Uganda

After a couple of months where the travel has been in some respects
quite hard, Uganda was an absolute breath of fresh air.

We had managed to secure an overnight bus from Kenya, which was
spacious and not at all dusty which was an absolute luxury for us! We
had expected the journey to take 12 hours and that we would arrive in
Kampala at about 9am. So needless to say we were a little confused
when the bus pulled up in a carpark in the dark and everyone got off.
We had to ask about three people before I was satisfied that yes we
were in Kampala and yes it had taken three hours less than we had
expected.

Our first mission in Uganda was to find a tent. As far as we can work
out from here on in we will have a lot more options to camp (which we
hope will also help us save a little on accommodation). The poor guys
in the tent shop however must've been very confused as we hopped into
various sized tents, with our bags... and then even more so as we
asked if we could try to see which of the tents would actually fit
into our backpacks!

We have ended up with a good sized tent which has plenty of room for
both of us and our bags. The only down side is as it is a South
African design it has plenty of air vents for when it is warm. Might
not be so great using it for the slightly damp camping conditions in
Godzone.

We tested the tent at the backpacker haunt of Red Chilli Hideaway in
Kampala for a few days while we explored the city and used the camp as
a base for seeing other parts of the country.

In particular we visited Jinja where the Nile pours out of Lake
Victoria, and finishing our trace of the Nile through four countries.
Unlike our sedate Nile cruises we had had further downstream, this
time we were doing whitewater, and it was remarkably cool. We
managed a good balance between tipping out as we came through the
rapids adn holding on and just getting totally soaked. At one point
we got stuck at the top of a waterfall and once we were unstuck came
down the waterfall backwards. I'm sure that wasn't really part of the
plan, but we made it down and didn't tip out!

We then headed west to Lake Bunyonyi. The setting was beautiful.
Green green hills terraced cutting away to this deep blue lake that
weaves out under the hills. We had a prime camping spot on a raised
bank next to the lake. From our tent we could see the lake and in the
morning we woke up to the sound of the local men punting about in
their dugout canoes. Most of them singing.

It was a really great place to rest for a few days and we enjoyed the
company of other overlanders (in a 10 tonne truck, a landcruiser and a
couple on a 125cc Africa Single (all the way from the UK!)
respectively) and passed the evenings with beers, bbqs and tales from
the road.

We had planned to spend a few more days on the lake, but when there
was the opportunity to have a lift all the way to Kigali in Rwanda it
was an easy decision to move on a day or two early.

Now that we are in Kigali I am very grateful that we have the extra
time on this side of the border... but that's another story.