37,377 Laura

38,641 Emma T

43,246 Louise

46,100 ME

49,251 Katie

63,483 Mike

92,000 Julia

Our first stop was at a town called Fort Porto.  Liz had to get some food shopping done, so we got 45 minutes to get some things done.  There was an internet café but apparently it was slow so I didn’t bother.  I really need Wi-Fi for my blog anyway.  I did some banking instead.  I tell you I have come nowhere near spending my daily budget of 100AUD a day.  The last 2 times I have used an ATM, I have pulled out 80,000 shillings which converted is only 32AUD and this has lasted me 3 days each time.  Now that is outrageous.  So I am re-couping money, which is awesome and hopefully will give me extra cash in the kitty to do Europe on the way home next year.  Not a bad incentive hey.  We went to the supermarket and stocked up on some more water.  Em and I decided to go halves in a bottle of vodka that was 12,000 shillings (8AUD) so we can have a tipple when the mood suits.  For 8AUD it is probably rocket fuel, but it is Ugandan so we are trying something locally distilled!  Sean and Emma have been chasing a blanket and pillow respectively and they both found these at the supermarket as well.  They were both the same cost as the vodka to give you an idea on the costs.  Sean’s blanket has been dubbed the ‘lurve’ blanket as it is pink with hearts and love written all over it.

We travelled for a few more hours and then stopped at a local market that was set up roadside.  I think this works a little like Morocco where the markets are on once a week on a certain day, so it was quite busy when we got there.  It is a crying shame that the locals don’t like having their photos taken as it was a photographers paradise with all the colours of the fruit and veggies and the ladies dresses.  Em was saying the adults are paranoid that if we take their pictures they think when we go home and show all our friends that we then make fun of them. Based on that I wouldn’t want my photo taken either, so they are a tough crowd.  If you ask them then it’s okay, but 90% of the time it is a no anyway.  We were able to bust a few out if you include some-one from our group, so I did get a handful of pictures.  The main thing at the markets was HUGE bunches of green banana’s, there would have been over 300 per bunch and they were all loaded on to bicycles for the transportation.  Some of the bikes had 5-8 bunches on a bike!!!  It looked amazing!

We finally got to stop at an equator sign as we pass over it for the third time.  There was one on both sides of the road, so half of the group went to one side and the others stayed on our side.  We decided to get a group photo on the other side of the road and as we were all crossing, 2 minivans of school children pulled up.  So I asked one of the teachers if he could take our photo for us and he misunderstood and walked over to be ‘in’ the photo, so why not get all of them in, so I invited them all to get in the photo.  There would have been around 60 of them all in their uniforms, so it was an awesome photo with our group and the students on the equator line, how many people can have that claim to fame?  It was an opportunity I couldn’t let pass so I also got them to do a Bernstar jump as well, it sort of worked, but as there were some many people there wasn’t much room, but you can see the front people jumping so that was pretty cool for me.  I also got my own jump, so I am back on the jump board again – welcome back.

We made it to camp at 1pm.  The weather is a little drizzly today, so the camp site is a little muddy.  But this is also part of the camping experience, so suck it up princess.  We are lucky it has an undercover area where Liz prepares the food and enough room for us to all sit to get out of the weather.  Tents up, beds made, we had around 45 minutes to chillax till we got back on the truck and headed into Queen Elizabeth National Park.  I had volunteered a few nights ago to be Jools financial controller, when it came to spending the kitty money, so my first duties came when we had to enter the park.  I recounted the money and passed it to the ranger and waited till we got our receipt.  My personal banker Shelly would be proud and my post banker days finally coming in handy again.

We had a nature cruise booked for 5pm, so we got around 1.5 hours to drive around the park.  We had elephants in our sights today, along with leopards (yeah good-luck),hippos and lions.  We are yet to see a male lion with the mane for our photos.  Well we didn’t have to wait long to see elephants.  We saw a herd of 8 and they had 3 babies with them.  They were probably 800m away, but we were able to get some good photos and not be in a distance that was going to upset them.    We drove a little further and we got to another herd and they were a lot closer, around 10m away.  There were 3 of them, a female, a teenager and a baby.  We got to watch them for a few minutes till one of them started to get ancy and gave the charge stance, the flapping of the ears and an elephant call.  It made for a cool photo even though we could have been in immediate danger, as there was no way Chris could have started the truck and moved had she decided to charge the truck.  Oh living life on the edge….

Down to the lake for our cruise, which was like a jumping crocodile boat, seats downstairs close to the water and there was a viewing area on top to accommodate 14 people.  We departed at 5pm and after a hiccup of some passengers having not paid and doubling back to offload them, we got on our way at 5.25pm.  It is a shame the day was crappy.  The sky was grey, which in turn our photos look a little lifeless, but we did get to see like a hundred hippos in the water.  We saw a few yawning (which is a sign of aggression) but I wasn’t quick enough to capture it on my camera.  Some of them would literally pop up right next to the boat.  This place would be a bird watchers paradise, so needless to say we saw a hell of a lot of birds and hippos for the 1.5 hours we were on the water.  The guide for the cruise asked for my email address should he have any problems with the stowaways we had started out with, which I was happy to provide.

Back to camp with one more elephant sighting right next to the road.  As we didn’t get back to camp till 7pm, dinner was already up and ready to go, so we washed the hands 3 times and tucked into zucchini soup for starters and then we had crumbed fish, potatoes and veggies for dinner with custard for dessert.  I don’t know why, but it seemed like there were a billion dishes to wash tonight and guess who was on dish duty!  Yeah team A.  But I do have to say the truck people had a pretty rough day, as the weather was wet, we were all tramp sing in mud from our shoes, so they also had a massive job getting the floors all clean – poor bastards.

We all headed up to the bar after dinner, where I was able to recharge my laptop and have a beer before heading back to my tent.  I wasn’t going to take any chances with snakes and hippos, so I had my headlamp on as well as my mega night torch to get me back safely.  My feet were dirty as, so I decided to have cold shower to rinse off and then I was able to finish yesterday’s blog before reading for a little while and then switching off the headlamp at 11pm. 

Let’s hope that no snakes come to visit and the hippos keep their distance from the camp, even though it would make a great blog entry I think there has to be a line drawn somewhere – right?