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Uganda is described as the "Pearl of Africa" and wow did it live up to this expectation. We came to Uganda with no plans, ideas or time limits about what we were going to do. We arrived in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, late on a Tuesday night after a 14 hour bus ride from Nairobi. As you can imagine I was pretty exhausted as we jumped into a cab and headed to Kampala Backpackers, approx. 2km out of town. My first impression of Kampala was not a good one because as usual our cab driver tried to rip us off, took us down some really dodgy backstreets with no lights and people selling stolen car parts on the side of the road and the traffic in Kampala, even at 8.30 on a Tuesday night was absolutely horrendous. It took close to an hour just to drive 2km to our hostel. We hadn't eaten all day either so after taking a long awaited shower … cold of corse … I ordered some dinner which filled the spot nicely!
The next day we spent chilling out at the hostel, using the free wifi to all its greater glory and reading up about sights and activities in Uganda. The main attraction that caught my eye was the white water rafting on the Nile rapids. For Dad, it was the gorilla trekking in the mountains of Bwindi Forest. So the next day we booked white water rafting and our transport to the second biggest town in Uganda of Jinja.
Jinja was absolutely awesome! The white water rafting was exhilarating and adrenaline-packed as we rafted down grade 5 rapids which were the most powerful for rafts. Grade 6 rapids could only be done by kayaks and were pretty much fatal for the inexperienced. We went down 8 rapids and spent from 10am till 4pm rafting. Much of the time was spent relaxing in the huge pools of water in between each rapid, but once we hit those rapids - there was definitely no time to relax - you literally were holding on for dear life. Our raft flipped twice during the course of the day, however one of the rapids, called "Vengence" managed to kick all of our asses pretty hard. Dad copped it the worse, being pushed halfway down the river by the force of the rapid, increasing his heartbeat quite a bit he said. The rest of us were stuck in the rapid, well under the rapid, struggling to come up for air because the force of the water was just sooo powerful. Eventually, just before I ran out of air, I managed to surface, gasping for my life, and was met by a member of the safety team in a kayak who just causally asked if I was all right. I was thinking 'well yeah I couldn't breathe and was about to drown to death, but yeah I guess I'm alright now'. Haha it was so amazing how casual he was about it but very assuring that this team seemed to know exactly what they were doing and this stuff must happen all the time. When the kayak dropped me back to the raft, I noticed everyone but dad was safely on board and asked our guide Mike where dad was. Mike said "yeah not sure actually we need to go find him and collect the remaining member of our team." For a couple of seconds I thought something had gone seriously wrong, but was relieved when we found him on the safety gear raft a couple hundred meters down the river. I've gotta say, there's nothing like a quick 10 seconds of being held under water, struggling to move, swim or even breathe to make you appreciate living again. It definitely woke me up and made me grateful to be alive, that's for sure.
As the day came to an end, we stayed at the Adrift Campsite on the Nile which was so nice to relax at, after a full day of rafting. The sunset over the Nile was serene, the shower was strong and hot, and the pizza tasted great!
We decided to stay an extra couple of days in Jinja and see if we could make some gorilla plans from there. We had met an American guy Louis back at Kampala Backpackers who was also in Uganda on a bit of an impulse and had joined us for the rafting so he decided to hang around and see what the go was as well. Jinja was really cool because it was not a big town, basically just one really long street with cute little markets, with unique souvenirs and people that didn't hassle you to buy anything, a great range of local and western cafes with wifi and really yummy milkshakes and cookies, and really friendly people. It was definitely a town designed for tourists, however after our time spent in Ethiopia which was very un-touristy, I liked Jinja a whole lot more. To get around you jumped on the back of motorbikes called "boda-bodas" and a ride into town took about 5 mins and was about 40c. There was always bikes around to jump on and it was always really easy. We only spent 2 days in Jinja town but I told dad I wanted to come back if we had time after the gorillas and Rwanda as there was still stuff to do there and despite the backpackers accommodation being basic, at least there was wifi and other westerners around to talk to. Dad actually met these other westerners, more than I did, as he and Louis had a wild night out on the town whilst I went to bed and watched a movie one night. The night resulted in the boys getting back to our dorm at 3.30 in the morning, absolutely s***-faced, stumbling all over the place, failing to make any sense at all - well actually this was just dad, Louis seemed ok as he was able to able to help dad go to the toilet and get to bed. Not my finest "proud daughter" moment but he has witnessed some pretty crazy scenes of me partying so I can't really judge him. It was a little satisfying, not going to lie, watching him struggle the next morning as he thought he lost all his bank cards … until I realised that that would mean we had no money. Luckily he found them, but was definitely reminded of the old "s*** what happened last night?" feeling - one I struggle with most Thursday mornings after the Wednesday night Sheaf ritual but probably not a feeling he has had in the last 30 years haha.
Anyway, we booked a slightly out-of-budget but very attracting 4 day private tour through some of Uganda's greatest landscape. Not to mention the couple of safari game drives that were included as well. The tour lead us to the equator (where we got that classic tourist "im on the equator" photo), through Queen Elizabeth National Park, into Bwindi Forest to find our gorillas, and finished in the picturesque Lake Bunyoni. I was very surprised to find out that it was actually cold and rainy when we arrived at our equator statue. I was really expecting to get an instant tan just standing out there for 5 minutes … how naïve haha.
Queen Elizabeth National Park was nice, however to me, it was hard to top any of the national parks I had been to in Tanzania as my memories there were unforgettable. We were hoping to see some lions sleeping in the trees as that was a more regular sighting for tourists travelling through this park however we missed out on seeing any cats in Uganda. Although we did make a fantastic sighting of elephants and hippos right outside our cottage as we were driving back from dinner on the first night. I'm talking right outside our front door. We had to wait for them to move, before we could drive up to the door and quickly transfer ourselves from the car to our accommodation (which was door to door … but who knows what can happen in the wild!!) There was 2 elephants and atleast 3 or 4 hippos and we could hear them as we were going to sleep. I don't think I've ever been that close to the deadliest animal in Africa yet. They were literally on our doorstep … it was fantastic!!!
The thing about game drives is they can be really long, and boring at times, and it can be tough to keep the motivation up … (and the eyes open… at times). But all it takes is one fantastic sighting to make the 4-5 hour search session to be worth it. For the second day of our tour, it was another herd of hippos. But when I say herd … I mean like 40-50 hippos. All different ages and sizes and the cool thing was we got out of the car and stood on one side of the river bank (obviously in Uganda) but the hippos which were about 50m away on the otherside of the river bank were standing on the Democratic Republic of Congo soil. As we watched all the hippos stand up from their sun-baking session and walk into the water, it was quite incredible as hippos can be tricky to find. The hippos this day, made the safari worth it and made up for us missing out on those lions.
Trip Advisor rated Gorilla Trekking as #1 in both Uganda and Rwanda and despite the reviews by fellow travellers being amazing, I was not that interested in doing it. Boy was I more wrong about anything in my whole life. The gorillas were amazing. I was so so happy dad made me join him to see these incredible human-like animals. We trekked for just over an hour before we found them - but I'm talking serious jungle trekking as we had 3 guides with us - the one in front was hacking away the trees and plants with a machete. It was muddy, full of thorns, and really really steep. But once we found those gorillas… none of that seemed to matter. We had exactly 1 hour to study these animals and take as many gorilla selfies as possible (well this mainly applied to myself!) The hour went so quickly but the professional trackers said that this was one of the greatest sightings they had seen as the group of gorillas we hung out with included the male silverback (gigantic) King-kong sized ones, as well as many babies and infants. All up it was a clan of about 14, to which we saw about 5 or 6. It was truly unforgettable - another highlight of Africa and really proved to me just how spot on trip advisor is. We almost didn't make it there that morning as when we left our luxurious forest tent accommodation a huge tree had fallen which blocked the road meaning our car couldn't get through. And you can't exactly rely on NRMA to come 2 hours up steep mountain dirt road so we called the guys from our accommodation who ran down with machetes, saws and axes. It could have been a scene from "Banged up abroad" as those items scare the s*** out of me, instead it was like a "search and rescue" show. And less than half an hour later we were on our way.
Lake Bunyoni was were we spent our final 2 nights in Uganda before crossing over the border to Rwanda. Lake Bunyoni is the place I have been to in Africa that I would describe most to be of postcard quality. We went to one hotel in particular for dinner which gave you a panoramic, aerial view of the lake with all it's islands and the mountains in the background and despite having one of the worst headaches I've had all year that day, it was absolutely magical. Something from a fairytale involving an enchanted forest with little islands that could only be reached by canoe (or speed boat for the people that needed transport that was a little faster). Even though there was not too much to do there, the view was enough to keep you entertained for days. However, I was feeling pretty exhausted and over travelling with 2 guys (dad and Louis), 3 if you count our driver, who get along really well, and was really looking forward to meeting some new people, in particular girls, because most of dad and I's independent travel has basically been me and the guys. And even though my beer drinking skills may have improved, the thing I miss most about home (apart from mum) is my girls.
After lake Bunyoni, dad, Louis and I crossed over the border into our next capital city of Kigali, Rwanda. I have written an additional blog for this country which was high on my bucket list. But after a week in Rwanda we returned back to Uganda on an overnight 15 hour bus so I may as well just tell you about our last week or so in Uganda.
As we booked the Musanze to Kampala overnight bus, we were slightly pissed off when it was 2.5 hours late, meaning we would now have to do the border crossing in the dark and it was raining. Night buses are slightly more dangerous as you run the risk of the more likelihood of the driver falling asleep or you being robbed or worse while your asleep, plus its just not a very fun experience. However it's advantages are that you don't waste a whole day travelling, you don't have to pay for accommodation that night, and most of the time you are at your destination by the time you wake up. So it that regards, it's a lot better. We safely made it to Kampala and jumped a local bus straight up to Jinja - my favourite town in Uganda.
It was so nice to spend 4 days in Jinja just doing nothing as we had been on the move pretty much every day for the past 2 weeks. In Rwanda itself we had stayed in 5 different accommodations in 7 days. It's not even worth opening your bag to find some clean clothes (not that I could find any anyway) because by the time you pull out all your stuff, its time to pack up and leave again. So this is why some down-time in Jinja was highly appreciated. I got some awesome mac'n'cheese from one of my favourite restaurants, did some shopping, donated some clothes, checked out the Source of the Nile where the Nile meets lake Victoria, had dinner at the Sailing club and met up with some volunteers who I had made friends with last time I was in Jinja. It was great to see some familiar faces, plus we had a really fun night out - hitting up a restaurant with some great live music, then a couple of clubs that were a lot of fun!! We got in at about 5am that morning after a quick stop at the local food cart that made Chapattis (equivalent of our late-night/early-morning kebab hangover cure) before heading back to our hostel. It was really great to be out, meeting new people, dancing, drinking, got me so excited for Europe!!
Our final week in Uganda was spent at the fantastic hostel in Kampala called Red Chilli's Backpackers. It was probably biggest and most well set up hostel I have stayed in yet. The grounds were so beautiful, with fresh-mown lawns and a huge pool, plus an awesome kitchen, great wifi and comfortable dorms. Dad and I even got a dorm to ourselves one night. It was a great base to meet other travellers, offer up some advice about places to go in Africa, receive some advice about countries to visit in Europe, sort out some things like accommodation and visas in Europe and work on that tan - that I was suppose to be getting from Mombasa (well that's another story)!
The next plan is another night bus from Kampala to Lake Nvashiya in Kenya where we will spend the final week of our 4 month expedition in Africa before flying off to Switzerland to meet mum. Stay tuned for that final blog of Africa.
Catch you on the flipside!!
- comments
Kaz Fantastic reading , love ALL the stories! Very interesting and I am learning so much about these places through your blogs. Keep them coming, what an adventure!