Plans for 2011

We are off to Cornwall very soon for a trip with Spike and Chewy and a couple of friends of ours and their dog. We haven't been to Cornwall for a very long time, so we are looking forward to going back. We will hopefully fit in a trip down to Lands End while we are there.

We still have plans for an overseas trip as well this year, most likely in October. Still no concrete plans on the destination, we're going to leave it fairly last minute and see if we get a good deal.

We will be going to two Christenings this year and there will be visits to both our families.

Steph has nearly got round to transferring her APS films of Malaysia and Thailand onto disc, so those trips and photos will hopefully be appearing on the blog soon.

We'll be back soon with our trip report on Cornwall.

Good Bye Africa

We have now come to the end of our trip to Uganda. In Kampala we stayed at Le Petit Village hotel. It was a lovely little bit of luxury after our trip, we intended to use the pool but never got round to it. The room was lovely and the hotels restaurant was very good. We met a friendly Texan, who told us about the hotels he had in a couple of countries.

Kampala is a very busy city and there is so much to look at. Newcastle United were playing Sunderland, so we left the hotel to find a bar that was playing the game. We found a little one with a few locals in it who were all pleased to watch the game. They all became fans of Newcastle to support Andy. Luckily Newcastle won, so there was lots of cheering. We bought a round of drinks for our new friends to celebrate the win.

Our trip through the airport was hassle free, we were searched outside the airport and inside, but no difficulties. This is when we saw all the Americans with their huge drums, so we had absolutely no worries about ours. The wait for boarding seemed so long and it was very humid and stuffy. We were relieved when we could finally board. A very lucky passenger near us on the plane was upgraded to first class because he knew one of the cabin crew.

We had a great trip to Uganda and it was a very good choice for our introduction to Africa. We would definitely recommend a trip to Uganda. Very friendly people, great professional service from African Jungles Safaris, amazing animals and an all round enjoyable trip.

We stayed at Le Petit Village, $170 for a double suite

You Learn Something New Everyday

Our next stop on our tour of Kampala was the Bahai Temple. The Bahai faith was a new one to us, we hadn't heard of it before. The temple was high on a hill overlooking the city surrounded by very neat and peaceful gardens. We were introduced to some followers who explained their faith to us. From what we understood, the Bahai faith is about understanding others and their faiths. There is no preacher and every Sunday, the congregation take it in turns to read from the different and numerous Holy books of the world. The temple itself was very calming and peaceful, no talking or photos allowed inside.

We did feel the peace of the place and it was very welcoming. The faith itself did come across as trying to understand others, which we agreed was a good thing and maybe the world needs a lot more of that.

After the pleasant visit to the temple, our next stop was the Kings Palace, well one of them, more his summer home for parties!

We weren't allowed inside, but were allowed to explore the grounds. A member of the palace staff showed us around and told us the history of the place and some facts about the Ugandan Royal family. Steph had to put a sarong around her trousers because any female on the Kings property can automatically be taken as his wife and the Queen never wears trousers! It doesn't matter if you're already married either! From the hill the palace is on we could see a Mosque that was funded by Gadaffi and a huge man-made lake, created by 200 men in 2 weeks!

Around the grounds were lots of car parts. Turns out the parts belonged to many classic cars including Bentleys and Rolls Royce which were destroyed in an uprising in the 1950's.

We were taken to a tunnel built into the ground. Turns out it was Idi Amin's torture chamber which was originally built as a gun store. The place used to be fully electrified when it was the torture chamber. A layer of water below the cells was also electrified. They are not sure how many people died, but it was a lot. They think some of the bodies might be at the bottom of the man-made lake. It was a very sad place and horrifying to hear the stories.

We bought a traditional picture off a local artist at the palace and were then showed around a small photo gallery of the Royal family. All in all, it was a very interesting little visit.

We finished off our day with a pizza for lunch and then returned to our hotel.

Old Stuff!

Kampala's tallest building

Our first stop on our tour of Kampala was the museum. Although it was on the small side, it was still packed full of interesting items. We saw traditional clothes, houses and instruments through the ages and the different headgear worn by the numerous different tribes of Uganda. We learnt how the British came to Uganda and the impact they made, the museum housed the first car in Uganda, brought in by the British.

We learnt of a Queen who haunts a tree and that women visit the tree to help with their fertility. During our tour we met a group of school children who all wanted a high five! Approximately 30 high fives each later, we returned to our vehicle, next stop was a touch of shopping at a local craft centre.

There were so many little shops to look at. We had a list of presents to buy for family back home as well as one or two gifts for ourselves. We came across a group of local artists and chose a few paintings from them. We also bought for ourselves a pair of wooden elephant bookends.

We saw the tallest building in Kampala, which wasn't really very tall, but that is really kind of nice. What we noticed the most was the birds. They were huge and quite surreal, as back home we'd only see those kinds of birds in a zoo.

Good Bye Gorillas

Our hour was up and it was time to say good bye and embark on our 3 hour trek back. Being down hill most of the way, it was much easier, except for a few slips here and there! The rain had continued to stay away so it was nice and dry as well. Out of the forest and down through the tea plantations we came across a local who had carved gorillas out of wood. Andy had already reached this man before Steph and had picked out a very good carving, we bought it to add to our mementos of this incredible experience.

Finally back at the vehicles we said our good byes to the amazing porters and rangers. Inside the van the rain finally came and we were pleased with our good luck. Back at the Wildlife Authority headquarters we were awarded with a certificate of our experience.

At the lodge we excitedly discussed our different experiences with the other tourists who had trekked other gorilla groups. They were all quite shocked with the 7 hour trek we had just completed, but we were very proud of ourselves for completing it as it added to the whole experience for us.

After dinner we went to our beds and fell asleep quickly.

The journey back was quite eventful, we came across quite a confused state on one of the roads. It looked like some vehicles may tip over and we did come across one that had! We hit Kampala in the early evening after a ten hour road trip and the traffic was just impossible, we thought we'd never make it to the hotel.

Eventually arriving at Le Petit Village hotel, we said a long good bye to our great guide Hamid, who has been exceptional. We had seen rare sights such as a Leopard, Giant Forest Hogs and a male Lion asleep in a tree, numerous of birds we wouldn't have had a clue about and so many animals, all thanks to Hamid who obviously loves his job and is very good at it. We couldn't thank him enough.

For us now it was time for dinner and then bed, the next day we would be exploring Kampala.

Gorillas!

The family of Gorillas were spread out a little bit, but there were 19 of them, so everywhere you looked there was a Gorilla. They were just simply amazing and we didn't start taking pictures straight away, we just took in the atmosphere and watched these magnificent creatures.

We saw a baby being carried on its mothers back and a small group of them grooming each other. The silver back was well within view and quite close. He was stubborn though and would not face the cameras, a profile shot was the best we could get. Our favourite poser was a female who was unfortunately blind in one eye, she gave us some great pictures.We couldn't get over how big some of them were and that they almost looked unreal.

A juvenile climbed down a tree right by Steph, which we managed to capture on video. Andy found himself quite close to one and slowly moved away to a safe distance because Gorillas can catch our human diseases.

What made us all giggle like children was the amount of farting going on by the Gorillas and they were loud! But we would all be like that if we ate what the Gorillas ate!

You can only spend 1 hour with the Gorillas and the time flew by. You are literally mesmerized by them, they are indeed very special and what a wonderful experience. We are so happy we had the opportunity to do this.

4 Hours Up!

We met early in the morning at the Wildlife Authority HQ with the rangers and other tourists. We watched a short film and then listened to David one of the rangers explaining the do's and don'ts. We were then split into groups to visit the different families, low and behold we were on the hard trek! But, we were visiting the Habinyanja group which had 19 family members, so a mixture of excitement and anxiety!

In our group were 3 more tourists, 2 Americans with their South African guide and our Australian friend, Grant.

We set off in two vehicles as we were also accompanied by several rangers. The vehicle we were in couldn't go any further as the roads were so bad, therefore we jumped in with the Americans who had a more superior vehicle.

We stopped and were met by porters and also introduced to the 'emergency team' who basically are incredibly fit people who come in after you and carry you to the Gorillas and then carry you out! (They do come with a hefty price, but only you can agree to them coming to help you).

Our porter Lorhna insisted on taking our daypack (which was so heavy as it was full of water).

We started off on our trek, not so bad to start off with a rolling path through farms. We suddenly hit a very steep ascent through a tea plantation with the sun shining right down on us. It took some time to get up and we kept stopping to drink and cool down. At the top of the plantation before we went into the forest, Steph had to sit down as she felt quite ill. Turns out she was dehydrated and welcomed a rehydration drink. After a few minutes the drink had kicked in and we were off again.

The deeper we went into the forest, the harder it got to keep steady on our feet. Well, they don't call it the impenetrable forest for nothing! The rangers hacked their way creating a path for us.

We won't lie, the trek was hard and we were travelling at a slowish pace, the aim was to reach the Gorillas before it rained.

Every now and then someone would shout 'Ants' and you had to jump as high and far as you could over the nest. Lorhna our porter was incredible she helped Steph and made sure she didn't fall over. The American lady was also very looked after by her porter and kept her on her feet as well. Andy and the other two men were left to keep themselves on their feet!

At one point everyone felt a little apprehensive, the ground we were walking on felt very unstable, it was like there was no solid ground, just layers of vegetation and not much room to place your feet. We pushed on and were finally told to stop, we were there!

We were told to leave everything with the porters and just bring our cameras. We had made it to the Gorillas and there was no rain!

We walked for a couple more minutes, just us tourists and the rangers and then there they were, the most incredible sight...

Bwindi

The journey to Bwindi was very long and the roads got worse. We drove through pretty little villages with smiling faces from the children who waved at us as we carried on our journey. As we arrived, we drove through the last village which was mainly a village of crafts with lots of goods out on display. Andy tried to cover Steph's eyes, but too late! There would be some shopping at some point!

We arrived at Buhoma Community Lodge, our accommodation for our Gorilla trek. Our room was in a great location with a view straight out into Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, fantastic.

The room itself was a big Army style tent inside a wooden hut type surrounding. The bathroom was out the back. Everything was a little basic, but comfortable and with electricity and hot water, so what more do you need? Andy wasn't sure at first, mainly because the bed was on the short side and he imagined his feet sticking out the end of the bed getting attacked by mosquitoes! Turned out that he just fitted inside the bed and mosquito net.

We went up to the main building where we bumped into our Australian friend, Grant again and an English doctor. The doctor had been on the Gorilla trek that day and described his experience, it sounded brilliant and we were excited for our turn the next day.

Steph was a little worried about which family we would be visiting as everyone was classing the three families into three groups, Easy Trek, Medium Trek and Hard Trek. Easy was 1 hour there 1 hour back, Medium was 2 hours there and 2 hours back and the Hard Trek was anything between 3+ hours there and 3+ hours back.

Steph had suffered a fitness set back just before we came to Uganda. She managed to strain her Achilles tendon 2 weeks before we were due to travel and the doctors were discussing whether to put her in plaster, instead complete rest and immobilisation was agreed.

But before all this, Steph had suffered from a dislocated knee that had caused a lot of time away from exercise. Steph was reassured she would be fine.

You don't get to choose which family you want to visit, there is a chance you can swap with other people if they agree. Hamid came to check on us and we asked which family we would be visiting, he wouldn't tell us, just that it was the best family! We would find out the next day...

The Lion Sleeps Tonight... No Actually, During the Day, in a Tree!

So after our excellent and very lucky viewing of a Leopard, we set off for Ishasha in hope of viewing a Lion.

As the roads in Uganda are not the most vehicle friendly roads we have come across, Hamid takes it easy and this is great for us as we get to spot animals along the way. On this journey we viewed Elephants, Baboons, Colobus Monkeys and even a snake.

We came up behind another tourist vehicle on this extremely quiet 'road' There is black smoke coming out of it and eventually it pulls over, we pull over too and Hamid gets out to see if they are in need of any help.

Hamid gets back in and says that the other vehicle will have to limp to the next town for repairs, he thinks damage has been done by going too quickly on these bumpy roads. We set off again, only to pull over almost immediately with the other vehicle. Hamid and the other driver have a discussion and then Hamid asks us whether the single tourist from the other vehicle could join us for Ishasha as they may not make it in time with their limping vehicle. Of course it's ok and a friendly Australian called Grant joins us.

We arrive in no time to view the Lions with a quick pit stop at a very unwelcoming toilet!

We set off around the park and are joined by 3 more tourist vehicles (the most we had seen so far on our safari).

Hamid spotted a male Lion in a tree, which again we couldn't see straight away! We did eventually more quickly than the Leopard. Hamid told us that it's very unusual to spot a male Lion in a tree with female Lions being more common in them. Again we felt we were very lucky. Hamid also explained that they thought the Lions slept in the trees to escape the flies.

The male Lion was well aware he was being watched and was not moving, so one by one the vehicles including ours went off in different directions in search of more Lions.

Our search proved disappointing and the weather was also starting to change which actually made Hamid pretty excited.

The wind had picked up, so Hamid raced back to the tree where we had seen the sleeping male Lion. Hamid explained that the Lion would not like the wind and would leave the tree.

Back at the tree, we were the only vehicle there and just as Hamid had said the Lion started to wake up! He changed position in the tree a few times before climbing down into the bushes below. He peeked out of the bushes and then trotted off. Magnificent!

Another vehicle arrived just in time to see him escape into the distance.

Again, how lucky were we? Hamid has excellent knowledge and Grant our new passenger was equally thrilled and impressed with Hamid.

Grant's driver met us at the entrance of the park and re-joined him. We were now off to Bwindi, for the Gorillas, we were very excited!