Uganda & Rwanda

Uganda has got to be one of our favourite countries in Africa.The scenery and the people make this place. South of the equator Uganda is very green with high hills and mountains and is very luscious.One of our first main places we dropped in at was Kabale.A few of us were out and about together and stumbled across an orphanage.The kids were so gorgeous and they were so excited they had people coming to visit and put on a 'show' for us - singing and dancing and ended up dragging us up there to dance with them!!! Lots of fun but it's quite embarrassing when a 5 year old can dance better than you!!!

We stayed at Lake Bunyoni and ended up having a fab time there.No thanks to the UN who were also staying there and partied into the early hours of the morning keeping everyone in Uganda awake.Honestly.... it was the UN!!!Earlier in the night though Stef did go and teach them how to dance like a German and they did teach him how to dance like an African woman which will certainly come in handy at some point in his life I'm sure.While we were at Lake Binyoni we had a CRACKER of a storm and it pelted it down.We were all in the bar at this point but before too long the lower part of the campsite had flooded, there was a small landside and little rivers were passing underneath our tents!!The boys had to go and lift all of the tents and bring them to an undercover area, it was such a mess but very amusing at the same time.

But the absolute highlight of Uganda and even possibly the entire trip was the gorilla trekking.It was one of the best experiences of our lives.It was just incredibly surreal to think that we were trekking with the gorillas in the wild in Uganda. We trekked for about 2 hours and about 45 mins of that was going through some intensely dense jungle forest. We had 3 African guides with us, fully armed and they used their machetes to cut down the trees/bushes etc to make some sort of a path for us to walk through.Before you knew it, all we could hear was the grumbling/roaring noise of the gorillas.It was amazing hearing them before we could see them (and a tad intimidating).We finally saw a few gorillas up trees just near us and they were just beautiful and it was amazing just to sit there and watch them.They really are incredibly like us in so many ways.We were visiting a family of 32 gorillas and we managed to see 27 of them which was really lucky!A few were up the trees (especially the young ones) but most of them were on the ground just a few metres away from us.We saw the Silverbacks and lots of babies as well - so cute and the Silverbacks were huge!!!Within about 15 mins we were quietly watching a Silverback when all of a sudden it charged at us.Well.I swear on my life I have never been so scared.The whole 'crouch down and be quiet' thing when out the window quick smart and I practically climbed the nearest tree in complete fear.The noise that came out of that animal and the fact that such a HUGE animal is fully charging at you just a metre or two away was terrifying.But.... as soon as he calmed down we all just howled with laughter!!!!It certainly got the heart going!!!And this happened twice through the afternoon!It was a great experience being with the gorillas and at one point we were just sitting there on the hill and just looking around we were literally surroundedby about 20 of them. Amazing.

The following day we went to Rwanda.We went to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda and visited the genocide museum.It was pretty full on and really sad as you can imagine.It was a very interesting visit and it still makes me feel quite ill that so many people/countries turned their backs on such a disgusting and inhumane event.I still don't understand how so many people were able to do such barbaric things to their own friends and family members.I am guessing that there was some serious amounts of brainwashing that had taken place as I don't understand how so many people could, for example, take a machete and kill a child so brutally.It was a very emotional afternoon! We then drove through Kigali which was quite interesting, seems to be quite a nice enough city but again it was hard to swallow the fact that the genocide had happened in the streets we were in and so many people killed there.They also have some of the 'suspected' leaders of the genocide still living in the city.If they have are even suspected of being involved in the killings then they have to wear pink shirts to show the rest of the community that they were involved. We actually saw one of them in his pink shirt picking up rubbish along the streets which was quite shocking.

We then had a late lunch at 'Hotel Rwanda' which is now renamed and renovated slightly.And Stef saw that famous French actor there from the movie (can't remember his name!!!) - very bizarre!

The rest of our time in Uganda was pretty much spent relaxing.Stef did another white water rafting trip down the Nile which seemed like alot of fun.Again, they got thrown from the boat a good few times but survived!

We eventually made our way back to Nairobi and said our farewells to everyone with another night out at Carnivore. It was a real shame to leave everyone here coz we had a really good time together over the last few weeks. Stef and I ended up spending 4 days in the hotel in Nairobi which was HEAVEN. It was literally luxury to be out of a tent and have a real shower, pillow and a real towel!!!!
Our next stop was meant to be India but we couldn't book alot of the trains up so we decided to go to Asia first and then do India in Nov/Dec. This meant surprising my family in Koh Samui on the McGarrity/Langer family holiday (Alex and Thomas' family and friends all meeting for the first time!).
So....the next instalment - Asia.