Uganda - Dan's in the Mist & Rafting the Nile

We arrived in Uganda in pretty quick time, the drive was a little bumpy due to road works and just general bad roads, and we exited the incredibly green Kenya to the just-as-green Uganda. The drive was still long and we passed many huts and stores that aren’t quite up to standards if we were in Australia but the people seemed happy and like in Kenya, the kids loved the bus and were always waving to us.

We made a brief stop to get supplies, in which we bought an air mattress to use for the rest of the trip in the tent. Best $50 I ever spent I think. We headed past Lake Victoria, the biggest lake in Africa, and arrived at our camp for the night before we head to Lake Bunyoni for 4 days.

The trek to Lake Bunyoni is a long one, especially if it is raining and the truck breaks down in the middle of nowhere. However aside from that it is a nice and pleasant drive through rolling hills of green. Among the brief stops for truck breakdown or to rest, gather supplies or to have lunch, the trip took close to 14 hours to arrive to Bunyoni Overland Camp.

Bunyoni Overland Camp is a nice place situated on the shores of Lake Bunyoni with a nice view across the lake. Lake Bunyoni is huge, as we realized on the drive back from Bwindi National Park.

Our first day in Lake Bunyoni saw us waking at 4am for a quick breakfast before a 2-hour drive to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park to track the Gorillas. We met with our tracker who described the rules and the deal with tracking the Gorillas. It was the usual stuff – Gorillas are wild, no guarantee on seeing them etc. – also you’re not allowed to go in if you are sick since it can really affect the Gorillas. Hiding the tickle in my throat we set off at a trek through the rainforest.

The jungle itself is pretty amazing, this being my first time in a rainforest and it was wild and untamed.  

We walked for about 45 minutes through hills, climbing over fallen logs, walking through the barest of tracks following the trackers to where we found one family of gorillas.

The experience itself was worth the price alone, we sat amongst a male silverback, a female and about 4 young ones, including a baby. The gorillas were pretty anti-social, mostly ignoring us except when one of the trackers pulled the tree the male was eating. He pulled it back and gave the tracker a death stare, which was pretty funny.

The Male stayed on the ground for the whole time we were there and the others initially were on the ground but eventually moved up through the trees. We were able to get really close to them, about 2-3 meters though we were told we were only meant to get within 7 meters of them but the trackers were happy to cut a path for us to get closer and in the jungle to us.

After about an hour and a thousand photos we headed back to our initial meeting point and drove the 2-hours back to our camp and my minor cough was getting worse.

We were lucky that our group took only 45-minutes to get to the gorillas, as one of the other groups were trekking for 5 hours to find their group.

The chest infection hit me bad the next day, I woke with a bad chest rattle and spent the day feeling like death. Our cook – Dom – is a marvel, a former restaurant chef could turn cow shit into cuisine, gave me a ginger and honey tea which cleared me up. Feeling better our group sat around the fire cooking marshmallows and talking about anything and everything.

It was around this time I realize how great of a group Danni and I have gotten to know. My biggest concern was getting a group full of Aussies who just wanted to get smashed every night, similar to the group we had in the Masai Mara for the first 3-days but this group has been so great and have met some really nice people and made some really, genuinely good friends.

Our last day in Lake Bunyoni was spent relaxing, admiring the views of the lake and getting all our stuff sorted before we leave early tomorrow morning back to Kampala.

The drive to Kampala was like the drive to Lake Bunyoni, long, bumpy and we couldn’t wait for it to finish. Nothing exciting happened as most were just waiting for it to end so we could get out.

But tomorrow is going to be the fun day: White Water Rafting on the Nile.

White Water Rafting

We were awoken to the sounds of the Ugandan Air Force flying their B-52’s right over our tent, no wait, it was the loudest freaking birds Uganda has, and probably the universe as well.

We packed up our tent and loaded our stuff onto the truck before we were taken in a mini-van to the starting point of the Nile raft. Our guide was actually a young kid from Tasmania, making the number of Aussies I have encountered on this trip a round 10 million.

We had a small breakfast consisting of grilled sausages and battered hard-boiled eggs, yep you heard correctly, battered hard-boiled egg. Surprisingly it wasn’t as disgusting as it sounds.

We kitted up and took our group photo for identification purposes if any of us didn’t make it and headed down some gloriously short steps to the raft. I say gloriously short because we soon raft at Victoria Falls and we may as well parachute to get to the bottom it’s that far.

Embarking from the shore we went through some of the things to do: paddle in unison, paddle backwards, turning the raft around, how to get in the raft if we are washed overboard and how to flip the raft back over if it is flipped. All the usual instructions for rafting.

We hit our first rapid and the fun began immediately: A grade 5 rapid with a 3m waterfall at the end of it, we managed to spin ourselves sideways somehow before we hit the waterfall and fell and yet we didn’t capsize the boat, which looked a certainty.

Celebrating this victory, the next (and all) rapids were about 25 minutes away from each other. The next was a grade 4 rapid in which our ever-so-kind guide – named Big J – flipped the raft. Now getting thrown off the raft or flipping it, deliberate or naturally, isn’t so bad but when you are underwater in the rapid, the first time is quite freaky. When we did it last time in Victoria Falls, I got thrown off and felt like I was underwater for 10 minutes, not 3 seconds. This time I felt ok, I just drank half the Nile trying to get some air as I got stuck under the edge of the raft and not the air pocket.

We managed to gather everyone and get back on the boat, we were all ok except one who was really shaken and felt like she was going to “die”.  Overly dramatic person completely lost it when we hit the next rapid, a grade 6 that we were had to get out and walk around., before jumping in at the end for a grade 5. They broke down in tears and looked like they wanted to run away.

I may sound overly harsh on this person but they also don’t help do the dishes at dinner like everyone is meant to and it really pisses me off.

We passed the grade 5 with ease and settled in for another long wait to the next rapid, passing by a Eagle in her nest and an Iguana swimming across the Nile which was pretty cool to see, even if it looked like a snake initially. We also got the jump in and have a swim.

We successfully navigated our way down the remaining 5 rapids, which were either grade 3 or 4s with ease completing our 22km rafting (against the wind/current) with success at only being thrown off once, and that was because of our guide.

Once we finished we had a kick-ass lunch of chicken wraps with salsa, lettuce and cheese and kebabs as well as unlimited drinks. Making good use of these facilities we hung around for a bit before an hour drive back to our tented camp in Jinja (pronounced Ginger) where we set up camp and as we waited for dinner it rained like we needed to build a boat and get 2 of every animal. Never seen it rain so bad and naturally the tent wasn’t fully closed up so we had some stuff get wet but nothing major so that was a relief.

Tomorrow we leave Uganda for good as we head back to Kenya. It is going to be a long drive and doubly long if it is still raining.

I’ve loved Uganda though, it is a splendid place and seems to be doing well after a sordid history with Idi Amin. They make do with simple exports (coffee, sugar, cotton) and don’t rely too much on tourism as they don’t have a whole lot to offer aside from the Mountain Gorilla’s.

Seeing the Gorillas’ was my favourite aspect of my visit to Uganda, even moreso than the Rafting, which I will always love doing. The country itself isn’t dirty, it’s dusty and gives it a dirty sort of look but, like Kenya, it is not full of tall buildings or elaborately designed cities. It is a simple place with simple structures and they do it to get by. It’s safe and the people are friendly and they have a lot to offer.

That is all that matters.

Kenya - Ken-ya believe it?

We arrived in Kenya at the god-awful hour of 3am and were, thankfully, greeted by our tour representative who drove us the 30-minute drive to our camp in Nairobi.

Thankfully our pilot on Egypt Air didn’t try to kill us by doing a trick landing like the one did in Cairo and due to the fire at the International Airport in Kenya we were skirted out of the plane and into a tent. It was so Africa.

Anyway, we arrived at our camp at around 3.30-4am and were allowed a 2-hour sleep before we had to get up again, meet the people on the 3-day tour (who were all Australian and mostly annoying bogans who decided to fill up the esky with beer and no room for us who don’t drink) and drive 8 hours to the Masai Mara.

We did stop at the Great Rift Valley, which gave some amazing panoramic views of the valley.

The Masai Mara is beautiful (except the rubbish, seems to be a theme) and after we arrived we pretty much had dinner and went to bed to get some much needed sleep after only having 2 hours in the past 36 or so.

The next day we went on Safari, which I will get to shortly, and the day after the others, thankfully, left us to head back to Nairobi to join their other tours (which isn’t the one we are doing, yay!) while we stayed in the Mara since our 56-day tour group is starting in Nairobi but heading here first.

So we pretty much had breakfast, said goodbye to the others, slept in, did the washing and watch a baboon run across our camp before dinner and bed.

Dude...run

We had a private safari on the Sunday, just me and Danni, which was a blessing since we could do it in a 4WD rather than a huge truck and get to go a little off-road to see some of the animals.

And we saw a lot of animals.

The funny thing about the Masai Mara Reserve is that it is naturally huge and leads on to the Serengeti, it doesn’t have as much flora and fauna as Kruger National Park does so there are sweeping views of flat lands and you can drive for 20, 30 even 60 minutes and see not a single animal and then you crest a hill and see hundreds or even thousands. Including Wildebeest, who are currently migrating south to the Serengeti in Tanzania in the thousands, along with Zebra’s and the antelopes. We were lucky enough to see the Wildebeest crossing the Mara River that is kind of the border between Kenya and Tanzania but also the risky part of their travel as the river is a playground for the crocodiles (and there were quite a few hippos). We saw a few hundred cross over and a few thousand more head on over to the river, but not cross, and then turn back and then head back to the river. This went on for a good hour or so before we left but there were easily over 2000 Wildebeests just meters away from us, as well as Zebra’s, who apparently wait until last to cross so they don’t get eaten.

We were also lucky enough to see the Big 5 (Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, Elephant and Rhino) on the morning of our private game drive which is apparently one of the rarest things you can do, considering there are only 4 rhino in the reserve, it makes sense.

The leopard was content in sleeping in his tree, we didn’t get a great view of it until later where we snuck in for a look and were parked right under him. The next day we did catch him strolling along an embankment but didn’t get the great view of him there either.

There were a lot of lions, we followed one lioness as she hunted down an impala but failed to take it down. It was thrilling to watch though and there were a lot of cubs and infants playing around and we even saw a male and female in the throes of mating ritual. Another pride, including the male, eating and feeding their 6 cubs.

Buffalo are everywhere, you’d be unlucky not to see one, same with the elephants, giraffe, warthogs, and all the antelopes.

We were also lucky enough to see a female cheetah with her three cubs, so very tempted to take them home. They are adorable as cubs.

Once we finished our private tour we headed back just before it started to rain and relaxed until the tour group arrived.

Oh...you found me.

I was shocked to see the size of the tour group, there are 19 including us two and then another 7 coming with us to Kampala. Only 5 of us are doing the whole 56-days but I never imagined there would be so many.

They are mostly Australians, and funnily enough some are even close to where we live at home. They all seem like a good bunch of people, which is relieving after the bogans the other day.

Our first day with them was another game drive, which is mostly explained above. Then we had another dinner and went to bed as we were to bid farewell to the amazing Masai Mara and begin our journey to Uganda.

All that tea...

The next day was a long drive to a camp about 100km from the border of Uganda and boy was it a nice place. They had the most amazingly designed bar, hot showers and our cook – Dom – is a magician with food.

The drive itself was beautiful as we drove past acres upon acres of tea plantations giving us a purely green panoramic of Kenya. The rain hit us early and was on and off all day, but when it falls, it falls hard making our trip a little slower.

We hit the hay early as we had to get up early to get to Uganda.

Egypt - Pyramids, Sphinx's and Bullets oh my...

As Danni’s former high school principal said ‘When in Rome, do as the Roman’s do’.  Upon reflecting on such sage advice we, being the rebellious people we are, ignored our parents’ wishes and ventured out of our hotel.

Before I get to that, we flew from Istanbul to Cairo and it took 2 hours. It was 2 hours I wish I could have skipped. It wasn’t fun and the pilot did not give me much hope, especially how he pretty much landed on, what felt like, one wheel.

Our room was nice though and the bed comfortable, no complaints there.

Back to today, we were greeted by our tour guide and jumped in their thankfully air-con’d minivan and headed out to Cairo.

Cairo itself is a bit of a mess, rubbish is everywhere, the buildings and roads are dilapidated and in need of some serious repair. It was also noticeable that pretty they all went to the Jordan school for driving. For some reason their roads have these white lines, I thought they were to indicate lanes, but apparently this isn’t so in Egypt. You can drive wherever you want, even in the opposite direction on the wrong side of the road.

Our first stop was the Egyptian Museum, home to some 120,000 artifacts, with another 120,000 or so in the basement. It was a fascinating place with a tonne of stuff from the Ancient Egyptian period and all the real stuff, not replicas (so they say).

Entering it was quite discerning since the road leading to the Museum is lined with military personnel, most of them sitting in tanks. Once you enter the courtyard, you are transported back to Ancient Egypt with pillars and statutes, a lot in surprisingly good condition, sitting here and there with hieroglyphics chiseled into the stone.

Yes, they're tanks in the background

Inside is much the same, I think the most fascinating part of it is how they could have built such things, especially the 10 foot tall statues of Gods and former kings done in stone with nothing but chisels. There was even one statue made of the strongest stone the Ancient Egyptians had (can’t remember the name of it) that couldn’t be destroyed by an invading army because it was too tough to break. Yet they managed to cut away this stone into a perfect statue of a King.

It was a-maz-ing.

What else was amazing was the King Tutankhamen room, which had everything that was found in his tomb by Howard Carter in 1922, especially his mask that he wore after he was mummified. The mask weighed 11kg and was made of solid gold. It is on display and it is astounding, the detail on it cannot be described.

They also had on display the 4 tombs he was found in, the jewelry he was buried with and his beds, chariots and everything else.

That alone was worth the visit.

The Museum also has two rooms dedicated to mummies. Here 22 mummies are on display, some still wrapped, some showing their faces and the preservation is something to behold. They are not simple skull and bones, some still have their skin, it’s warped but hasn’t rotted away, hair and teeth still in tact.

It was a shame I could not take my camera inside.

Once we finished in the Museum we walked a couple of minutes down the road to el-Tahrir Square. Yes, the one where the protests were taking place.

The square is a far cry to what is depicted in the media. There were only a few tents still there after the Egyptian Military removed them but it is a lot smaller than I thought it would be and you can see the signs of the people who have been there (graffiti and rubbish etc) but it was safe. There was no sign of violence, no gathering of groups ready for anarchy. It was surreal and I am glad we went there.

el-Tahrir Square...I thought about starting a 'Free Tibet' movement

Once we spent a couple of minutes in the square, we drove west, across the Nile and into Giza.

Much like Cairo, Giza is a rubbish dump surrounded by buildings, but you don’t go for its cleanliness. You go for one reason.

The Pyramids.

You head along the main road, round a curse and there they are. One of the Wonders of the World sticking up and over Giza like a God looks over his disciples. Due to the current issues in Egypt, the place was pretty much empty and we had free reign to go where we wanted, aside from the annoying people trying to sell you stuff.

The Pyramids themselves are huge. Weirdly enough, they don’t look that big until you get up and close to them and you realize just how impossible it seems that these were made by mere humans. The blocks are easily taller than most normal sized people.

There are three major ones in Giza and 6 minor ones that surround the great ones, the minor ones are hardly noticeable and some are just mostly rubble. We were able to enter one of the great pyramids through a 40-50m tunnel heading down and underground at a crouch. It wasn’t good for the back but the things you do to experience history. Also the things you do to realize you have about 4000 tonnes of pyramid just sitting on your head. After you reach a normal sized tunnel, you climb back up and into the room where the King was buried. The sarcophagus is still there but the remains of the king are long gone.

The saddening part of the pyramids is all the idiots in the past who have etched their names and graffiti their names on the base. Such stupid and reckless actions for no reason at all.

Proof we were there

Once we finished and returned back to daylight we drove up to a plateau where you could get some amazing views of the Pyramids with the cityscape behind it, we drove a short distance to the Sphinx.

We all know what the Sphinx is, the human head, body of a lion carved into a single stone. It looks magnificent, but also out of place because if you walk a couple of minutes you hit a main street.

I also thought the Sphinx and Pyramids were in the middle of the desert, not the edge of town.

All the cool stuff in one single photo...and no tourists!

Satisfied with what we’d seen for the day, and that we avoided any protests/a coup/war and getting shot at, we headed back to our hotel to pack and get ready for our flight to Nairobi.

Final days in Istanbul and final thoughts on Turkey

After we said our goodbyes to our tour group we moved on from our decent hotel to our half-decent hotel

I can summarise the next 4 days in a single sentence: We didn’t do much.

We were exhausted and so tired we spent the first day pretty much sleeping and eating kebabs. We did explore the area a little as well but it was mostly just catching up on much needed rest.

The next day we did go to the Archeological Museum and the Blue Mosque. I wasn’t a big fan of the Blue Mosque but that could be because I am a bit over them. I’ve seen enormous ones in Dubai and Gold Plated ones in Turkey. I’ve been woken up by their 5am prayer over the loudspeakers, making me think, in my half dazed state, that the Germans were coming.

The reason for it being called the Blue Mosque is the tiles inside the mosque are blue. Simple.

The Archeological Museum was pretty cool though. It had artifacts from Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and pre-Christ days. Also had statues of Greek Gods and tools from the Byzantine period as well as giant Sarcophaguses from many different periods. It’s really hard to explain Museums in length, they’re museums and you’ve all been to one before. This one didn’t have anything major in it, like Tutankhamen’s coffin, but it had some pretty cool stuff.

As for Turkey, I was impressed. Firstly, they make some pretty damn good kebabs and every second shop is a kebab shop in Istanbul. Although they do put some weird stuff in them, such as eggplant, chips and capsicum, I stuck to the good ole chicken, lettuce and tomato kebab.

Istanbul started it all with a good impression. We stayed on the European side, so it is also my first foray into Europe. I’m not sure if the Asian side is any different but Istanbul-Europe has a lot to do. They have some great restaurants, great dessert places, traditional bazaars, and amazing history. From the Mosques that were churches, the Hippodrome, it’s all such astonishing things to see.

Pamukkale and Troy and Ephesus were also rich in history. Ephesus was probably my favourite place due to the ancient cities still waiting to tell us their story.

The coast is Turkey is beautiful as well, the Mediterranean Sea great to swim in and Cappadocia thrilling to explore the caves built into mountains.

There isn’t much to complain about in terms of Turkey. The smoking is annoying and it is pretty much everywhere so lungs are getting a good work out there. They are also big water-wasters. I don’t think they have issues with water but they let go with no worries about waste. After what we go through in Melbourne, seeing such waste just rubs me the wrong way.

There are also a lot of stray cats. Everywhere we went there were strays.

None of this is a big deal and wouldn’t be a reason not to visit, I would (and am) definitely come back here and see more of it. Istanbul I think I have done a lot of, I would like to see the Asia side of it but I am keen to visit more of the coast and dive some of the War wrecks they have laying around.