A minor rerouting

We arrived in Kampala with an urgent need... to sort out air tickets. We had just recieved an email informing us that our flight from Kigali would now be leaving from Entebbe instead. With such scant information we urgently wished to get to South African Airways to find out how they could just decide that we would leave from a different country to what we had originally booked.
Arriving in Kampala at Red Chilli Backpackers, on the free rafting bus, we set up our tent for the first time in darkness, this turned out to be easier than finding a clear space between the tents already set up at the backpackers. The guard dogs kindly guarded our tent for the small fee of a chew of our thongs.
The next morning we made a bee line straight for the SAA office, where we were informed that SAA no longer flew from Rwanda, hence the change, however a flight and accomadation with food, would be provided but it would have to be issued by the SAA office in Kigali, Rwanda. Feeling a bit more releaved (a warning not to leave the Rwandan office till it is all sorted out preventing a total relaxation), we wondered why our travel agent couldn't have provided a few more details.
With that out of the way we had the opertunity to explore Kampala some more, we found the Garden City a wonderful mall obviously aimed at the Expats and tourists, the food including meat looked and smelt safe and wonderful, there was even a variety of cheese in the deli.
We had our first steak in 3 months at a butchery that also functioned as a restraunt, steak was never more appreachiated.

Dirt, rain and white water

Arriving in Bujagali Falls we signed up for an evening of quad biking along the banks of the river nile, ending with dinner in a local village. This was a heap of very muddy fun... although it was a little disconcerting stopping at each of the rapids on the way to be shown where the white water rafting is done. The dinner consisted of 6 different types of carbohydrate, beans and cabbage... but was surprisingly nice. It was also fun sitting in a locals house with her five kids eating by lantern light due to the lack of electricity, with a TV for decoration. The kids were sweet and as with all Africa kids treated us to some songs.

The next day we went back out into a different village to watch a movie. There's a charity organisation here called 'Soft Power' which sets up schools and medical centres and one of their fund raising activities is to have a weekly movie. They have a generator to power the laptop and projector, as again there's no electricity in the villages. This week it was Blood Diamond and it was a really moving experience watching it in Africa and we're both sure that our response to the movie was very different than it would have been back home. There were only four mzungus there the rest of the audience being local(primarily young children) and we were really disturbed by the laughter that was their reaction to all the violence and women and children getting shot.

The highlight though and the main reason that people generally come to Bujagali falls is for the white water rafting on the Nile. This was terrifying at least in the lead up. We had watched the DVD from the trip that ran the day before, and even Jason started to wonder if this was a sane thing to do. The day started with breakfast whilst we listened to the guides be briefed on all the important things (like, please put on your shorts before you leave so that we don't have to wait around for you?!) It was a bit like listening to a school teacher berate naughty children and did little for our confidence. We then piled into two buses and a couple of trucks and headed for the Nile.

After a few practice paddles, turning left and right we started to approach the first rapid and were promptly told to jump out to swim through it. The 7 of us in the boat looked at each other wondering if he was joking (Our guide was called Alex, but quickly got nicknamed Jaffar as his evil laugh distinctly reminded us of the evil villain in Aladdin). It turns out he wasn't joking and so we all swam through the first rapid. After clambering (or being yanked into the boat for those of us with no arm muscles... all but 2) back into the boat he promptly flipped it, so we'd know what that felt like too. At this point he was not our favourite person!!! Eventually we reached the first 'real' rapid of the day, meaning a grade 5 - the hardest grade that is allowed to be commercially rafted. The rapids here are totally different to those that we rafted in New Zealand. There it was about the height of the fall, here it is the volume of water and the waves!! You head down the rapid to be met at the bottom by a wall of water which the boat then attempts to go over or through... consequently it is quite common to get flipped out. In the course of the day we were only flipped once which felt like quite an achievement! The best rapid was Silverback which consists of four seperate waves. The first is actually two diagonal waves which meet in a point, we hit this dead on and the boat went completely verticle, we all thought that we were going over and to avert this Jason who was sitting in the front lent forward over the top of the boat to try and bring the bow back down (it worked). There is this amazing shot on the DVD of the bottom of the boat and Jason (from about the waist up) coming out over the top. Of course today he is complaining about the massive bruise on his chest from when we came back down and he slammed into the boat.

The Migration

Well, after much debate we decided to head into the Masai Mara for two nights, primarily in the hope of seeing the migration. THere were huge differences in how the safari was organised compared to in Tanzania. The company (Best Camping Safaris) has it's own camp site just outside the park and it felt a bit like being on school camp, particularly at meal times. We didn't have our own driver for the whole trip either, swapping between groups (probably as we had booked such a short safari). IT was however a lot of fun, and we did manage to see the migration. Imagine plain after plain after plain of zebra and wilderbeest, with a few other animals thrown in. Amazing! We also realised that in all the game drives we've done in Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya we've only had one where we didn't see lions!! We've seen male lions and prides of lions with cubs of all ages. We've even seen a male and female happily snuggled up by a lake following more strenuous activities.

This is our last tour type safari although we are looking forward to doing a self-drive safari in Kruger before heading home.

I suppose I should also quickly mention Nairobbery... I mean, Nairobi. This is definitely the most modern city we've been in in Africa (apart form Pretoria/J'berg) but it is also the first place since Pretoria/J'berg that we have felt unsafe and been warned about carrying anything even in daylight. Due to this we rushed through with only one night before the safari and one after. Because we were rushing we were unable to get on the royal coach (think business class seats, movies, drinks) and had to settle for executive class (think overcrowded, broken windows, rattling unidentified bits), but it was worth it to get to Uganda and a slower pace of life in Jinja (think country NSW).

The big five and more...

Although we had done a few game drives previously, this really felt like our first 'real' safari. We had booked a 5 day/4 night trip to Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. There were 5 of us on the trip, an Italian (Paulo) who was traveling for one week whilst his wife and child stayed at home and an engaged couple from the Netherlands who were here on a three week holiday (spending as much in 3 weeks, as we have in 3 months).

The food on the trip was amazing! We had our own cook, Isaac, who kept even Jason full (although it only took the group one day to start teasing Jason about how much he eats!!) We ate better on this trip, than we have at any other point in Africa.

The parks were all very different. The scenery in Lake Manyara was beautiful and we saw large numbers of animals all together. Beautiful and green, lush forests with lots of little creeks running through it. Serengeti was amazingly empty, which surprised us. The sheer expanse of grassy plains as far as the eye can see, broken by the occasional acacia tree. The highlight of the serengeti was definitely the leopard that walked so close to the car that we could touch it (don't worry, we didn't). It was amazingly graceful and beautiful... the photos just don't do it justice. We also saw a three cheetahs, the first we saw was a mother with 4 cubs, who were playing, jumping and leaping. At one point they decided to have a little run, and boy do they turn into blurs!! Lastly we went to Ngorongoro crater, where we completed the big 5 by seeing a rhino. We also came across a pride of lions (2 females and 5 cubs) sitting in the middle of the road. Unfortunately the driver was not happy to sit and wait with them (which we wanted to do), as when we came back 30 minutes later they had killed a warthog and were happily munching away. Well, the cubs were eating anyway, with much snarling and growling as they fought over the best bits.

We enjoyed the safari so much, we are now debating whether to go to the Masai Mara as well in the hope of seeing the migration. Ah, decisions, decisions.

To the land of touts

We had had many warnings about Arusha and the persistent touts trying to sell you safaris. We were thus prepared with our response of "Already booked and paid with Shidolya Tours". As we disembarked the bus we were immediately approached with offers of tours and accommodation, so we quickly adjusted our response to include already booked and paid for accommodation too. Walking quickly we found our hotel and decided to give it a go for the night. It was however rather overpriced at 20,000tsh for a dodgy foam mattress, shared squat toilet that was rather smelly by the next morning and a shared shower, so we decided to check out a few others and moved two doors down to a room with proper mattress, private western bathroom and tv for 25,000tsh.... the main difference being the first place was in the guidebook, the second place isn't, so prices are more reasonable.

Surprisingly on our day looking for safaris in Arusha we were not approached by a single tout. Very strange!! Maybe word had got around that we were taken. Booking was very easy, as we had been recommended a tour company by a couple of other travellers and knew the right price and what that included. So we were all organised by 10am and proceeded to head to the Rwanda tribunal.

We were both very interested to go to the tribunal as we will be heading to Rwanda in a few weeks. This is the United Nations tribunal for the 1994 Rwandan genocide which was established in 1995 and you are able to go and watch proceedings. Witnesses are naturally protected, so you can't see them but it was still interesting to see how the hearing works. Very slowly is one way to put it (not surprising as it's been going for 13 years!! There was 15 minutes discussion on when to take a 15 minute break at one point. It took awhile for us to figure out what was going on - we were listening to the defense interrogate a witness. We hope to go back once we've done our safari and hear some more.

Getting back on the horse again.

Or in reality, the bus. After our hellish experience in Ethiopia we were both dreading the bus trip from Dar Es Salaam to Arusha... so much so we did actually vaguely consider flying. But, at some point we would have to return to buses so we thought sooner was better than later. So, we both drugged up on travel sickness tablets and prepared for another 9 hours of hell....

Fortunately, Tanzanian buses are a world away from Ethiopian buses. There were only four seats across.. .and they were actual seats rather than a bench. Plus, there was enough leg room that our knees were still attached at the end of the journey. Then the road, ah the marvelous tarmac road!!! So, we enjoyed the view, actually ate something at the lunch stop (we never managed to eat on Ethiopian buses), and used the toilets at all the stops without gagging. In Ethiopia there was one stop a day and the toilets were vastly inferior to squatting in the bush as people tended to use the floor whilst they were waiting and none of them flushed. In contrast we had 3 stops on the 9 hour journey and all toilets worked, had toilet paper and soap to wash your hands!!!! We were also incredibly lucky to have a perfectly clear view of Mt Kilimanjaro on the way past (usually being so high it is obscured by clouds), which was quite stunning and reinforced the fact that we have no desire to climb it.

Paradise in Africa

We had an absolutely amazing relaxing time on Zanzibar, and ended up spending nearly twice as long as planned. We spent a week at the beach where the most strenuous thing we did was an all day snorkeling trip. The snorkeling was fabulous, with some very interesting fish. Then we sailed back on the dhow to our beach resort, ah...heaven.

After a week we decided to head back to Stonetown to explore a little bit. The main thing here was a spice tour. The spice farms were not at all what we expected, seeming more like how you would grow plants in your backyard. The vanilla (which is a vine)was grown using acacia trees, or whatever else was around. Cardamon grew in the shade of clove trees. We tried all sorts of fresh herbs: ginger, clove, pepper, cinnamon, cardamon etc. Also fruits, where my favourite was undeniably the cocoa!!! The flesh is white and surrounds the beans, you don't chew only suck (this was said very firmly) and the taste was very like mangosteens. We now have lots of photos of us eating cocoa fruit.

On a more serious note we were taken to the slave cave where hundreds and thousands of slaves were held after slavery became illegal. They were dumped down into the cave to await a boat, when it arrived they were taken through a tunnel to the beach for boarding to be shipped around the world.