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Hi everyone,
We have had some real lows and highs in the last week! We set off from Kabale to Fort Portal, a town in the west of Uganda where we wanted to see the Rwenzori mountains and go chimpanzee trekking in Kibale National Park.
The drive over to Fort Portal itself was amazing. We drove through a national park in a matatu (minibus type vehicle where they squash in 20+ people despite the big 'licensed to carry 14 passengers sign) and basically got a free safari! We saw elephants, buffalo, rhino and baboons. It made our day, especially since we had spent 7 hours on a bus by that point (3 just waiting for it to leave) and were being sat on to various degrees by all the people squashed in. We thought we might not make it there when our matatu driver switched and the next that got in was high on some kind of plant he was chewing, kept touching Francesca's leg and generally was not with it! Luckily he did not drive us anywhere and just sat for a while before another driver took the wheel!
The last part of the drive was really beautiful. The mountains emerged int he background and the scenery was stunning; extremely lush and full of tea plantations. After staying in Fort Portal one night we headed to Kibale National Park for a chimp trek. Again we feared for our lives on the way, crammed into a taxi with ten people in the monsoon rains. We made it though, checked into our hostel then, on discovering there is no transport in the national park, walked the one hour and a half round trip to pick up our chimp permits.
Chimp trekking was amazing. We set off really early into the forest and found the chimps within thirty minutes. We heard them before we saw them; they were making so much noise it was unbelievable. Later we found out it is the male chimps upset because the females refused to mate with them! At first they were all up in the trees and then suddenly they were all around us on the ground, only a few metres away, coming from all directions and passing around us. It was a great experience. Walking home from chimp trekking we also saw a troop of baboons just chilling out on the side of the road and witha baby that can't have been much bigger than the palm of my hand. Cute! Though I was a little concerned about a babboon attack since it was just Francesca and I walking and we had no form of weapon.
We managed to hitch a lift in the bak of a pick up truck out of the national park, stayed a night in Fort Portal again before heading to Kampala. We met a lvoely couple from Scotland and England whilst chimp trekking who offered to take us to Kampala in their plush lovely vehicle. We found out on the ride that we were crashing their honeymoon- oops! They were really great though and it was so nice not to have to sit on a bus for once- thanks Brian and Kirsty!
Since then the lows have hit and we spent a couple of days in a Ugandan police station attempting to get a police report after Francesca got pickpocketed and her phone got taken. We were attempting to get a report without having to pay a ridiculous amoutn of money and it took us 6 hours over 2 days but we managed to shake the woman down and got the report without having to pay... It was a tough few days with this amongst other challenging things. We cheere3d ourselves up, or attempted to, with a cinema trip to see Fame. It was a brilliant film (I recommend seeing it as soon as you can) but the security gurad on the cinema door upset us by not letting us take our bags in. Apparently a small rucksack is classed as luggage and we were not 'trustworthy;' our small bottles of water and camera were inappropriate to take in. We weren't best pleased about leaving all our worldly possessions with him whilst watching the film, especially after being robbed that day. Ah well- it all worked out ok!
Tomorrow is white water rafting on the Nile...
Hope all is well at home!
xxx
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