Uganda

We didn't sleep much, but dozed off and on in short bits.

The Kenya/Uganda border crossing was quite a bit easier. We didn't have to take our bags off and go through security or anything. I exchanged $20US to Ugandan shilling (40,000) and got a crap deal. I should have had checked the exchange before talking to the money exchangers that walk around. I should have got between 60,000-70,0000 I think. Oh well. Then Tracy had to go to the bathroom, so I gave her 10,000 shilling in case it was "pay as you poop" deal again. She ended up paying 10,000 shilling ($3.75 CAD) to take a poop.

We passed by the Nile river on the way. It's HUGE even way up here, much closer to the source.

As we got close to Kampala, they turned on the video system again and started playing gospel, God is amazing music videos. I laughed because it was a sharp contrast to the music videos they had playing when we got on the bus.

We arrived in Kampala around 12:30pm. The bus was scheduled to arrive at 10:00am, and there was a guy waiting with our names on a piece of paper. He'd been waiting for 2.5 hours for our bus. Kaseem was his name and he's to be our guide for our time in Uganda.

We then headed off to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, where the gorilla trekking will be. We stopped at a "Cafe Java", a quick sit down restaurant for a lunch, as we hadn't eaten almost 24 hours.

Uganda is beautiful. So green and lush, mountains and rolling hills. Our guide says it's green and lush all year round. It was fun to pass through all the town along the way.

We didn't arrive to Bwindi until 10:00pm (9 hour drive from Kampala), so we couldn't really see much of the mountains or scenery for the last part of the trip. They were doing some road work, so there was a bulldozer, a grader and one of those pavement roller things parked by the side of the road. It was dark, but by the headlights of our vehicle, as we passed we saw a human figure sitting upright in the seat of the bulldozer, wrapped in warm clothes. Freaky! After we turned into the park gates, our guide remarked that he didn't see that we had a tent. I said, "Uhhh, we have no tent, we have only sleeping bags. We were not told to bring anything else and that everything was supposed to be included." Anyway, once we got to the camping area, which is in a small village, and run by some locals, our guide called someone and found out that there was a tent already at the camp for us. So the camp people set out setting it up and everything and it's all good. In Uganda, locals are allowed to live in the national parks, so the villages cater to the tourists with campgrounds and cabin options and restaurants and everything. The one we are staying at Ruhija Gorilla Friends Resort Campsite, and the people running it are lovely. They offered us supper, but it was so late, and we were so tired, we passed. Once they got the tent setup (a small tent with a small mattress for Tracy and me....our bums touched each other all night, the mattress was so small), we crashed hard.

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