THE WHEELS ON THE TRUCK

WEATHER: Hot and 27C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY:  Skittle game on the truck

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Sitting on the truck for 9 hours

BUYS OF THE DAY: It has to be the Fanta I bought – it’s the only thing I bought all day

WORD OF THE DAY: Karibu – you’re welcome!

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Grasshoppers, monkeys, butterflies, goats and dogs

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Flushing toilets, warm water and a BAR = 4 STAR out of 5

We got to have a sleep in this morning till 6am, who in the ‘normal’ world would think that was a sleep in?  We didn’t leave camp till 8am and drove to a local shopping center where Jools had to get our chimp permits for tomorrow.  So we had some time to go to the supermarket and stock up.  I only needed batteries for my head lamp and a bottle of water.  Some people got onto the internet, others did some currency exchanges and others just sat and had a decent coffee at one of the shops.

Back on the road at 9.30am.  We had another long day on the truck today.  We need to cover another 350km, which in turns means another 8-9 hours of travelling.  I wonder if there are driving regulations in regards to the amount of hours that Chris drives each day.  He really clocks up some hours and beside lunch and a few toilet stops we could drive for up to 3 hours without a stop.  If you were in Europe, you can only drive a certain amount of hours a day; they need a certain amount of stops for a certain amount of time blah blah blah.  It is done for our safety but I wonder if he gets tired.  He is separated in the cab section of the truck, so he can’t really hear or know what is happening in the back either, so we can’t even talk to him to keep him company. 

So we had to think of a few ways to keep us entertained and we did a few things to keep us busy.  One was we hosted a Skittle-off.  I am not sure how it came about as I had my earphones in, but basically two people played off against each other, by closing their eyes and trying to guess the flavor of the skittle that was put into their mouth.  It was quite funny and some of the play offs went for 5-6 skittles till a winner emerged.  The colour that eluded most people was the damn yellow one and I have to say the 2 champions that emerged was Paps and Lill, and if I was to pick an eventual winner it would be Lil as she didn’t hesitate when she got hers in her mouth where Paps, being the show man that he is, would take about 20 minutes to guess his colour.  The second game that kept us occupied was the game of Memory on my Playbook.  It comes with a timer, so it was a race against the clock to see who could complete the game the fastest, and it was also handy as it had a leader board, so we could see exactly where everyone finished on the board.  The champ so far is Sean, who got a time of 31 seconds followed closely by JO who got a time of 34 seconds.  I was also lucky I had my notebook, so I was able to bang out yesterday’s blog, but it took me forever with things happening on the truck, I ran my battery down to 20% thinking I wouldn’t have a problem charging it tonight.  But this was to prove a little difficult in hindsight.  We also learned Hakuna Matata from the Lion King which comes from a traditional African song, in Swahili.  It was pretty cool to hear the whole bus singing.

The roads in Uganda seemed better till around 10.30am when we hit some really rough roads that were like a theme park ride.  It makes it hard for me to try and type on my laptop and we really get rocked around, but I guess that adds to the fun of the journey.  Seriously some of these roads are in serious need of some upgrades.  Poor Chris, it makes it hard for him, as he is constantly changing gears and braking, it certainly isn’t an easy drive for him.

We arrived into camp at 5.30pm and I’ll walk you through the daily routine once we arrive into camp.  Once we park, we all grab our tents, we keep the same ones throughout the whole trip, and I guess this stops people from whinging when they get a dodgy tent that hasn’t been folded properly, like ours the other day.  So it takes us about 10 minutes to set up the tent, maybe not even that and then we head back to the truck to get out the mattresses.  This is where it starts to get a bit manic, as the lockers are near the 2 rear doors, so when people are trying to get their stuff out of the lockers, the doors are blocked, so people have to shuffle in and around and it is like a big jigsaw puzzle of just side stepping people getting to lockers, our seats and mattresses.  But we are all quite considerate of each other, so it works; it is just a little chaotic.  At this point the people who are cooks have to get to the kitchen to help Liz, the truck people have to sweep and mop and the rest of us get to chill till dinner which is normally around 7pm.  That is pretty much the same process each day. 

Luckily to date there has been no problems charging any of my gadgets.  Having power outlet in the truck helps, and all the camps have had some form of access to power.  From a reception desk, a bar or last night was an extension cord onto the truck.  But the last 2 days my notebook has been overloading the trucks power box so I can’t rely on this form of charging anymore.  So once the tent was up and all of the above done, I went on the hunt for some power points.  The camp site is connected to a large house, which has the showers and toilets and a large open plan living area with couches, chairs and tables.  We actually get to eat at a normal table tonight which will make a nice change.  So I found some points and I have a double adapter, so I had my IPod in one and the notebook in the other and plugged her in.  The IPod showed it was charging but not my computer. Hmmmmmm, so I tried 8 other outlets with the same problem.  So I went to the truck and tried it in the power outlet there and it worked, so it must have something to do with the voltage maybe?  WE can’t charge anything while the bus is parked as it will drain the power and the bus won’t start the next day.  So I am on the bare minimal for blog writing which is driving me nuts, but I figured I can always use my Playbook.    I hope there isn’t anything wrong with my notebook.

So we are now currently at 1265m, so I am thinking tonight should be a comfortable sleep.  The freezer night was 2165m, last night was a warm night at 1060m, so being at 1200m it is somewhere in the middle so I am hoping the weather will be more pleasant tonight.

Not much happened after dinner.  I was in for a few beers with Emma and Paps, but I just hit a wall, Struggle Street reared its head and I was tucked up in bed by 9pm!!!  We are off to see the chimps tomorrow, so back into some more animals tomorrow which will be great.  We have had to split into 2 groups tomorrow, a morning departure and an afternoon departure.  Nobody was keen on the afternoon, so I put my hand up for that and with a bit of back and forward we filled the afternoon spot for a 2pm departure.  We were aiming for a sleep in, but Jools suggested a village walk in the morning, so that killed that idea, but I think it will be good, as I may actually be able to finally take some photos.

Good night and chimp you tomorrow J