Tanzania & Zanzibar - Phil! Did you get the Photo!

Our departure from Nairobi was delayed due to Sebastian (who I have dubbed SeaBass) not showing up. After an hour and trying to find out where the guy was (rumours ranged from him being a CNN journalist covering the incident at the Westlake Mall in Nairobi to him simply not showing up at all), we left Nairobi and drove a couple of hours to the Tanzanian border and we were relatively quick in getting through despite having a group of 28 people plus the driver, cook and tour leader.

Nearby was a mountain that we thought was Mt. Kilimanjaro but was some other mountain that wasn’t quite as tall.

The scenery of Tanzania is a stark contrast to that we had seen in Kenya and Uganda. Gone were the scenic green tea plantations and lush green trees and in its place were arid, dry plains with few trees and a lot of dust and sand.

The drive from the border to our camp took another 4 -5 hours and we arrived at our camp in the afternoon. The camp was mixed between a campsite and a snake park where the owners have rescued or captured snakes.

I went into the snake park the following day and browsed the snakes, they had a wide variety of snakes from man-eating Pythons, Egyptian Cobras, Black and Green Mamba’s.

The Black Mamba’s are scary, they are long, about 4 meters and, of course, one of the deadliest snakes in the world. I do not want to come across one of those. However the Green Mamba’s are small and quite a nice looking snake…as far as nice looking snakes go. Aside from snakes the park had tortoises, crocodiles, lizards and owls, goshawk and a rescued, female yellow baboon that was in heat and looking pretty affectionate.

I got to hold a sand snake (not poisonous), a little crocodile and a leopard tortoise. It was a pretty cool place and the park is the only place that treats snakebites in the area.

The unfairest freakin' animal in the world.

After lunch we packed our tents into 4x4 jeeps and began a 2-and-a-half hour journey towards the Serengeti. We stopped at a really nice camp spot just before the entrance of the Ngorongoro Crater. We had a dinner and got to know the new people on tour before we got into bed.

The next day we got up early and headed into the Ngorongoro Crater, a naturally formed crater created by mountains over millions of years. We did a game drive and saw a lot of animals, including a lot of Wildebeest and surprisingly and lot of Hyenas. I am sure we saw at least 20 Hyenas, whether they were 20 different ones or some of the same is another matter but before that day I thought they were rare to see.

Unfortunately we saw no Cheetahs or Leopards but did see some more Lions, but they were basking in the sun or heading to the lake.

We stopped for lunch at a lake with a lot of hippos to be seen and two black Kites swooping us, trying to steal our lunches and sometimes successful. We were also visited by a male, single-tusked Elephant who walked right past us and around the other side. Pretty cool!

After the Ngorongoro Crater we headed into the Serengeti and did an afternoon game drive but didn’t get to see a whole lot aside from a Leopard in the distance in a tree with a kill but even then it was only possible to see it from the camera.

We camped overnight and woke early in the morning for a final game drive. It was another disappointing drive with the driver being completely disorganized and we were stuck at the airstrip for an hour trying to organize a permit. We stopped for 20-minutes trying to find a Cheetah at the base of a tree so far away it may as well have been Australia for all we could see.

The only saving grace of it all was we got really close to 2 lioness and their 3-cubs who were basking on the rocks and I also got a few good shots of another Kite and a Fish Eagle.

The drive back to camp was 4 hours and we inhaled enough dust to bury an elephant in and I felt a bit disappointed for the whole Serengeti experience. It’s not that we didn’t get to see much because they are wild animals and it really is hit and miss. I have been lucky enough to see so many awesome things in the 35 or so game drives I have done in Africa. It was more the disorganizing of the group we went with and their lack of communication. As we left to do the morning drive in the Serengeti, the group behind us (we were split into 3 cars) saw a lion immediately as we left and we were never told of it so we never got to see it. They have radios in their car, they could have used it to calls us back.

The driver was also keen to drive as fast as he could which lead to some dangerous situations. We were only bitumen rather it was a dirt and, at times, very bumpy road and we would get airborne over the really hilly parts.

It was just highly disappointing.

We also had an annoying person in our truck who would yell to her husband in a different car and was incredibly loud. Though we did make a joke of it later about how demanding she is.

“PHIL! Did you get the PHOTO!” is what she would yell to her husband in the other car. Then later when we got to camp: “PHILLIP, DID YOU FILL THE WATER BOTTLE!”

I had to laugh, but felt sorry for Phil who was an alright guy.

And SeaBass still hadn’t shown up.

Phil certainly didn't miss out on these guys

The next morning we broke off with 10 of the others who were only joining us for the Ngorongoro Crater/Serengeti part of the tour and were heading back to Nairobi. I wasn’t sad to see any of them go, they weren’t with us long enough to get to know and I found some of them a bit annoying. I miss the old group. They were so much better.

We departed the Snake Camp around 8.30 in the morning and made a quick stop at the shopping centre in Arusha to get some supplies before heading to Korogwe for the night.

The drive was pretty, the arid landscape changed to mountainous but it was still a decent drive and the long drives are the ones where you get antsy and a sore ass from sitting so often. We finally arrived just before sunset, set up our tents and had dinner and pretty much crashed after we learned they didn’t have WiFi despite being told otherwise. The gall of this place! Gen Y needs WiFi like a fish needs water. Also we had to be up at 4.30am to drive to Dar Es Salam.

And SeaBass still hadn’t shown up.

4.30am wake up is surprisingly easier to get up than any time I needed to wake up to get to work. Funny how that works.

Anyway, we got up and had a quick breakfast, packed the tents and drove to Dar Es Salam. The drive wasn’t long to reach the outer city limits, probably 3-hours but Dar Es Salam is the biggest city in Tanzania and that means traffic. Traffic here is like traffic in the Middle East. People drive wherever they want, honk the horn every 3 seconds and red lights are merely a suggestion and not an actual road rule.

The city itself is dirty and busy. It reminded me a lot of Amman in terms of how much rubbish was everywhere and how they burn it, as if they think it would make a difference to the amount of rubbish they have. We managed to weave our way around traffic and the rubbish and arrive at or campsite at a decent time of the day (around 3.30pm).

And wow, what a campsite. Situated right on the beachfront, our tents were a stones-throw away from the Indian Ocean. The warm, blue Indian Ocean.

As you may have guessed, we went for a swim. It was beautiful and much needed after spending the past couple of weeks bathing in dust.

We once again had a short night as we had to get up at 4.30am again to get to Zanzibar.

View of the Ngorongoro Crater

Zanzibar

We awoke the next morning and once again had a quick breakfast and packed up. Thankfully the truck was to go nowhere as it is staying in Dar Es Salam while we spent the next 3 nights in Zanzibar.

Once we were ready we were taken to the first of two ferries where we survived the mad crush and the over-riding smell of BO (Body Odor) to board the ferry and take a quick 20 minute ride across the bay to where we would board a second ferry for a 2-hour boat ride to Stone Town port.

The second ferry was much better than the first, mainly because it was indoors, the boat was better, we got a seat, and there was not a whiff of BO to invade our nostrils. It even had a TV and showed a movie (Real Steel. Has Hugh Jackman, so it’s automatically awesome).

The only negative was they had the air-conditioning set to absolute zero even though it wasn’t that hot.

Once the boat docked and we went through customs (because we needed our passports stamped for some reason) we gathered and drove through Stone Town. From the little I saw, I liked the look of Stone Town, it wasn’t as dirty as Dar Es Salam and had a rustic feel to it. It is a basic, small town with simplistic designs from mostly wood and stone. The streets are narrow as well, for some reason it makes me think of what a small town in France would be like. While everyone else was dropped off, Danni and I took a taxi directly from Stone Town to Nungwi (the others are coming up tomorrow).

The taxi ride took us from the small city feel of Stone Town to the wild and untamed countryside of Zanzibar. We were also stopped by the police who, as our driver informed us, are corrupt. They also didn’t give him back his license, though the driver didn’t seem overly concerned about this.

At this point, I was too tired to care anyway. I’d been up for 6-hours already by then.

Finally we reached Nungwi and it is one sexy beachside resort town. The town itself isn’t much, it’s just wooden huts and a lot of diving shops but the beach and the ocean are stunning. The ocean is that crystal blue you see in photos of the Caribbean or resorts in Bora Bora.

The driver dropped us off at our hotel – Doubletree Hilton – and we were greeted with a cold face wash, iced tea and a cookie. It was the kind of reception a King would get I imagine. Even Kings love a cookie.

We managed to check-in and admired our view of the ocean from our room before doing some washing, organizing diving for the next day, having lunch (which wasn’t very nice) and talking a walk down the beach to see what is around. There isn’t a whole lot, though there are quite a few restaurants that we browsed before settling on one called Blue Ocean for dinner later on.

Also, as like the rest of Africa we were accosted by people who carry the same stuff trying to sell it to us (necklaces, beaded bracelets, paintings etc) also, as a strange twist, we were approached to buy some “good stuff from Kilimanjaro” weed.

Politely declining this request to buy drugs from a complete strangers, we returned to our hotel and relaxed for a bit, caught up with the family on Skype and then headed back to our restaurant of choice.

Spoiled for choice, I reluctantly (ha!) settled on the large Lobster for $35. Yes, it cost $35 for a big-ass, full lobster. I wouldn’t even get a lobsters leg for $35 back home. Danni bought a plate of calamari and octopus.

I can confirm that the seafood here is amazing. We enjoyed our meal on the beach, watching the sunset. I considered a second lobster, and perhaps a third but sanity got in the way of greed and we headed back home to get some sleep, ready for diving tomorrow.

Day 2 of diving was another pleasant day, it was a little cooler and overcast but we still got some good time underwater, logging in 40 and 50-minute dives. There wasn’t much new we saw, but we did see another octopus hiding amongst the corals, changing colours, and a spotted eel that looked very similar to a sea snake. We also found a giant lobster hiding in a cave he was a big boy. Aside from that we saw a lot of nudibranchs and the usual assortment of fish.

It started raining as we surfaced on the second dive, Danni had a problem with her regulator and had to ascend early, the divemaster handing me the SMB and I was a divemaster for a little bit before he returned after making sure Danni was ok.

Aside from that, it wasn’t overly exciting but still pleasant and the water temperature was good. Zanzibar has some beautiful dive sites and well worth the visit to dive.

It rained throughout most of the day so we didn’t venture out, rather stayed in the hotel and relaxed, dealt with the sunburns from yesterday and packed our clothes ready to leave tomorrow morning.

We had dinner at the hotel, a buffet which was ok, but I seriously missed the lobster I had the other day.

The next morning we were picked up and met up with the rest of the group and finally got to meet Sebastian, who is chronically late. He was still in bed while everyone else was ready to go so he hadn’t endeared himself to many people in his short time with us.

We went home the same route we entered, via the ferry. The ocean was rough and a lot of people were refunding their lunch, including a few from our group. I felt perfectly fine which I was quietly proud of myself for considering I remember my first boat ride in South Africa 2 years ago where I wanted to hurl. I guess I am used to it now.

The second ferry was the usual mad rush with everyone in a hurry to get on and then get off, the body odour was still there and by the time we returned to our camp site in Dar es Salam, I was relieved to be there.

We set up our tents and had dinner, a lovely barbeque grilled chicken with potatoes and vegetables before we went to bed for an early wake up.

I don’t think anyone slept that night. It was so hot, I almost flooded the tent with sweat and somehow we managed to spring a leak in the airbed, though I think I have sealed it. It seems to have come from the patch job when it first got a whole, so hopefully it is all good. We’ll see tonight.

We were awake at 3.30, although I really didn’t sleep much at all neither did anyone else in the group due to the heat, and left at 5 after breakfast. Most people slept on the truck for a good while and I am thinking most people will be keen for a early night as we headed to Iringa, still in Tanzania but heading towards Malawi.

The drive to Iringa was long and we drove through Makuru National Park. It’s a bit weird because the main highway runs through this park and you don’t have to pay to get in, but you are not allowed to stop to see the animals.

There weren’t many animals there any way, we saw some baboons, buffalo, warthogs, zebras and giraffes but very few and far between along the 50km stretch.

We finally arrived at our camp, it was a nice place based on a farm and they had hot showers so it automatically rated highly with me. One of the workers also had a gorgeous 3-month old baby golden lab that was very playful.

It was already late when we arrived so we had dinner and pretty much went to bed.

Unfortunately sleep was hard to come by as the air mattress was officially diagnosed with a puncture so I spent half the night sleeping on the ground.

We awoke the next morning and begun our journey towards Malawi.

Back in Kenya - We were literally talking shit

Once again we woke at times only drunks are stumbling home to take down the tent, have breakfast and departed from rain soaked Jinja, across the border and back into Kenya.

The ride on the first day took all day to get to Lake Nakuru. We stayed at a place called Kembu Camp, which is a big farm area with lush green grass to put up our tents.

Once the tents were up and as we were in the shower it said they were on tight water restrictions, which I am sure they were taking the piss because rained more in a few hours there than it does in Melbourne for half a year. Thankfully because of the grass we didn’t get our feet dirty after the shower and stayed relatively clean, something which I very thankful for.

A good nights sleep and we were up early the next morning to visit Lake Nakuru National Park for a game drive and bird watching.

Due to the rain we had a lot of roads inaccessible and we were not able to see any Lions or Leopards but I enjoyed it. It is a smaller National Park and doesn’t have elephants, but we saw a couple of White Rhinos, Jackals and their pups, Hyenas, Flamingos, and got close to Buffalo, Baboons, Monkeys, Zebras, Impala and some other animals.

A lot of people didn’t seem to enjoy the game drive but I actually liked it. I liked having a change up and seeing the different types of birds rather than focusing on the big 5 and other, more popular animals.

We finished around 1am and headed to our next destination, Crayfish Camp in Lake Naivasha where it started raining on the way. For a change.

Hi...and thank you for reading my blog. You make me smile

Troopers that we were, we were one of two couples who didn’t upgrade to a cabin whilst there for the nights. I think because of the downpouring of rain we’d had the previous nights and the promise of more on the way everyone was sick of risking getting their stuff wet in the tents. We decided early in the trip that we wouldn’t upgrade rather we’d get an air mattress to replace our camp mats we used last time. Well worth the purchase if you ever do an overland/camping trip, it is comfortable.

Funnily enough it did not rain during the two nights we were there which even worked out even better as we were able to do some washing of our dirty clothes. I had planned on going for a boat ride on the lake hoping to see the Fish Eagles but the planner disappeared and I was unable to do so. So I had a much-needed sleep in and at 3pm we, along with about 10 others, headed to Elsamere Cottage, the home of Joy and George Adamsom. Joy Adamson was an Austrian ex-pat who moved to Kenya in a bid to marry every man in the country. Failing just short in this goal, having only married 3 men – finally settling on George – she moved onto animals and paintings and was famous for her books on Elsa, a female lion she had an incredible relationship with after George, who was a hunter-turned-game warden, rescued her as a cub after her mother was killed. Joy’s relationship with Elsa was written about in a couple of books, the most famous being ‘Born Free’. She also had a relationship with Pippa, a female Cheetah and a leopard whose name I cannot recall.

The justice system over the imprisonment of the person accused of killing Joy Adamson

Joy died in the 1980s, stabbed by hired help over a pay dispute, although a Google search on this suggests there might be a conspiracy in regards to this. George was shot and killed a few years later trying to rescue a tourist in northern Kenya.

We watched a documentary on her before we were able to explore their museum, seeing their various knick-knacks and awards for their services to conservation. Once we were done we had a high tea of cakes, scones, and other savory snacks and we able to explore the cottage.

The cottage was beautiful, a place I would love to live in. It has a wonderful view of Lake Naivasha, and a wide-open backyard leading to the jetty sprinkled with various trees and plants as well as resident Baboon’s and Monkeys who are keen on impressing upon people how hungry they are.

We returned to Crayfish Camp and had dinner and spent some time with the others on their last night on tour before going our separate ways.

The next morning we packed and headed back to Nairobi. Thankfully the drive was short and we arrived at Acacia Camp early enough that we were able to go to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a place where they rescue Elephants or Rhinos who have lost their mothers and look after them and then reintroduce them into the wild. Thus far they have been 100% successful in the reintroduction of Elephants into the wild.

The Trust is only open from 11-12 in the morning where you can watch the Elephants feeding. We were able to watch 27 of the young elephants guzzle down their milk and then try and push in on others being fed. They are very active and quite funny because they can be so awkward, as if they aren’t quite used to their size. Once we had finished watching, we decided to sponsor a baby elephant named Lemoyian, a baby boy who was trapped in a man-made well and lost his mother.

 I, too, would be this happy if someone fed me a giant-ass bottle of milk everyday

We left the Trust and headed to Giraffe manor where we were able to learn about the giraffe programs in increasing their numbers in Kenya (currently the numbers are increasing) and be able to feed them if they were interested in the food. I wasn’t overly impressed with Giraffe Manor, though it was cool to get close to the giraffes. Once we finished at the Manor we headed to the Galleria, a shopping mall about a 10-minute walk from our camp. We had lunch there and browsed a bit before walking back to the camp where we heard of the terrorist attack at another shopping mall in Westlake.

You can get pretty close to them

Funnily enough, because it was the last day for some of the campers, we were planning on meeting at a restaurant in Westlake but we had to quickly change plans and unfortunately some were not able to make it and others were not willing to leave. In the end only 5 of us headed out and we went to Carnivore, a popular restaurant nearby.

The 5 of us waited almost an hour for a taxi we thought was booked but never showed up so we asked one of the managers at the camp if he could book us a taxi seeing as we were getting close to our booking time at the restaurant. Eventually the manager said he would go to the main road and see if he could hail a taxi. We waited for a couple of minutes before he returned with a beat up old white car that did not look like a taxi in any respect. There was also a lady in the front seat.

The lady got out and the manager told us he would take us to Carnivore. We negotiated the price and jumped in, fitting 4 people in the back and me in the front thinking the restaurant was only 4km down the road and only a 5-minute drive. As we left, the lady was still standing out the front of the camp.

20-minutes later we were still driving and it occurred to us that we actually weren’t in a taxi but some random guys car. We asked the driver if he was taking us to Carnivore and he didn’t respond which increased our apprehension on whether we were being taken to the restaurant or just being kidnapped.

Eventually the driver said he knows we are going to Carnivore. We turned off the main road we drove into the back alley roads where it looked more likely you would find bodies and not a restaurant, but like a beacon of light, there was the restaurant. Our driver who doesn’t speak very good English pulled through and we got there in one piece and no ransom demands.

Carnivore was brilliant, it’s an all you can eat meat restaurant that actually starts with a soup. Seems a bit of a waste to fill up on soup when you are greeted with about 30 different rotisseries of meat just waiting to be devoured by us meat-eaters. Once the entrée was completed we got stuck into the mains where servers come around with a different kind of meat on skewers and cut a piece off if you would like it. We sampled pretty much everything, including: Ostrich, Ostrich meatballs, Crocodile, Beef, Lamb, Chicken wings, Chicken breast, Chicken liver. The five of us sat around for our last meal together as Dan & Christine were leaving us and trekking Mount Kilimanjaro while, Danni, Ruth and myself were continuing onto Tanzania the next day.

We spoke of all things from our trip, our plans, the food, and when all that was done, we spoke about shit. Literally.

All our great experiences dropping el numero dos in the toilet, or in some cases the river out in the middle of nowhere. It was at that point I/we realized how well we really got on and how comfortable we were talking literally about anything.

We had dessert, Cheesecake, Pineapple Pie or Choc Chip Blondie, and unfortunately had to start heading back to our camp.

This time we got a legitimate taxi, who, like the other “taxi”, immediately needed petrol. We commented on this and the driver said they deliberately had little to no petrol in their car to dissuade carjackers from stealing their car, which is apparently a common theme. Failing in his first attempt to get petrol (because the petrol station was closed) we drove a little way in the opposite direction to get some and we were once again full of thoughts of kidnappings however we managed to survive our trips unscathed and reached our camp with no kidnappings or ransom demands.

We awoke the next morning and said goodbye to Dan and Christine…twice…before we begun the next part of our journey to Tanzania with a whole new bunch of people.

Kenya is a really nice place, especially western Kenya with the green fields of tea leaves giving it a fresh, clean look. It also has a lot going for it with multiple wildlife parks and their attempts in conservation, whether by the government or private, to increase the dwindling numbers of endangered species (and doing pretty well I think) to attract tourists as well as their exports for tea and coffee. Unfortunately the terrorist attack at the Westlake Mall may add to the stigma people already have for Africa, particularly Eastern Africa and may scare away people who were sitting on the fence about visiting.

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.