Nearing the End of our Ugandan Adventure :-(

It's now less than four weeks until we fly back to Heathrow - Volcanoes and BA strikes permitting. I'm feeling a mixture of excitement and sadness at leaving this wonderful country.

Work-wise, there's not much left for me to do here - all the teaching finished last week, and the students have sat my 'Solid Dosage Forms' exam...believe me, that subject is even duller than it sounds! I've even finished all my marking, as I wanted to make sure I had everything organised well before we left. So I've got a fair bit of time to reminisce about the 15 and a half months we've spent in Uganda.


Here are some of my thoughts....

Things I'll Miss About Uganda

1. The fantastic people we've had the chance to get to know since we've been here

• Especially our colleagues, the students, the other VSO volunteers in our area, our friends from the compound we live on, Gertrude our cleaning lady, Peter the taxi-man (who always cheers me up with his insane banter) and so many others

2. The wonderful climate

• Who can complain about having warm sunny weather all year round?!

3. The amazing fruit

• Pineapples never tasted so good

4. The stars

• The complete lack of street lights mean you see thousands of stars in the sky at night

5. The rain!

• I will miss the way the rain just starts like someone has turned on a huge power-shower in the sky
• I'll also miss people not bothering to go to work, lectures etc when it rains!

6. The stunning wildlife

• It’s an amazing feeling to wake up in the morning when you’re on holiday and see hippos and elephants right outside your room

7. Swimming in lakes without getting hypothermia

• Lake Bunyonyi has to be one of our favourite places in the world

8. Rolexes (not of the watch type!)

• For those of you who have not been introduced to the humble rolex, it is an omelette rolled up in a chapatti, and is very tasty indeed

9. Cheap beer and muchomo (Jason told me to put this one!)

• We really enjoy going to Peers Bar after a hard (!) day at work and having a few cold beers (for about 60p each) and barbecued goat or pork (or omelette for me)

10. Not having to commute in slow traffic to get to work

• As we live just across the road from the university, it only takes us a couple of minutes to get to work in the morning - no excuse for being late then....

11. The very relaxed pace of life

• We've both been significantly less stressed since we've been in Uganda - everything is so relaxed it's almost horizontal...

12. Boda-bodas

• Also known as motorbike taxis
• Probably the quickest, easiest and cheapest form of transport, and great fun (unless you fall off like Jason did once...)

13. The amount of free time we seem to have

• Possibly due to the fact that we have no TV!

Things I won't miss about Uganda

1. Being shouted at every time we walk down the street

• While the word ‘Muzungu!’ is not offensive, it does get a little bit tiring when you hear it day after day, wherever you go

2. Nearly getting run over every time we cross the road

• Especially on the zebra crossing outside the university

3. The insects

• Nasty little cockroaches…

4. The power cuts

• Very inconvenient, especially as we can’t heat water for showers (leading to a grumpy Anna)

5. The terrible roads and complete lack of pavements

6. The long, drawn-out meetings

• People arrive at least 30 minutes late, then you have to have an opening prayer before scrutinising the minutes for punctuation errors etc., then the long meeting begins where everyone feels they have to say something (no matter how irrelevant it is)
• Example: The curriculum review meeting where a doctor stood up and proceeded to tell the Nursing Department that all their students were old and miserable…..I wanted to punch him!

7. The rigmarole of ‘pasteurising’ the milk we buy

• Pasteurised milk not available here, and the UHT is expensive and vile, so we buy fresh milk in town
• When we get home, we have to sieve it (to remove cow hairs), boil it (to make it safe), leave it to cool, sieve it again to get rid of the skin, then finally pour it into a bottle and stick it in the fridge (about 4 hours later)

8. Ordering food in a restaurant and having to wait hours for it

• And the waiter may tell you after an hour that what you wanted is ‘finished’, so you have to re-order and wait another two hours….

9. Going shopping in town, and feeling completely uninspired by the choice of stuff to buy

• So, dinner’s going to be another variation on a theme of onions, green peppers, tomatoes with pasta/rice/potatoes then?!

10. Hand washing clothes

• Well, we have someone to wash most of our clothes for us, but they end up stretched out of shape, faded and holey

11. The lack of decent chocolate

• The chemicals they put in Cadbury’s to stop it melting in hot countries really makes it taste horrible

12. The trauma of travelling to places by public transport

• Overcrowded, smelly buses that go far too fast on really bumpy roads

13. Our horrendously uncomfortable sofa and armchairs

• Numb bums!

I've just realised that I have put far too much in the ‘Things I won’t miss’ list – as you can see, most of them are just petty little things (compared to the huge fantastic things on the first list), and we really will miss this lovely country.

Fantastic Pharmacy Students!

One of the Second Year Pharmacy students came to see me this week, to tell me that the students were arranging a farewell tea party for Jason and I - I have to say I was very touched. Sometimes it's easy to think you haven't achieved much in your time as a volunteer, but when the students show they appreciate what you've done, it makes it all worthwhile.

It's never an easy decision to move to a completely different country and work there, especially when the information you've had about the job is quite vague, and you don't really know what to expect. You arrive at your new place of work and are shown your office in the department, your colleagues are lovely but aren't always around, as they have to supplement their incomes with other jobs - at first I found it quite lonely, as I was used to being really busy all the time as a pharmacist in Liverpool and interacting with customers and other staff members.

When I began to teach, I realised that the students here are absolutely FANTASTIC - they have made these past 15 months so memorable for me. I was assigned the task of teaching Pharmaceutical Technology to the students (i.e. how tablets etc are made) - and I was terrified, as I hadn't looked at any of that stuff since I was at university myself (where, if I'm being totally honest, I didn't particularly enjoy the subject anyway). However, I understood how important it was to teach the students to the best of my ability - I have spent so many hours making notes from textbooks, finding things out on the internet, and preparing lecture notes. Practical sessions have been more or less impossible, as we have neither the laboratory facilities nor the equipment to conduct pharm tech practicals. I have felt sorry for the students at times, as it is quite a dry and boring subject, and I have enormous respect for the ability they have to learn and understand theory without seeing any of it in action. They are all super-intelligent students, who will make brilliant pharmacists, and I am proud of all of them.

At the start of the tea party, some of the students did speeches to thank Jason and I for our efforts in the pharmacy department. Although Jason is in the Institute of Computer Science, he has helped my department by facilitating a presentation skills workshop, rolling out the Learning Management System for pharmacy students, and many other things.  The speeches were moving, and often humorous - one student recounted the day he got thrown out of a lecture by me for being 25 minutes late (fair enough, if you ask me!).  I had a tear in my eye during most of the speeches, as it suddenly dawned on me that we're going home in 6 weeks, and I will really miss Uganda, especially the pharmacy students at MUST.

We got presented with certificates from the Pharmacy Students Association and the Medical Students Association, to recognise our efforts - they'd even been signed by the Dean of Medicine. Then the students presented me with a plaque to display on my wall - you can see it in the picture below:

The wall-plaque the students presented to me

After the 'official' bit of the party (you have to remember that most Ugandan functions are extremely formal), it was time for tea, chapattis, and bananas, followed by group photos:

All the Fantastic Pharmacy Students

The Third Year BPharm Group

My Tutor Group - Second Year BPharm

The Second Year Girls

The Second Year Boys

A few of the Fourth Year BPharm Students

I still can't believe how much effort these students went to to organise a party for us; we really enjoyed it and I will miss them all.

How to NOT chop down trees...

Many people believe that our lives in Mbarara are simple and uneventful. Thankfully we have a number of people in the locality who sympathise and strive to provide us with entertainment.

Today it was the turn of our friendly lumberjacks, who decided to chop down all of the big trees in the compound. Indeed this is a complex task, there are a lot of houses, telephone lines and power cables.

This of course did not worry our intrepid lumberjacks who thought that ransacking the compound was a great days work. Other people in the compound found the events so interesting they neglected work, made a cuppa and proceeded to watch the man with his chainsaw and rope, climb trees, hack at them from above and saw them until collapse in a "controlled" manner. This meant that the power lines at one end of the compound were felled, plus the phone lines and finally one tree fell on top of the security guards hut. Thankfully the hut (with Ascari inside), survived the impact...

Arriving home at lunch time, I had to climb over the newly created assault course (even though maybe the place should have been cordoned). Following lunch I took up my grandstand seat in my office as I knew it was soon time for the big trees near the guest houses.

As can be seen from the picture below, we had an electricity pole outside our flat, which passes by the guest houses:

Now felling trees in close proximity to power cables in dangerous, and most of the time you would expect whoever is felling them to maybe take the cables down. Indeed this did happen and fast as two trees took out three electricity poles and also nearly smashed the guest houses into tiny pieces too.

Tree and cables after the felling

Our electricity pole

The event was very entertaining to watch, although I did stop laughing when I realised we could be without power for days on end!!! I was also concerned for Anna's safety as she was at home and they were felling trees near the flats. Thankfully they missed but from the photo below you can see why we were a little worried...

Thankfully we only suffered two days power loss but and we were entertained for a few hours by these calamities....

Easter Weekend in Rwanda

We'd been wondering what to do over the long Easter weekend, as there is never much happening in Mbarara, and we eventually decided to make the trip to Kigali in Rwanda.

It turned out to be a much more pleasant journey than the one to Kampala; The bus, which was air-conditioned and had comfy seats, picked us up outside our house and we travelled in relative luxury for 4 hours to Kigali (the trip to Kampala takes about 5 hours, and is always a bit traumatic!). The owner of the hotel we'd arranged to stay at picked us up at the bus park, and drove us to 'Hills View Guesthouse'.

Some of the things that amazed me at first in Kigali were:

1. 
   
   Nearly all the roads were tarmacked
2. 
   
   There were proper pavements (i.e. not just mud at the side of the road)
3. 
   
   There were traffic lights (which people obeyed)
4. 
   
   There seemed to be a sense of order about the place (which I am no longer used to after the chaos of Uganda!)

The guesthouse was on the outskirts of the city, on the top of a hill. It was pretty near the airport, but we didn't get disturbed by the noise of planes. There were lovely views of the surrounding area.

View from our Hotel

We relaxed for a few hours, then set off to explore Kigali. It's a pretty small city really, and it was raining, so we sought refuge in a lovely coffee shop. It was so nice to have some decent coffee!!! We've never really understood the reason why, even though Uganda produces amazing coffee, there are no decent coffee shops in Mbarara (the best you get is instant Nescafe). 

Kigali is a lovely city, very clean and well-organised. Our taxi driver, Joseph, told us that the government brought in a law where one member of each household has to go out and clean their local area one Sunday every month. Apparently there are big fines if people don't turn up (and laws are actually enforced in Rwanda). Seems like a really good idea to me, maybe I should mention it to the powers-that-be in Uganda...

Kigali seems a lot more well-kept than Mbarara!

We didn't do much on Friday, as it rained and rained all day. We walked down to the local shops from the guesthouse, and got caught in a huge downpour. We were forced to shelter under a tree with some local women and a goat-herder who couldn't have been more than nine years old.

Saturday's weather was a bit more promising, so we headed into town on a Moto (Rwandan boda-boda), which was a nice experience - they actually provide you with a helmet! We decided to visit the Genocide Memorial Centre, which was a moving experience. Walking around Kigali it's hard to imagine that, only 16 years ago, more than a million people were killed in 100 days. By the end of the genocide, 85% of the Tutsi population were dead. To quote from the website http://www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/

In 100 days, more than 1,000,000 people were murdered.

But the genocidaires did not kill a million people.

They killed one, then another, then another......

Day after day, hour after hour, minute by minute.

Every minute of the day, someone, somewhere was being murdered,

Screaming for mercy.

And receving none.

View of the City from the Genocide Memorial Centre

The centre contains three exhibitions: the genocide in 1994, a children's memorial, and the history of genocidal violence around the world. It was very interesting, but harrowing at the same time. I still wonder how a country can ever recover from something like that; nearly everyone we met in Rwanda had been affected by the events of 1994. The centre also has memorial gardens, containing the mass graves of over 250,000 victims of the genocide. When we visited, Rwanda was about to start its period of national mourning for the genocide, so there were many Rwandans visiting the gardens to pay their respects. We didn't want them to feel that we were intruding on their grief, so we didn't stay for very long. Something that will haunt me for a very long time is the sound of a Rwandan woman in the memorial gardens screaming and wailing uncontrollably.

On Easter Sunday, we decided to visit a town called Gisenyi on the shores of Lake Kivu. We took an express bus, which was very comfortable, and were there in about 3 hours. Gisenyi is walking distance from Goma, in Democratic Republice of Congo, and we considered going there just to get stamps in our passports but didn't think it was worth paying the price of a visa.  Gisenyi is a beautiful town, and seemed a world away from the rest of Africa - it actually reminded us of being at Lake Como in Italy.

Lake Kivu

 Fancy a Swim?!

Is this really Africa?!

It soon became very clear to us that there is a lot of money in this part of Rwanda - some of the villas by the lake were truly spectacular.

Amazing Lakeside Villa

After a nice lunch and a walk alongside the lake it was time to get the bus back to Kigali. We weren't so lucky this time as there was a toddler sitting near us on the bus who was vomiting for more or less the whole journey...

We were really glad that we made the trip to Rwanda - who knows when we'll get the chance again. We would definitely love to go back some time in the future, maybe to see the gorillas in the Virunga Mountains -the journey would definitely be smoother than going to Bwindi in Uganda!

Mbarara Rally 2010 - Boma Grounds

Uganda has its own Rally series and local drivers (who typically fund themselves) take part in a number of rounds around the country.

Each year Mbarara stages a rally, usually however the cars go to outlying villages and pit themselves against each other there. This year was no different and they even added a night stage. Without transport we couldnt get to see these stages but thankfully for the first time ever they did a stage around the Boma Show Grounds which make up the golf course and its local area.

The turnout was immense and the driving very good indeed. It was suprising to see some very new cars too including that latest Imprezas and Evo's.

Everybody was in their element and although the local hero (a mechanic) broke down all of the drivers got loads of cheers and it was as well organised as any motor racing I have seen in blighty.

Unfortunately there were no spectacular crashes but as there were a lot of spectors to be fair it was probably for the best. As usual things were running very late and the special stage began at 4pm when it was supposed to begin at 1pm. We of course had tried to get in at 1 but as there were no cars we went for lunch and luckily bumped into a Boda driver who knows more about what is going on in the town than anybody else important. So he thankfully advised us to go at four and hey presto it started on time.

Graduation 2010 & ICS and Pharmacy Dinners

Graduation 2010

Although it has been a very long time since we posted on the Blog, it is not because we have actually been slacking! It is because we have been enjoying ourselves and also getting ourselves too sun burnt to actually appear in pictures!

A very long time ago, back in January we had the privilege to attend the 2010 MUST Graduation. Having a big mouth I volunteered to help with taking pictures and videos of the event.

The Graduation Grounds - Before people started to arrive en-mass

It was a gloriously hot day and Mbarara was awash with Graduands. The event began with the Academic procession, which I thankfully avoided being official "press" and Anna had to suffer a 20 minute delay in the searing heat!

Anna waiting for the procession to start

The Chancellor & Vice Chancellor

Following the procession, the Vice Chancellor welcomed all of the guests and gave an outstanding speech which although long was actually not bad at all. Other speeches followed and the Graduation began.

The Vice Chancellor giving his speech

Unlike in the UK, the students names are read out as a class and they graduate together in one go with the blessing from the VC.

Pharmacy students Graduating

The event was of course quite long and me being stupid I did not put sun tan lotion on! This therefore meant that for the next week I was the colour of beetroot and was peeling all over the place... whoops.

More pics of the graduation can be found here:

http://www.must.ac.ug/gallery_view.php?gallery_id=17

The Pharmacy Dinner

Anna and I had argued before the event whether the Pharmacy dinner would be more boring than the ICS dinner. Lets be fair we should have chosen careers in subjects much more interesting shouldnt we?

As usual it was a black tie event at Lake View hotel. The problem was my suit is no longer well a suit as the trousers went awol (for example in the pictures of us at the film premier people with a keen eye will see the disparity in the colours of the jacket and trousers). Anna definately didnt have a posh frock, so we decided to get stuff made.

I had bespoke suit created and Anna a dress and top. Now for 150,000 Uganda Shillings (£50) I suppose you can expect much can you? Well yes you can, top quality material, fully fitted, a cool lining and the only problem being that the tailors could not understand that I wanted trousers that didnt go up to my armpits!

On trying on the suit, I did look like I was attempting to be an R&B star with the trouser crotch nearly dragging on the floor... The tailor pulled up the trousers to where he believed my waist is and hey presto super comfy grandad trousers!! They look fine with the jacket but you cant remove it!!!! I am returning to get a pair of trousers in the style I desire and just so that they dont get confused shall be taking a pair of my own trousers they can model the new ones from!

Annas new outfit was modelled loosely on her bridesmaid dresses (well the colour was the same), and managed to get it made in record timing! Although my suit is a little large it is definately value for money and the best suit I have ever purchased!

Anyway, the Dinner...

It was a very enjoyable occasion with speeches an auction and weirdly poetry.

Students at their tables

Two events during the dinner stood out, the first being a poetry rendition from one of the students. The content was of course Pharmacy which yes is a very dry subject but thankfully the student entertained by pretending he was auditioning for one of those horrendous stage schools in England.

This of course meant he proceeded to do exagerated actions, crawl around on the floor and generally do insane things. We were not sure whether the students thought it was a funny as myself and Anna.

Anna enjoying her chicken wing

The other event which was interesting / confusing was the auction. As we have mentioned previously there seems to be a habit of not choosing the highest bidder. Instead it seems as if you big an ammout and even pay it, the next person must outbid you, but somehow there is a remainder and another person must bid to knock out the remainder and so on. In the end somehow it then changes to a bid between two people and others add money on their behalf. Suffice to say I am still confused but somehow myself and Anna won some bed sheets... Of course we donated them the next day to one of the students and still dont even understand how we won.

The cutting of the cake, a tradition during formal dinners

All in all we had a good time and indeed Pharmacy students can be a little be geeky but I think they did a very good job.

The ICS Dinner

Now ICS is much bigger than Pharmacy so instead of having the dinner is a conference room, the organisers decided to have it pool side. I think they did a great job as it was very nice indeed. Of course in the UK this would not have been allowed as Health and Safety would have stopped the pool side fun!

Pre-dinner drinks

Now there is of course a reputation for things starting late here so we did the usual trick of looking at what time the students were supposed to arrive and adding an hour on for ourselves. Unfortunately I think most of the students added at least an extra two hours on for themselves so we had ample time to have drinks before people started to arrive. Therefore instead of starting at the alloted time of 7.30 we began around 9.30.

Our table poolside

The pool side even with float tea lights

By starting so late, we had taken a few more beers than expected and then sitting down to dinner, there being no alchohol we proceeded to doze a little. Lasto my colleague actually slept through the speeches which eventually began after dinner at 11.30pm.

All went well however, we had another mad auction and thankfully we didnt win this time although the item was mobile phone from Orange so much better than bed sheets!

The guest speaker from Orange was also very good indeed although his speech was wasted on many people as they we fast asleep due to the time. Unfortunately he was the last person to speak and the gentleman before him, supposedly an events co-ordinator and prospective politician had a great ability to lull people to sleep.

A very good evening, if a little late running, so sadly we decided to go home instead of staying for the after party.

First Wedding Anniversary: Lake Bunyonyi (5th - 7th February 2010)

We spent a couple of days at Lake Bunyonyi to celebrate our first wedding anniversary last month - can't believe it's been a year since we were celebrating with all that snow outside. We stayed on Byoona Amagara island, so had to get a boat over. Peter, our taxi driver insisted on coming in the boat with us, but he was terrified because he can't swim.

We'd booked to stay in one of the Geodomes on the island, which are really unusual - it felt a bit like being in an upside down wicker basket! The dome is completely open at the front, and you get an amazing view of the lake from your bed.    

                                    

Our Geodome

Fantastic View of the Lake from our Private Terrace at the Geodome

We always enjoy going to Lake Bunyonyi, it's very tranquil there - the perfect place to relax. It's really nice to be able swim in the lake as, unlike most other Ugandan lakes, it is free of Bilharzia (some nasty disease you wouldn't want to catch!).

There's nothing better than watching the sun go down over the lake after a hard day of relaxation, and drinking a nice cold bottle of Ugandan beer (Club for me, and Nile Special for Jason).

Beautiful Sunset and Wonderful Beer!

Travels with Chris and Pete: 27th December 2009 - 8th January 2010

Our friends Peter and Christine came out to see us on the day my parents left, and we started another little tour of Uganda with them. They arrived pretty late in the evening, so didn’t get to see any of Uganda until the following morning, when it was absolutely bucketing down with rain.

.

Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe, in the rain!

The first stop on our trip was a town called Jinja, which is where the source of the Nile is. We stayed at a lovely place called Nile Porch, and had tents with a fantastic view of the river. It was great to relax on the veranda (complete with hammock!) and watch the sun set over the Nile.

We went down to the source of the Nile, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was nothing like I had imagined! We went on a short boat trip which was pretty nice although the guide didn’t speak much English (it was just as well that we had taken our driver Herbert along with us!).

We discussed going white-water rafting the next day, but Chris and I didn’t really fancy it, so we decided to go on a quad-bike ride around Jinja instead. It was fantastic, as we drove around the local villages, by fields, and eventually down to Bujagali Falls (which is probably not as impressive as it was before they built the dam). All the kids we drove past were so excited to see us, jumping up and down and waving. I think the adults we drove past in the villages thought we were a bit mad, especially me and Chris, and just seemed to be laughing at us – but it was all great fun.

View from our accommodation at Nile Porch

Sunset over the Nile

Quad Biking!

Bujagali Falls

After Jinja we had to go through Kampala to change vehicles, as we needed a big 4x4 rather than the Green Machine, and then we started the long long journey up to Murchison Falls, which took about 8 or 9 hours.

We were staying at a place called Sambiya River Lodge, which is over the other side of the river to where you do game drives, so we had a very early (5:30 am) start the next morning. We had to get a car ferry over the river, and then we began our first proper safari with Pete and Chris.

Ferry across the River

Murchison Falls is a HUGE national park, with an area or 1,340 sq miles (3,480 sq km), and during the course of our morning game drive we covered over 150 km. The landscape is completely different to Queen Elizabeth National Park - more like proper savanna, and you could see for miles. Murchison Falls is the only place in Uganda where you can see giraffes, and we were lucky enough to see quite a few of them. It was amazing to see them, and they do look quite strange with such long necks! We paid for a UWA ranger, called George, to come on the drive with us, as the park is so big and he has more of an idea of where to find the animals. We'd all been hoping we would see some lions, and we weren't disappointed. - we found two lionesses sitting in the grass relaxing: they looked so cute that you couldn't imagine them being heartless predators.

Amazing view of the Savanna (courtesy of Pete)

The Lionesses

Giraffe

The following day, we went on a boat trip along the river, and up to the Falls. We saw lots of hippos, elephants and massive crocodiles. We had booked a guide to take us on a walk up to the top of the falls, which was a brilliant idea. The falls don't look that impressive from the boat, as you can't get very close, but when you walk up to the top, you can appreciate just how amazing they are. I didn't realise there were actually two waterfalls (Murchison Falls and Freedom Falls) - we would never have seen Freedom Falls if we hadn't done the walk.

Huge Crocodile

Baboon and its Baby

Murchison Falls

Tired but Happy after our walk

View of the Falls from the Boat

After our stay in Murchison Falls, we moved on and went to Fort Portal. We stayed in a place called the Rwenzori View Guesthouse, not far from the town, run by a Dutch-English couple. The accommodation was great value for money, and the food was excellent. Fort Portal is in an area full of crater lakes, and Herbert suggested we have a trip to lake Nkuruba, which is apparently Bilharzia-free (meaning you can swim in it without getting some horrendous diease!). We stopped of at a place on the way, known as the 'Top of The World' which has 360 degree views of the area - pretty breathtaking.

Lake Nkuruba was beautiful and has lots of Colobus monkeys in the trees surrounding it. We had a swim, then went to the restaurant to introduce Chris and Pete to local Ugandan cuisine. We had posho (made from maize flour), matooke (steamed green bananas), irish potatoes (ordinary potatoes), chapattis, beans, beef stew, guacamole - we were so full afterwards! The place is run as a community project, and we were treated to a show by a local dance troupe, which was really impressive. The funny thing was that the girls were all dressed in traditional clothing, except for a Liverpool Football Club scarf tied aroud their waists!

View from the Top of the World

One of the Crater Lakes

The Dance Group at Lake Nkuruba

We drove from Fort Portal to Queen Elizabeth National Park. We had decided to stay at a new place called Bush Lodge, just outside the park, but overlooking the Kazinga Channel. Most of the accommodation in the national parks is ridiculously expensive, but Bush Lodge is very reasonable. You have a luxury furnished tent with a toilet inside, and a funky outside shower area. You really feel as if you are in the bush, especially as the hippos and warthogs keep you awake all night being noisy.

Our Tent at Bush Lodge

The Showers

We went on an early morning game drive, which wasn't that exciting - maybe we'd been too spoilt in Murchison Falls. We also went on the boat trip on the Kazinga Channel (which we did with my parents), and it was just as good the second time around. On our way back to Bush lodge, we saw a rather excited (!) bull elephant crossing the road.

We drove through a fishing village, and were surprised to see an elephant there.  Apparently her name is Maria, and she's a wild elephant - she just doesn't like hanging around with a herd.  She wanders between the fishing villages, and gets nice treats like bananas (and coca-cola) given to her by the villagers. It was a strange thing to see - a semi-tame wild elephant - but nobody is forcing her to live like that, it's her own choice. All the villagers seemed genuinely happy and excited that she was there, and nobody was exploiting her, which is good I suppose.

Maria, the Wandering Elephant

We had booked to do chimpanzee tracking in Kyambura Gorge on our last day in Queen Elizabeth Park. It's a spectacular landscape, and we were lucky to see chimps within two minutes of starting our walk. Unfortunately, we didn't get any decent pictures, but we spent about an hour watching them. The chimps here seemed more badly behaved than the ones in Kibale Forest, as they were throwing things at us from the trees! We then went for a walk through the gorge, although our guide was the most unenthusiastic UWA ranger we'd ever met, so it wasn't perhaps as good an experience as it could have been.

Kyambura Gorge

After the tracking, we made our way back to Mbarara, where we spent a couple of days before Chris and Pete headed back to Liverpool. We were really sad to see them go, as we'd had such a wonderful time travelling around the country with them, and would miss their company.

Peter, Jason, Herbert, Christine and Anna with the 'Herb-Mobile'