Today I am in Kampala soon off to get some breakfast of milk tea and chapati then meet up with Phoebe and Jessie at Owino Market for a spot of SHOPPING!
For the past 2 and a bit weeks I have been on school holiday traveling around Uganda and soaking in every last bit of the culture. Our travels began with my Nativity, those kids made me very proud and I cannot wait to show you all the video of them performing like drama gods. My favorite quote has to be 'LOOK A BIG SHINNING STAR' said by Humphry (or Hampfy to the teachers and pupils). After the performance we had a bonfire where we cooked meat on a stick and matoke with cups of Bushira to wash it all down with mmm.
We then traveled to a little island in the middle of Lake Bunyoni to begin our holidays. We swam from the dock, relaxed, played cards, read our books and Will and I went on an adventure onto the mainland to get knives and spears. Good fun! I stayed there four days and then split of from the larger group and went off in a group of 6 to adventure up North to Murchinson Falls in order to find the sun that we had been missing in Kabale. The Super Six consisted of: Jessie, Pheobe, Elspeth, Caroline, Bex and Me.We hitched a ride in lorries up to Ntungamo from Kabale and stayed there a night, then moved up into Queen Elizabeth National Park. Instead of going into the park, which costs $35 per day we moved to Katwe which is situated on the bank of Lake Edward. There we met with Norwegian couple, who told us the best things to do around the area without going into the park. This involved showering in the fresh spring near the slat lake, going on a boda boda night ride to see the hippos, a boat safari, a walking safari. All these things we did.
After the ghost town of Katwe we stayed at a gorgeous hotel called Kingfisher, which looked out over the whole of the park. There we rested, ate well and slept with TWO PILLOWS! The next day we carried on to Kasese and the Rwenzori Mountains. We got a boda boda up to the guest house...BAD IDEA. That was the longest 17 km of my life. When we finally arrived, panting, sweating and thanking whoever we needed to thank for keeping us alive, we were in a gorgeous setting. We were surrounded by the Rwenzori Mountain; right in the heart of them. We washed and then ambled down to the river for a paddle. The next day we awoke at 6 am for our hill walk up the 2300 m hill which I forget the name of.. The scenery as we climbed was breath-taking, and the climb was very steep but we made it to the top in good time. In the distance we could see the tops of the higher mountains with snow on the peaks. Yes, snow in Uganda! We trudged back down the hill, well a mixture of trudging and falling and laughing, but we got down.
Our next destination, was Masindi. The last town before Murchinson Falls, the holy grail we had been seeking from the start of our travels. We stayed there one night then with our hired vehicle (including driver) we set off for the waterfall. We reached the falls at 4 pm and stayed there till sunset. The falls were magnificent. Huge bulges of water throwing spray up as they threw themselves over the edge and the sunset just topped off the whole experience. We stayed a night near Red Chilli's Guest house and then made our way to the other side of the river to begin our safari at 7:30 am. The guide was picked up on the other side of the river and then we proceeded into the wilderness of the bush. We were lucky enough to see the majority of the animals that stayed in the park: elephants, giraffes, buck, Jackson (a very stupid looking antelope, which is slow at running, has some of the best meat out of all the antelopes and suffers from STM loss, so sometime forgets it's being chased, basically an all you can eat buffet for lions) and the 'Big Man' as the guide called him, the Lion. The lion we saw was a bit worse for wear though unfortunately as it only had 3 legs. He was still magnificent and proud looking though! From the Safari we traveled back to Masindi, our driver even aloud me to drive some of the way back (harder than you think) and we stayed another night in a guest house there.
That was 2 days ago, and now we are in Kampala and will set off this evening to our next destination of Lugasi, then to Musaka to meet with the other volunteers before we head off to the Ssese Island for Christmas, after Christmas we go to Kampala to New Year, and then onward to Jinja and Mount Elgon. See you soon for another update.
Stay cool, won't you?
Your traveling, bald buddy,
Liam
P.S. Sorry about the lack of detail and pictures involved in this post, I just wanted to give you a quick overview of what I had been doing. I don't want to tell you all the stories before I get back now, do I?
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