Uganda

6th July 2004

Up at 8am for coffee and breakfast, a hot shower and off to Jinja. After the 120km of good tarmac and easy border crossing, we reach the town of Jinja and the home of Mackers, one Ranger’s pals. He is gorilla trekking so out of town but we find his home and have tea with his housemate’s wife and baby. The plan was to crash at his house but to be out of her hair and the baby; we camp in the nearby campsite overlooking the Nile rapids. The place is bustling with overlanders so we immediately hit the bar, eat and drink copious amounts of beer and shots. We get thrashed 10-0 by some South Africans at table football resulting in us having to crawl round the table naked. We also get roped into downing a funnel of beer slyly spiked with three shots by the barman. After that the night is a blur. We cannot remember going back to the tent – ouch.

7th July 2004

I awake at 12am shouting out ‘Ranger’ in my confused, delirious state. He is not in the tent and miraculously had got up, hitched a ride on the back of a motorbike and met up with John and Trish (Mackers’ housemates) for a lift into Kampala to book the gorillas. His damp, ill-smelling clothes were out to dry in the sun and a passport and photo CD on the ground, doors open and keys in the open safe! I manage to climb down from the tent and sip coffee chatting to some South Africans from the night before. On approaching me, they ask how ‘the most drunken man in Uganda’ is. I reply, ‘he’s hitched a lift to Kampala’. God I feel rough. Apparently all the girls in the bar were asking for us to leave and when I fell over, Ranger collapsed on top me. Ranger returns on the back of a motorbike and has managed to book a trip for Tuesday to a new group of 20 gorillas – good lad. We drink more coffee and collapse in the sun feeling dreadful. My right hand aches and is possibly broken – not good for the grade 5 rapids tomorrow! I write this update feeling like dung and we both hit the roof tent for four hours of afternoon shut-eye. We hit the bar again for early evening and Shaylagh & Rachael arrive. The first few beers go down well but after a steak sandwich in the bar, I feel rough again and hit the sack. The others stay in the bar watching naked rafting guides wrestle in the bar until 12pm.

8th July 2004

Ranger learned last night that he had actually collapsed in the bar and after being dragged into the recovery position had been ill on himself. He apparently woke yesterday at 7am still in the bar! We take the doxy we had forgotten to take last night and after Ranger gags his up in the loos, we wait for the rafting driver to wake up. Our rescue guy has to be woken up by Ranger from his drunken coma and is still intoxicated, is blind in one eye from a UBI (unidentified beer injury) and cannot string a sentence together. We ride in the back of the truck to the rafting office and have breakfast whilst watching the carnage on video we are about to experience. Off we go to the river and our brief safety/technique lesson on dry land. At the first Grade 4 rapid we hit a huge wave and get flipped. We all get wet. I find myself in a washing machine underneath the upturned raft. The next few we survive and also almost the Grade 3 rapid we tried to stand up through. We dive in and float relaxingly down the Victoria Nile observing the fish eagles and many cormorants on the banks. Back in the raft, we enjoy some pineapple and bananas before hitting another Grade 5 rapid, which ends in disaster again and almost a speedy collision with an overhanging tree. We had to walk around the Grade 6 monster rapids of rapid 12 but chuck in the raft for the Grade 5 No.12 rapid. From the high banks this final rapid looks bloody scary and Ranger & I walk back down to the raft in silence. We fly through the white wash and all survive this final rapid aptly known as ‘Bad Place’. What an ‘oarsome’ experience! We eat a large meal with beers on dry land before heading back to camp to await the nerve racking arrival of Mackers, the beer swilling monster known to his friends as ‘Filthy’ – I am expecting to be a broken man later. I write this update on the bar whilst Ranger gets some wise rest in the tent before Filthys arrival. At 8pm, the big lad arrives with Shaylagh & Rachael and we ‘get on it’ until the early hours.

9th July 2004

My hand is still in swollen and pretty painful; god knows what I did to it. We have a huge English breakfast to fight the hangovers and head to Mackers’ house to mould into the sofas and watch sport to recover. At 4pm, we all cram into the car and with music blasting, the big lad behind the wheel screaming out of the window in his usual high spirits, we head to a small island on the river. The island, named ‘The Hairy Lemon’ by the Ozzy owners, Rob & Eron, is a quite spot made up of the owners’ home and grass hill to pitch your tents. We chucked our sleeping bags into a large dorm building and sat by the small lagoon sipping beers. Erin kindly cooked up a superb soup and stew but shortly after Shaylagh retired to bed, I followed feeling exhausted. Ranger beat Mackers to bed and continued to sip highland malt with Rachael and a German man called Helmut. When he eventually put his head down on a pillow, the slurred garbage was hysterical!

10th July 2004

After a hearty breakfast, Ranger and I borrow some rods for a spot of fly-fishing and spinning on the river. I was a bit out of practice with the fly rod so that was ditched pretty quickly but after moving into the current around the island, Ranger caught a Yellow Fish and I, a Tilapia. After some more lounging about and a quick lunch, we cross back over the river and head back to town. Today is the Hawaiian party to celebrate Mackers’ birthday. We stop at the market and pick up some fetching, very bright shirts and crack open the first beers watching some province rugby back home. At 8ish, we venture next door to the Backpackers and hit the party with vengeance clearing up the punch and champagne quickly before moving to the campsite to carry on the night. Amazingly we find our pace and beat the big lad to bed, again, at about 6am!

11th July 2004

I have another huge breakfast with Rachael and the South African lads inform us how ‘funny’ we were last night…. I remember them showing us the video of us from the first drunken night in Jinja and how the green night vision footage of us falling around the bar was amusing, scary and embarrassing!! Rachael decides to join us for the gorillas and after clearing some space for her in the back; we set off for Kabale in the South West of Uganda. We stop for photos and a coffee on the Equator (our third crossing) and in a town for some ‘goat on a stick’. We decide the hangovers and getting worse and the day has been long enough so stop to camp in the garden of the Backpackers’ Cottage & Campsite in Masaka. We immediately put Rachael to work preparing our dinner and sit back to enjoy a deep red sunset. I feel pretty dreadful and shut my eyes early.

12th July 2004

We leave Masaka at 10ish and head on to Kabale stopping for provisions, email and some trekking footwear for the lady; she invests in some fetching black wellies! We continue on to Kosoro along the stony, sandy mountain track through dense jungle and terraced farmland. We reach the wild-west style town of Kisoro, camp at the Virunga campsite and have a dinner of hotdogs and red wine – class. We chat to a lone Ozzy traveller, Sandi, who will jump in the car tomorrow for the 35km drive to the gorillas.

13th July 2004

Up early at 6am for an early departure to the mountain village where the gorilla trek begins. We reach it half an hour late and drink coffee in front of the local school, completely disrupting class as the inquisitive children surround us. We have our safety talk (don’t stand above a silverback and look him in the eyes, don’t use a camera flash and always stand still if a silverback charges you – yeah, right!). With the trackers ahead of us, we set off down the steep descent into the impenetrable forest in search of the hairy beasts. Five minutes into the trek, I get stung by a wasp and later on, Rachael gets bitten by the large ants that had crawled up her trouser leg! After ninety minutes, we find the gorillas eating near a river where they had apparently slept last night. We were lucky because sometimes can move deep in the jungle which can mean a tiring, machete swinging four hour ordeal. We intensely watch the group of 21 gorillas eating vegetation, sleeping, playing and picking their noses for the allocated hour – unreal – their fingers, noses, ears, characters and movement are so human like and even their deep orange eyes look like us waking from a big night back in Jinja! We got to within four metres of the Alpha silverback male who sat eating so contently as if he knew he was in front of a camera and we would be gone in less than ten minutes when our hour was up. The ascent back up to village takes us over two hours stopping briefly in a clearing for our delicious packed lunch of stale hotdogs we made last night. Back at the vehicle, we accept our gorilla certificates and give Christopher, our guide, a very sweaty handshake before heading back down through the mountains to Kisoro. We drop Sandi back at camp and head back to Kabale, finding Lake Bunyonyi and the Bunyonyi Overland Campsite on the waters edge. Martin, the English chap we keep meeting on our trip arrives. After well needed hot showers, we eat, drink and chat in the restaurant.

14th July 2004

After a sleepless night listening to Ranger’s impression of a mating silverback (snoring), we shower and I write this update sipping a coffee looking out from the restaurant balcony over the beautiful water of Lake Bunyonyi. Ranger catches up with his diary, Rachael sunbathes, Martin goes off paddling in a canoe and returns with a splinter, wedged under his nail…Rachael removes it, Martin squeals. I sit on the laptop sorting photos and admiring the view. We hire a dugout canoe and paddle out into the middle of the lake, sip beers and watch the sun set behind the hills – very relaxing. Back on dry land, we eat a huge dinner in the bar and sit in front of the wood fire chatting and enjoying the pilsner.

15th July 2004

I copy some photos onto CD for Shaylagh and Rachael before having breakfast. We leave Rachael to head back to Nairobi and head north towards Queen Elizabeth National Park. Back in Jinja, we met a German guy called Helmut who was extremely helpful in providing us with info and a pencil scribbled map of directions. We follow these incredibly accurate directions but when the sun sets and we are left in the dark on a dusty track in dense forest very, very close to the Congo border, we decide a wrong turn may have been made! The story of the tourists killed in ‘99 by bandits in Bwindi, which was very close, did spring to mind! We ask directions to the park at every town and junction. The glow of oil lamps radiates out from doors as we pass through random villages. At 9pm, a shopkeeper recommends that we find the Savannah Resort Hotel, 1km from the national park gate, and stay there for ‘safety’! We find it under renovation and after bartering a price with the intoxicated manager, we eat hotdogs for dinner, listen to lions in the distance and have a good night’s sleep in the car park.

16th July 2004

We drive the 1km and enter Queen Elizabeth National Park at the most southerly edge. Due to getting lost last night, the map showed that we had started to drive south again and were very close to where we had seen the gorillas! In the park, we immediately see Ugandan kob, Topi and large waterbuck. It appears that large sections of the park grassland have been torched, which is a shame. We drive to the Mweya Lodge and campsite, set up camp over-looking the Kazinga channel, linking Lake Edward with Lake George and walk down to the shore to wait for a boat trip. With twenty-five Yanks, we motor up and down the channel amongst hundreds of hippo and observe the birds from the 611 species in the park. We see crocodile, elephant and buffalo and the huge Saddle-billed stork amongst other bird and wildlife. On the way back to camp I enjoy a beer at the plush lodge overlooking the lake while Ranger flicks through the bird book and a warthog keeps the grass down in front of us. We have a hearty soup for dinner by the fire before being swarmed by hundreds of midges, which force us to the roof tent early.

17th July 2004

Up early at 6am for sunrise and a morning game drive. We follow another car being driven by a guide and head off to find some lions. We see no lions but do see our second leopard!! This time a large, lone male in the grass. We continue on to the crater lakes, scrambling up the steep lava terrain. On approaching the lakes, a strong smell of sulphur hits us – they are lifeless, but spectacular. We leave the park and speed up the good tarmac following the Rwenzori mountain range to Fort Portal below Lake Albert stopping for fuel and lunch. In the colourful market, I cause havoc when a local woman wasn’t too keen to be photographed. We drive the 30kms into Kibale National Park and book a Banda hut (incredibly cheaper than camping!) and forest walk at the Kanyanchu River Lodge. We leave the car next to our Banda and go for a stroll in the dense forest. At a clearing, we find a wooden lookout tower and climb up the ladder looking forward to a sit down. When a woman sticks her head out at the top of the ladder, Ranger asks if we can join her. She looked slightly worried and gave us a firm ‘no’ - we discover the ‘lookout’ is in fact her accommodation and she was sleeping! We head back and enjoy a huge meal under oil and candlelight before having a cracking night’s sleep in the beds.

18th July 2004

Up at 7am for the forest walk in search of chimps and monkeys. We are teamed up with a grump Russian couple and follow our guide into the dense forest. After ten minutes, we are lucky enough to find a group of chimps high up in the trees. They throw figs down on us as we concentrate on dodging their urine and faeces!! We watch their human-like movements for a while before continuing on in search of monkeys. We see red colobus and red-tailed monkey moving quickly through the trees. Back at the banda, we have our usual hotdog lunch, shower and pack the car. Back in Fort Portal, instead of heading for Kampala, we decide to drive the picturesque 30km Rwenzori mountain pass to see an ‘apparently’ impressive view over the Congo; unfortunately, the view is hazy so we turn back through Fort Portal to Kampala. Most of the drive is on good tarmac through banana plantations and huge tea farms but on approaching the capital the road is peppered with potholes, which are more like canyons, making the last stretch slow. We enter the city in the dark and find the Backpackers campsite. After setting up camp and having a cracking pasta, we hit the bar for beers and pool.

19th July 2004

After some free-emailing at campsite, we head into the centre and spend two hours in a bank queue and at a camera repair shop for the little camera, which got injured during one of the heavy nights in Jinja. We leave it with them and crack on to Jinja to stay with the infamous Maccers….he is slightly under the weather with a cold but my body is still nervous with the prospect of booze! We arrive in Jinja and find the big lad under a blanket on the sofa. We have a cup of tea on the roof terrace with Trish. I decide to tackle the wheel wobble issue on our vehicle and discover that worn track rod ends are the problem. After a quick call to one of Maccers’ contacts, we have two local lads under the vehicle replacing the parts in the dark. We enjoy a roast chicken with John & Trish before walking round the corner to the Backpackers for one beer. After persuading Bryony to keep the bar open, she joined us on the pool table (so to speak) and the one beer quickly turned into ten.

20th July 2004

Trish drives early with friends to Murchison Falls leaving a thirsty John home alone for three days. After little sleep, we chat and laugh all the way back to Kampala, pick up an un-repaired camera and drive on to some swamps on Lake Victoria, recommended by Maccers, in search of the rare Shoebill bird. Feeling utterly ghastly, we get paddled along the narrow waterways through the swamp by two local boatmen. I sit behind a sighing Ranger, listening only to the sound of the paddle entering the water, struggling not to fall asleep. We see some good birdlife but unfortunately no Shoebill. I melt into the passenger seat and hand the drive, back to Jinja, over to Ranger. Maccers has worryingly recovered and after a delicious rack of lamb, we head to the Nile River Explorers campsite for our last night in Jinja. The last thing I remember was catching a 17 stone, stage-diving Maccers before he broke his toe while being squeezed into the chest fridge! As always, one of the rafting guides was completely naked and comatosed in a corner, which proved to be an excellent target for a bit of light humour. We nearly died laughing watching him wake up and try to stand up, unaware that we had tied his big toe to his old boy! The night finishes in a blur at 4am.

21st July 2004

We rise with headaches at midday, decide not to head off for the border but instead drive into town for a big feed. The rest of the afternoon is spent naming photos and writing an update. Ranger and Maccers have a shandy on the roof terrace, get the taste again and head off back to the campsite. I fight off the banter and stick to my guns to stay behind and finish the update. Bryony comes round so I close the laptop lid and chat - John is the first to arrive back at 10pm and says the other two are ‘back on it’ – I expect to see them tomorrow morning when we will head off to the border with Tanzania.

Distance travelled since London : 17000 kms

To see the pics, click here!-------> Photo Link!