Photos in order 1. Sunset from bar at Jinja (Uganda) 2. My view from my shower or the river nile 3. My friends daughter at Lake Victoria (kampala) 4. Monkey's and goats playing around the crater lake (near Fort Portal) 5. Pygmies (Kisoro)
Berend and Paul, volunteers at free Kenya for a year, started their journey home to Holland by leaving Kochia, but not before a leaving party at the ABBA which although happened much later than planned it was excellent with a private DJ and far far too much food that was eaten outside in the garden. As we travelled back to our guest house the car broke down… which meant the last week that had been planned for the boys was much harder as we then had to think about hiring a car.
There was also a nice goodbye meal from the Odote family, who own the land the free Kenya guesthouse is built on.
We all headed to Kisumu where Berend was very ill and naturally I got a little sick as well. We were invited to Miss Bunny’s (Sylvia, our friend and rabbit breeder/supplier) for dinner and ate samosas and had rabbit cooked in French style and choma (BBQ) style too. It was EXCELLENT.
To say goodbye to the boys we went on a little trip to Amboselli National park which is right on the border to Kenya with views of mount Kilimanjaro (well at least when not covered in clouds!!) The park was overpriced at $80 a head but there was one special moment that made it worth while. There was what I would call a migration of elephants, not just a few, but pretty much the whole population of the park. Maybe more than 250. We stopped the car, the first lot passed us, the male bull was MASSIVE. We could see the whole horizon were more elephant coming, so we ate lunch and waited. It was pretty damn cool, then were passing infront and behind the car, at certain points the bulls would stop and the whole herd behind would stop, we would hold our breath that they weren’t about to stampeed. Thankfully they didn’t. It was the second best safari experience I have had. (seeing 5 lioness hunt a gazelle up close in serengetti 2008 still being number 1)
My start of travelling had all the hitches you would expect… firstly the bus was nearly 3 hours late leaving Kisumu and a rather strange dark border crossing which took quite a while. Then as we were going along at quite some speed the bus blew a tire, we swerved all over the road, the lady who had been sleeping on my shoulder, woke up grabbing me shaking and screaming. Needless to say the driver did well not to crash. The other travellers I had met were to say the least… stupid, they wouldn’t pay an extra 50p to get a taxi to the hostel from where the bus had broken down and furthermore when the bus did get to near Jinja it dropped us in the middle of no where and they wouldn’t pay for transport to the camping site. They wanted to stay awake in the petrol station all night. Idiots. Needless to say I didn’t enjoy Jinja, the hostel or the people I met there!
Next stop was Kampala, where I stayed with my friends Mariska and Ali and her two adopted Ugandan children, she lives in the rich suberbs of kampala with a beautiful view of lake Victoria. I went to the palace where I was forced to wrap material around my trousers as I was not allowed to wear trousers in front of the king… he wasn’t even there. I actually went here to see the torture chambers than the notorious Idi Amin had used during his vicious rule in the 80’s. They were not much to look at but I did think the story was gruesome. People used to be kidnapped and sent to these 4 chambers that were filled of 500 people per 10 squared. Over 200000 people allegedly died there, no one ever survived, there was no food or light or water, except for the water that was in the entrance…that had an electric current running through it. So death was either slow by suffocation, dehydration, starvation or quick by throwing yourself into the water and being electrocuted.
From Kampala I went to Fort Portal, which I have nothing to say about and then went to a crater lake nearby, first time I nearly fell off the back of a motorbike, note to self big backpack, steep hill and motorbike DON’T mix. I spent a few hours walking around the lake, it was so beautiful, until I ended up with an escort… a man who did or wouldn’t speak English to me, I tried to let him past, he finally did, but then whenever I slowed down or stopped so did he, about 10m in front of me. I thought he as going to ask me for money as a guide at the end, but when I got to my hostel he said bye an walked off.. strange. It was also this night (but I don’t think connected to this man) that I got robbed. I had a beautiful banda (mud house with grass roof), I had locked my door and gone for a shower, 15 mins later I returned to find no break in, but my door seemed to unlock differently than before, once inside I saw my stuff everywhere, laptop thrown across the room, camera out. Then ever so neatly placed on the bed (that strangely had the sheet robbed) there was my money belt. I rushed over to see if I still had a passport. Thankfully I had all my cards, passport, all my Kenyan Shillings and £’s but the dollars and Ugandan Shillings were gone. Unfortuntely I had just been to the cash machine that morning. The lady of the hostel was very upset, she made me go with her into all the staff’s room and she searched EVERYTHING, even feeling both sides of the mattresses. I will never see this money again, but im just greatful to have all the important things still such as photos and passport.
I got a night bus to Kabale with two nice Israeli girls and decided at our arrival (3am) that I was going to leave them and head straight to Kisoro from where I would start my Gorilla trek. I ended up in a saloon car with not 5 people, not even 7 people, but 10 people!!!!! Im so happy I didn’t see where I was going. (mountain dirt road, driver sat on someone elses lap.) WRONG WRONG and more WRONG. I went to see a group of Pygmies the next day, which was quite a depressing site, they were moved 50yrs ago by the government out of the national parks and over 50% have no land ownership, so cant even find a new profession of agriculture. They were all hooked on drugs and some of the little huts they lived in were made essentially out of twigs and plastic bags. But they did sing and dance for me, for AGES and then continued as the followed me back to my motorbike. I did like the pygmies, they were very small in height as u would expect.
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