We covered over 2,500 miles by road in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. Along the way there was plenty of interesting, and quite often amusing sites to keep me and my camera entertained. What can you carry on your head? Not pictured here is the woman Lisa saw in Rwanda carrying a 3-seater wicker couch on her head!
11 December, Saturday; Eldoret, Kenya. Today we said goodbye to Uganda, a country that really left an impression on me. I hadn’t given it too much thought before the trip, as I was mostly focused on the gorilla trek in Rwanda. The country is fantastically lush, green and beautiful.
10 December, Friday; Jinja, Uganda. We had a day of leisure today – no planned activities for the group, which is a nice change of pace. Ben and I decide that we’d rather do jet boating with Adrift instead of a full day of rafting. I didn’t expect to have as much fun as we did on the jet boat, even though we were doused with rain.
9 December, Thursday; Lake Mburo to Jinja, Uganda. Today started as a downer. It’s just really hard to stay positive when it’s cold and raining and none of us has taken a shower in more than 24 hours. Taking down the tent when it’s cold and muddy is worse than normal.
8 December, Wednesday; Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda. It was an early morning departure from our warm, blanket-covered bed at Lake Bunyonyi. I felt a bit down today, realizing that the remainder of the trip is just getting back to Nairobi. After seeing the gorillas, the rest of the trip feels a bit like filler.
7 December, Tuesday; Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda and Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda. Today is G-Day. The reason we’re all on this trip. We’ve spent that last 12 days building up to this day and it did not disappoint.
05 December, Sunday; Mucenze, Rwanda. We had an early morning departure from beautiful Lake Bunyonyi. All night, we kept hearing the pitter patter of an animal walking out onto our porch, sitting there for quite a while, and then pitter pattering off. We quickly realized it was a dog (or dogs) and they were friendly, so I drifted off to sleep in peace, revelling in the fact that I didn’t have to take the tent down in the morning.
4 December, Saturday; Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda. We survived the night on Hippo Hill with no incidents. After breakfast, we had a game drive in Queen Elizabeth National Park. On today’s menu – lots more elephants and some scared warthogs (thus, no photos of the little buggers).
3 December, Friday; Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. On our drive back to camp after the boat tour, we were stopped along the way due to a herd of elephants crossing the road. The locals were not very impressed and tried their best to scare them off with stones. The Elephants had other ideas and actually created their own smoke screen with the dirt to hide the baby’s as they crossed.
3 December, Friday; Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. After settling in at our camp on Hippo Hill, we drove through Queen Elizabeth National Park and encountered a large herd of elephants, which are magnificent creatures.
3 December, Friday; Kibale, Uganda. Lucky for me, today was an easy travel day. I wasn’t feeling well the night before and welcomed an easy day. Driving along the road can sometimes be boring and sometimes quite interesting.
2 December, Thursday; Kigale, Uganda. Today is the chimp trek day! The highlight of the trip for us (and everyone else) is the gorillas. I honestly didn’t put too much thought into the chimp trek, but as we started hearing about it, our excitement grew.
1 December, Wednesday; Kampala to Kigale, Uganda. Today is a long travel day so we wake up early and break down camp in the cold dampness. I’m all about helping out with the chores, but I have to say that taking down the tent when it’s wet outside is definitely my least favorite. Funny enough, our tour leader asks me why I’m so clean.
30 November, Tuesday; Kampala, Uganda. Breakfast at 6:30 today and tents down beforehand. After 2 days, we’re finally starting to get the hang of it, but welcomed some help this morning breaking down our tent. Surely next time we’ll nail it on our own.