Victoria Falls

After our week in Harare we were forced to drive to Victoria Falls, after being unable to get flights. It’s a long journey, so we broke it into two days, staying overnight in the nice town of Bulawayo. Before starting out on the second leg we took a short detour to a wildlife orphanage, which has an impressive array of animals. We petted rhinos and loads of very impressive lions, got to see our first leopard up real close (petting its tail even), as well as lots of cheeky monkeys, birds, owls and snakes.

Although the government is forcing all hotels to charge room rates in foreign currency for non-nationals, luckily for us both Mark and Ezeria are residents and so we’ve managed to pay the local rates, which are incredibly cheap - thereby allowing us to stay in one of the fanciest hotels. So we stayed in a $30 room at the five-star Kingdom Resort - non-residents were paying $250.

On going to see the mighty falls themselves, we all got well and truly soaked. No namby-pandy raincoats for us – even though the Zambezi isn’t in full flow at the moment, the falls still kick up an incredible spray of water, rising up a hundred and fifty metres or so, and then falling like rain. The views are truly magnificent, and luckily we were on the Zimbabwean side, which apparently offers far better viewing than the Zambian. Most of the viewing points are fairly well protected (to save the epsilons from themselves) but at one point myself and Ezeria clambered forward and then lay down and crawled up to the very edge to peer straight down over the gorge to the base of the falls and the raging river below (exactly like you do at the Cliffs of Moher or Inish Mor). Mark gave it a go too but couldn’t quite be persuaded to get his head out over the edge.

The next night Mark blagged a complimentary dinner for us all at the neighboring Victoria Falls Hotel through the wink-and-a-nod of an influential friend. It was a spectacular restaurant in probably the best hotel in all Zimbabwe (apparently all the rooms were full, so we couldn’t stay there). All very colonial and grand, although I didn’t have much of an appetite after we’d already had high-tea there earlier that afternoon. It was kinda weird that the best meal in the best surroundings of the whole trip so far just happened to be completely free - but there was certainly no complaining.

Harare

So we spent the next week in Harare basically just living it large. In the mornings myself and Mark would play tennis on the court at the bottom of the garden, followed by a very quick dip in the freezing swimming pool to cool down before shooting some pool. Then we’d head out to get some groceries or Mark would visit some local friends.

Zimbabwe certainly is suffering pretty badly with the current economic situation, so the electricity and water supplies to the house were often cut (although both were restored towards the end of the week). But having no electricity didn’t really affect us, as we ate out each night and returning in the evening we’d just use torches to find our way to bed.

One of the biggest problems, especially in Harare, is getting motor fuel. Mark had arranged with a friend to have the use of a pick-up truck for the week, and an old girlfriend, Ezeria, had managed to arrange sufficient fuel. Mark’s house is out in the suburbs, so a car was a necessity, but due to the fuel shortages there are very few cars on the roads (there were groups of local people at all the major junctions trying to hitch lifts, many of them professionals in suits).

Naturally enough Mark took us to all the really fancy restaurants, so we ate extremely well. The restaurants always had one or two things unavailable from the menu, but still managed to offer plenty of options. The local prices are crazy low too, which is great for us ‘backpackers’, although it certainly doesn’t feel like backpacking this past week (there's really a two-tier price system - one price for residents and another price for non-residents, often up to 10 times more). But since both Mark and Ezeria are residents we managed to get local prices for most things.

On our last night in Harare myself and Mark are driving into the city for a lads night out after visiting the wife of one of Mark’s local friends (and leaving Sarah and Ezeria behind) when the pick-up truck breaks down. We try over and over to contact Ezeria, and the house we left them in, but one of the other things badly hit in Zim at the moment is the telecommunication networks, and so we just can’t get through. Eventually a couple of white Zimbabweans stop to help us out, and then offer to drive us back to Mark’s house. It turns out they’re both rather drunk, as the girl passenger (Cindy) hands us a freshly opened bottle of white wine, before casually pointing out that her boyfriend (Philly), who is currently driving whilst smoking a fag, has actually only got one arm.

But we arrive safely back at Mark’s house, and naturally invite our saviors in for a drink by way of thanks. Philly fills us in on the story of how he lost his arm – it had been eaten by a crocodile about 7 years previously, during a drunken night-time river cruise he was on with his mates. It also turns out that both of them are self-proclaimed racialists (their term for racist), and tell of how her grandparent’s and his parent’s farms had both been stolen by the Government, and were both now in tatters and producing basically no produce. I didn’t get too involved in the conversation, as I know little to nothing of the history of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe but it was certainly all very interesting to hear their side of story (and Philly did genuinely seem to be a decent bloke, and far less ‘racialist’ than his girlfriend Cindy).

Anyway, they insist on driving back to their house to get some fuel and then drop Mark back to the pick-up truck (we thought it might simply have run out of petrol, as the fuel gauge was knackered). But once back at the truck it turns out not to be fuel, and so the Rhodies kindly tow Mark back to his house. The next day we’d planned on driving to Victoria Falls in Ezeria’s car so we no longer needed the pick-up truck, so it was all quite good timing from our point-of-view really (although I missed a Friday night out with Mark in downtown Harare).

The next day we relaxed for the morning and afternoon before heading off to Victoria Falls in the late afternoon (after a short stop at Mark's father's graveside to toast his memory).

Blantyre to Harare

I had a day and a half in Blantyre to try and sort out how to get the bus from there to Harare, and to check out the town itself. The bus seemed fairly straightforward, and in fact there appeared to be three bus companies that operated the route. In the last place I tried I met a helpful and dapper looking guy named George who explained a few things to me. He seemed genuine, but I got the impression he was just another one of the local characters who tries to hustle tourists, but who can be genuinely helpful sometimes. Later that evening I did find out that he was offering a very bad exchange rate for South African Rand, but that much of the information he gave me was correct (you always need to double, or triple check any information you get).

So thinking I had the bus situation covered we relaxed that evening, and spent the next day strolling around Blantyre, which is a nice small town. As usual I checked out all the fancy hotels in the area, and one in particular stood out - Ryalls. It was recently renovated and they did a great job reinstating the colonial grandeur of the place. It was mighty expensive to eat there, and although I was tempted, we had checked out an Ethiopian restaurant earlier that looked really nice. As it turned out the Ethiopian meal we had was probably my favorite meal of the trip so far, nice and spicy and absolutely delicious. I had heard that Ethiopian food was really good, and I think I tried one in Amsterdam with Enda, but had been disappointed (I think it had gotten a mention in one of the guidebooks and seemed to be resting on its laurels), but this meal in Blantyre was superb. Afterwards we went back to the mad fancy place for a mad fancy desert and an ordinarily fancy coffee, and just to relax and read the paper.

Sarah went back to the hostel to relax as I strolled on a bit to check out a magnificent church build in 1891, which happened to have a cool choir rehearsal while I was there. Strolling about I could hear loud music, and so checking it out found it to be a wedding. As I stood at the back of the hall I could see the newly weds on a stage, surrounded by their friends and family, and the hall filled with their guests. As I was leaving a girl handed me a small take-away box with free nibbles – which was rather nice of them I thought!

The next morning was the bus to Harare, which I was quite casual about, although of course I had the usual concerns about border crossings and the like (the journey from Malawi passes through Mozambique, for which you need a visa, but I assumed we could get them at the border, but it’s always a concern), and of course all the news about Zimbabwe was horrendous. Luckily we met a friendly Liverpudlian guy (Paul) at Doogles who had just spent three weeks in Zim and said he really loved it, and that in fact it was his favorite place. He said some things were tricky (like getting bread for instance), and that changing money was a nuisance, but that everything was grand really, the people were mad friendly and that there was nothing to worry about.

We had ordered breakfast the night before but when we got up there was no sign of the cook, so we just headed out to the bus station, which was next door to Doogles. Lucky we did too, because the bus was already there and there was a huge crowd of people scrambling to get aboard. It was totally chaotic with clearly far more people trying to get on the bus than seats available, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. But lo and behold, who comes up to me only George from the day before. He chats to me in a friendly way and says he expected me there earlier, but that he has arranged seats, but it actually turns out he hasn’t managed to get them yet. In fact, people are supposed to buy a ticket first before getting on the bus at all, but already loads of people have picked out seats and are already sitting in them. The clamor for tickets then begins with everyone pushing passports and money at the ticket guy and bus company guys trying to force everyone into a single-file queue, and in the middle of it all is George trying to get me tickets as I try and queue.

After a bit George jumps on the bus and tells me to follow him. He moves down the bus a bit and then takes two bags off two seats and tells me to sit down and wait. Then he tells me to swap with Sarah, who is still outside with the bags. So now Sarah is sitting in a seat, and trying to keep another seat for me, while I barge my way towards the ticket seller. But its all totally mad, when suddenly the bus driver saunters into the fray and everyone runs over to him with their passports and money and the whole mellay starts again. Anyway, I’m seriously thinking of giving up and just getting a flight the following day when George takes my money and passports and somehow manages to get the driver to take them as he boards the bus. Another guy then takes them and copies the details onto a manifest and then tells me to sit down with Sarah. George now tells me that everything is OK and to just wait for my ticket, which finally arrives in another 10 minutes.

Of course I’m now expected to give George a few bob for helping me out, but in this case I’m absolutely delighted to do so. I think we probably would have been alright on our own, as we were the only white people in the entire bus station and Africans are really friendly and accommodating to tourists, but it was such utter chaos that having George to help was a Buddha-send (yeah, yeah, as in god-send).

Everything slowly calms down and eventually people take their seats and the people who failed to get tickets get off the bus, and only a little over an hour late we actually head off towards Harare. After that initial mayhem everything else went really smoothly, and the border crossings were really painless (with just a two-hour delay leaving the Malawi border, but it was a lovely day, so it was no bother really).

Before reaching Harare Sarah manages to blag a mobile phone from a lady we got chatting to at one of the border posts, and we manage to briefly contact Mark to let him know we’re on the bus and approaching Harare. But we lose the connection before arranging how to meet up, although we sort it all out later after we hop off the bus at the Holiday Inn and after eventually managing to get a taxi.

Mark (in his Mr. Del Monte outfit) and his two attack dogs greet us as we get out of the taxi, and after a quick tour of his luxurious house and a bottle of champagne we retire for the night in the fabulous master bedroom.

Zomba

Arriving in Zomba I needed to get cash and also US dollars for Zimbabwe, but ran into a spot of bother when the ATM broke down as I was queuing, just after the branch had shut for the day at 3pm. The second ATM’s queue suddenly doubled as everyone except me realized what had happened, and so I gave up rather than wait a further 2 hours. Luckily the place I arranged to stay for the night was great and simply said I could pay for the room the next day (as I had assumed they would – Africans really do seem to be amazingly accommodating). Later that evening I discovered another ATM right next door to the original bank - I needn't have queued at all, ah well...

The next day, after a fair bit of shenanigans at the bank (they don’t issue US dollars to non-account holders, so a bit of pleading was required) we headed up onto the plateau (at the base of which lies the town of Zomba) for a bit of a forest hike and to check out a local waterfall and the stunning view. I also fancied lunch at another exclusive lodge place that I’d heard about (the Sunset Ku Chawe).

The hike was indeed gorgeous, although we were a little pushed for time, as I wanted to make it to Blantyre that evening before dark, and we’d arranged with our taxi driver a certain time for pickup to get back to Zomba town. So after a few hurried photos and a bit of a linger at the small but impressive waterfall it was back to the lodge to tell our driver that we’d be staying an hour longer to give us time to have lunch. The driver, as is usual, hums and haughs and tries to extract a bit more money for his added inconvenience. But I love the whole African mentality, and it was obvious (to me anyway, Sarah doesn’t seem to see it so easily) that he was really just chancing his arm – as soon as I simply said no, he just smiles and says OK. That sort of thing has happened repeatedly, but when you say no (with a smile and without any hint of aggression of course), the people have always smiled back and just said OK. Its important to know the value of things you negotiate over (which is pretty much everything), and so I knew I was already giving this driver a very fair price, and so I also knew his asking for more money was just a harmless ploy – but I still love the playfulness of it all, and so far it’s always ended in smiles.

So after our lovely fancy lunch at the lodge we pick up our rucksacks and head towards the bus station to try and get to Blantyre. But as we get close our driver flags down a passing minibus, chats to the driver and then tells us that they are going to Blantyre right now. He turns the taxi around, drives after the minibus and we bail in, and we’re off to Blantyre without having to wait any time at all. Although in Limbe (7kms from Blantyre) the minibus stops again and says he isn’t actually going any further (same thing as happened enroute to Monkey Bay). Again the guy apologies and agrees to give me back some money, and he points us to another minibus to take us the rest of the way (and which then left straight away too).

And so we arrived in Blantyre just as it’s getting dark and strolled the short distance to the nice backpackers place, Doogles, where we got a lovely room.

Malawi

I stepped off the plane in Malawi to the most beautiful day of the whole trip so far. Although the weather has been really good the whole time (we still haven’t been rained on once yet), it had always been a bit hazy or sometimes cloudy, but here it was a brilliantly bright, clear blue, cloudless day.

Strangely enough, there is no public transport from Lilongwe airport, but Sarah managed to chat to enough people to eventually find a couple that wanted to share a taxi into the town. As it happened, they wanted to go to the main bus station, which was exactly where we wanted to go. We wanted to get as close as we could to Lake Malawi to have a bit of beach time after the Kenyan safari, and after a bit of waiting around we eventually set off towards Monkey Bay in a minibus.

Another seemingly strange aspect of this trip so far has been the ease and effortlessness of nearly all our traveling. Everything I’ve read or heard about traveling in Africa always emphasizes how much stress and hassle it can be. But so far for us it’s been a breeze. Apart from this minibus to Monkey Bay (where we had to wait an hour and half for it to fill up before it departed) I don’t think we’ve had to wait more than five minutes before a departure. The number of times we just arrive, get a seat on a bus and then it just leaves is uncanny. Either that or we just happen to meet people going our way who have their own car, or they want to share a taxi, or we get free transfers, or whatever – it’s been great really. Long may it continue though, as we have heard some pretty bad stories (3 breakdowns in one day, or waiting in a minibus for 3 hours just for it to fill up with people, etc.).

So anyway, our minibus was supposed to go to Monkey Bay, but when it gets to Mangochi (about 60kms away) they just stop and say they’re not going any further (obviously because there wasn’t enough people interesting in going any further, i.e. just me and Sarah). But at least the guy gives me back some money (with the usual beaming smile and an apology), but now it’s dark and we have no map of the town we’re in and no idea of where to stay. Negator’s a bit freaked, but after walking for just a few minutes we find a place that isn’t too bad and settle down for the night after a nice dinner served by a lovely auld dear who chats to us for a good bit. Its the little unexpected events like this that make independent travel so interesting really.

Early next morning as we’re strolling to the bus station a pick-up truck just stops and asks if we want to go to Monkey Bay and so we just hop up (see above about effortless travel in Africa!). We do have a puncture on the way though, but within about 30 minutes we’re off again (the wheel was removed and taken by a passing truck up the road and 20 minutes later is brought back by a guy on a bicycle – they wouldn’t waste ‘cramming-in-more-people’ space by carrying a spare wheel). After another very short wait we catch another pick-up truck to Cape Maclear, and meet up with Matt and Lucy, an English couple traveling the world for a couple of years.

It’s immediately clear as soon as we step off the pick-up that this is an amazingly beautiful place – straight out of any paradise island brochure. We end up staying here for 4 nights in a lovely place right on the beach. Yet again we got lucky, as the first place we tried was full, thereby forcing us to check out other places, and the place we did find was not only a lot cheaper, it was a lot nicer, quieter and next door to the best place for food. So needless to say we just chilled out and relaxed. I had a couple of days exploring, one on foot, one on a bike. Another day we hired a sea kayak and paddled all over the place, including across to an island were we met up with Matt and Lucy who had snorkeling gear. The lake (which is fresh water, which is lovely to swim in) has loads of really colourful small fish, so the snorkeling was pretty impressive.

Then we continued kayaking and watched as Matt and Lucy (who had wimped out and hired a motorboat with guides!) threw fish for the fish eagles. We were perfectly positioned in our kayak as the eagle would fly just over our heads, swoop down and pick up the fish in it’s talons before flying back to a tree right beside us to eat it. It would also call to its mate with a wonderful sounding shriek – yet another wildlife highlight of the trip, how many is that already…?

At around this time I discovered that an apparently easy route to Harare was from the city of Blantyre in southern Malawi. Apparently you could get a bus directly there, which suited us perfectly. So from Cape Maclear we simply headed south, making our way in the general direction of Blantyre. Our first stop along the way was Liwonde National Park, and as it was Sarah’s birthday I decided to stay in a nice lodge inside the park itself, Chinguni Hills Lodge.

The lodge is really lovely, although it’s going through a phase of expansion at the moment – which was the primary cause of stress and concern for the owner, a brash South African named Darren. When we arrived in mid-afternoon he was already quite drunk, but clearly this was his usual state of being. The building work (constructing 7 new safari tents) was way behind schedule and his workmen were constantly approaching him with more and more bad news, to which he responded by shouting and berating them mercilessly. Later that afternoon I could hear him firing one of the cooks in a flurry of rather colourful language.

That evening was Sarah’s birthday, and we were sharing our dinner table with a lovely English family (a mother and her three daughters). Naturally we had to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, but Sarah was getting a little nervous about the state of Darren’s inebriation, so we tried to sing it very quietly. Not quietly enough though I’m afraid, and of course in comes Darren asking who’s birthday it was. Upon seeing Sarah he becomes rather crude and lewd, much to Sarah’s embarrassment, and the English mother has to try and explain Darren’s language to her 11 year-old daughter. Needless to say we didn’t join Darren for after dinner tipples – Sarah just wanted to go to bed!

The next day we had planned on taking another boat safari, but nobody else was booked to go. If we still wanted to do it we’d have to pay a bit extra, which we probably would have done. But over breakfast we met two English girls (Catherine and Helen) and a Canadian guy (Garry) who told us that they were driving in Garry’s car to another lodge to do the boat safari from there, and they asked if we’d like to join them. This was great, because I wanted to check out the other lodge anyway (which was way more expensive than Chinguni Hills), it would mean we’d have a free game drive (the other lodge was 24km away) and the boat safari, according to the guidebook, was much better from the other lodge (as it was in an area with a denser wildlife concentration).

The game drive was a nice drive, although we saw very little wildlife (Liwonde Park is known more for its river than for its plains), apart from a fabulous Malachite Kingfisher. The exclusive lodge wasn’t all that great either, in fact we all thought the lodge we were staying in was a lot nicer and had a lot more character (and this place was literally 5 times the price of where we were staying – you can’t help but look at all the people staying at this place and thinking the poor fools are being completely suckered). But the boat safari was really excellent. We had a small boat all to ourselves, just the five of us and our guide. We saw literally hundreds of hippos, lots of which were out of the water (on the previous boat safari all the hippos were in the water, with just the tops of their heads showing – they’re supposed to spend all day in the water and only come out at night to graze along the shores). We also got really close to large herds of elephants mingling with the hippos, and quite a few crocodiles, and of course loads and loads of birds. At times I was reminded of cruising on the Shannon, just drifting down the river, and yet again I found myself in a place were I could have easily spent the whole day, or even days.

We got back to our own lodge in the late afternoon and I went wondering as usual. You can’t venture too far without a guide (as the elephants can be dangerous), but there was a short trail to a great lookout tower built into a tree that gave a great view over the plain. After another great dinner in the lodge we headed out for a night safari, our first one of this trip. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see much, we were all hoping to see bush babies (mad looking teddy bear-like critters with impossibly googliy eyes), but the best of what we did see was a nervous looking hyena.

The next morning we lounged around after breakfast waiting for our transfer back to the nearest town and transport down to the next town, Zomba.

Amboseli

Because we’d booked our safari over the phone, we had a free pickup at the airport, which was a nice little treat (especially as we arrived after dark). The safari company also provide basic dormitory accommodation free if you want it, and since we were arriving late at night and heading off on safari early the next morning it was really convenient to just stay there (and there was only one other person staying there anyway).

So 9:30 the next morning and we’re on our way to another safari, this time Amboseli. As nobody else had booked for that day we had the whole minibus to ourselves, which is both a good thing and a bad thing really. Obviously we had loads of room, so it’s more comfortable, but its nice to meet other people too. It also meant the safari was more expensive – the more people on the bus, the cheaper it is for everyone. We had three days in total, although it takes half a day to get there and half a day to get back.

Amboseli isn’t as scenically beautiful a place as the Masai Mara park, as it’s much flatter. There also wasn’t as much wildlife to be seen either, although we still say plenty (including lions with a kill, and a couple of very large pythons), especially elephants, for which the park is famous. In fact at one point we got caught in the middle of a large herd that were crossing the road, and a couple of them trumpeted, which is mighty impressive when your only a few feet away from them.

There were also a couple of rocky outcrops, one of which had very impressive boulders that you can clamber up and over, and then look down on a tiny local village. But really the safari was all about just relaxing and cruising around at leisure, and it’s weird how quickly you become complacent about seeing zebras and antelopes and buffaloes and elephants, etc.

Unfortunately Sarah got a bit sick on the last night of the safari, and so wasn’t feeling the best on the way back to Nairobi. So rather than stay in the basic safari company place again we booked into a nice new hotel on River Road (a notorious area, but fine once you don’t venture out at night). Sarah was fine the next day.

We’d booked our time in Nairobi with a bit of slack in case the safari dates didn’t work out, so when we got back from Amboseli we still had a full day to kill. I was mad keen to go back to the Carnivore restaurant and see if the Cheesy Dribbler hamburger really was the best burger in the world, or if the last visit was just a fluke. I can now report that yes indeed, the Cheesy Dribbler is the very best burger I’ve ever had, and the next time I’m in Nairobi I’ll be heading straight back to Carnivore for another one.

The following morning it was off early to the airport for our flight to Lilongwe in Malawi. I’d managed to haggle another free transfer to the airport from the safari company (they’d overcharged us a bit for park entrance fees), so we arrived nice and early, although we then had to queue at check-in for ages.

Rafting and Bungee-ing

So the rafting company collected us on time and we arrived by the banks of the Nile by 9:30. By 10:00 we were briefed, sun-creamed, life-jacketed and sitting in our raft ready to go. Our rafting guide was Mary-Lou from Canada, and she was great – very experienced and professional, but nice and relaxed and chatty. The Nile is supposed to be (according to the guidebook anyway) one of the best rafting rivers in the world, but for me it didn’t compare to the Kali Gandaki in Nepal. Here the rapids are very widely spaced out, so you go through a rapid or two and then have a rest for a bit before the next set of rapids come up. But it was a still a great day out, and we did manage a few grade 5’s and managed to flip the raft twice.

Poor Sarah got a bit of a fright the first time the raft flipped, but the guide took great care of her and she was never in any danger at all – at one point the guide had Sarah by the shoulders and was shouting to her that everything was OK, and that she could open her eyes and breath – Sarah thought she was still under water when in fact she was floating along nicely on the surface, she just had her eyes shut so tight!

When we got back to the rafting campsite we discover that we could stay the night free, since we had done a full days rafting. The campsite was really nice and the setting was beautiful, on a high ledge looking down onto the Nile itself, so we decided to stay there instead of trying to get accommodation in Jinga town. It also meant we could do the bungee jump they have right there in the camp too, although we had to wait until the following morning, as they were wrapping up for the evening when we got back from the rafting. I wasn't particularly pushed about doing the bungee (having done one years ago), but Sarah was keen to give it a try (especially as they offered the option of doing a tandem), and of course I'm always really keen to encourage everyone to face and conquer their fears.

So the next morning I have a big fried breakfast before doing the bungee. We decided to go for the tandem option, although at first I thought it was cheaper than doing a jump each, but in fact it wasn’t. But Sarah felt more comfortable with a tandem so we just went ahead with that. We had to wait for a couple of English lads to do jumps first, but that was good because we could see how it all worked, and also see that they were both fine (or course!) and see that they both really loved it. The South African guy running the bungee was great, really professional and explained everything clearly. There are a few differences when doing a tandem – you have to stand side-by-side but then turn your upper body to face one another, and make sure we embraced each other tightly – if we let go we might split apart and then crash back together again, possibly smashing our heads together, which would have been rather nasty. As it happens, embracing someone next to you is a pretty natural reaction when you’re terrified, so that part wasn’t a problem at all.

We had the option of having our heads dunked in the Nile if we wanted, so obviously that was a given – I wasn’t going to have any Negator whinging on that one! The actual jump itself was all a bit weird – very different from the first jump I did years ago in Waterford with Mullins and Doherty. With that one you get to look at the horizon and see the ground rushing towards you, but on a tandem your kinda forced to just stare at your partner’s eyes, and so you don’t see anything really. It still had the same disorienting feeling when you start bouncing back upwards though, and the water dunking was pretty cool.

But straight after the jump I felt quite queasy, and about half and hour later, in the shower, I threw up. I think it was a combination of things really – the greasy breakfast, the fact that I swallowed a gob-full of the Nile on impact, the obvious fear factor but also the fact that the first thing to smack into the water was the top of my head. When I chatted with the two English lads who jumped before us, they said that they were told that the most important thing for them to remember was to keep their hands extended above their heads as they hit the water, so as to protect their heads from the impact. Obviously I couldn’t do that as I was grasping onto Sarah. Anyway, after a half hour resting in bed I was grand, and so we took out bicycles to ride the few kilometers into Jinga town to check it out.

It’s actually a nice little town, and I managed to have a quick peek at the plague that marks the supposed source of the Nile (after skipping around the ticket desk by following a local lad along a cross-country dirty track, since I was on a bike). After a nice lunch in the town we headed back to the campsite, as the two English bungee-jumping lads had offered us a lift back to Kampala in the car they’d hired for their holiday.

Getting a lift back into Kampala was a nice and handy treat. The lads were staying in the Sheraton Hotel and so I decided to check to see if we could just stay there too (we never did find a nice cheap guesthouse in Kampala). It was very pricey for what it was, but I decided to stay anyway as we’d agreed to head out with the English lads to Haandi, the local Indian restaurant we’d been to before.

The next day we headed down to Entebbe to check it out and to catch our flight that evening to Nairobi. I didn’t have much time to check out Entebbe, as I decided to make the most of the Sheraton’s breakfast and their pool, steam room and sauna, but I did manage to have a couple of hours running around the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, while Sarah waited in the restaurant of a nearby hotel. It’s basically just a zoo, but you can get up close and personal with many of the animals, and like most of the places we’ve been so far, it was nice and quite with very few people about. I was petting rhinos and could have played with the otters, and again I could have stayed there all day, as it was just so peaceful and chilled out. But I had to leave, pick up Sarah and get a motorbike taxi (with both of us and our rucksacks on the one small moped again) to the airport and from there back to Nairobi.

Crater lakes and back to Kampala

We spent a couple of days in Fort Portal just relaxing, one day just updating my blog and the other watching a pretty cool local cultural festival thing. We just happened to arrive soon after it started, and just sat with the crowd watching local singing, dancing, acrobats and comedians. We were the only white people in the whole place and it felt pretty cool to be watching a genuine cultural show that was aimed at local Ugandans instead of rich, foreign tourists.

At this point I realized that trying to get to and around Murchison Falls using public transport was not really a practical option. Matt and Harper were heading up to Gulu where Matt hoped to get work, so we couldn’t share another taxi with them, and so we said farewell. I had seen adverts for organized trips to Murchison from the Kampala backpackers place we’d stayed in before heading to the gorillas, and now I understood that those trips were actually the best way to get to see the Falls (unless you had your own transport). So the plan now was to head back to Kampala and get onto one of those tours. But phoning ahead it turned out that all the trips had been booked out well in advance (its high season now, although it really doesn’t feel anything like it until something like this happens), and so it meant we’d have to give the Falls a miss. It was a pity really, as they’re supposed to be really spectacular and a major highlight of Uganda, but I guess they’ll just have to wait until the next time I come back.

But of course, when you can’t do one thing, it just means you get to do something else instead, and in this case we decided to take a day out to visit the nearby crater lakes. After the usual negotiating shenanigans we hopped in a taxi (no other option I’m afraid) and got to a lovely quite campsite where we could rent bicycles. The camp is right beside Lake Nkuruba that really is a stunning small lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. You could have walked around the crater rim in under two hours I’d say, and the steeply sloping rim was completely covered in lush, dense forest. As I was standing at the edge of the lake I could see two troupes of monkeys on the far side, swinging from the high trees. It was incredibly peaceful here, no-one else around at all – the campsite was empty that day – and I could have just sat there and contemplated all day. But apparently there is good cycling around here so we sorted out bikes and headed off.

Being volcanic, it was pretty hilly, and the bikes we had were naturally fairly crap but Sarah soldiered on bravely and we only had to walk up hills a couple of times. The rewards, however, were quite spectacular. It was a beautifully sunny day and as you’d come around a corner you’d be greeted with another gorgeous crater lake set amongst the hills. We stopped at the luxurious Ndaly Lodge for a bowl of soup, a rest and the stunning view, as its set atop one of the larger crater rims. After leaving the bikes back to the campsite (after a failed attempt to find a local waterfall) we set off on a one-hour forest trail walk which was really beautiful, although poor Sarah got pee’d on by a Columbus money that casually watched us hike past.

The following morning we caught the bus to Kampala and arrived nice and early at the incredibly chaotic bus terminus (South-East Asia has nothing on this place!). After dumping the bags in a cheap nearby guesthouse (we only planned on spending a single night in Kampala and moving on to Jinga early the next morning) we headed out for the day to try and organize the next phase of the trip (we knew Mark Kane was going to be in Zimbabwe from the 29^th and so needed to organize how we were going to get to Harare to meet up with him, and where we’d go and what we’d do in the meantime).

After a fair bit of running around and thinking things through, and phoning around we got everything sorted out. Basically the plan was to fly to Lilongwe in Malawi and then overland down to Harare. Basically every news report we saw (which wasn’t that many as we don’t get to watch any telly, thankfully!) reported that Zimbabwe was in meltdown, and so I didn’t want to organize flights directly to Harare two weeks early. Instead I thought we’d fly down to somewhere nearby and then travel overland on the 29^th if everything looked OK (and everyone knows the media sensationalise everything anyway, as I learnt on my last trip traveling through ‘war-torn’ Nepal. Needless to say, Zimbabwe turned out to be brilliant, and we didn’t any trouble whatsoever, or even any hassle). Interestingly, the flight to Lilongwe passed through Nairobi and we had the option of stopping over there if we liked. This gave us the opportunity of stopping over and possibly doing another safari there if the dates worked out and once there was availability, so I took a chance and booked that option. Naturally, when we then rang the safari company there was no problem at all in getting a safari for the day we wanted.

It felt great to have everything organized so easily and quickly. We now had a few days left in Uganda (I wanted to visit Entebbe and Jinga, a town near Kampala that is reputed to be the source of the River Nile (although a couple of other countries claim to have the source too), and has good white-water rafting), I’d also get to do another safari in Amboseli National Park in Kenya (meaning we’d have a chance to at least see Kilimanjaro, having already decided that climbing it just wouldn’t be worth it), and then we’d have 10 days or so to mess about in Malawi and to make our way from there to Harare once the coast was clear.

Having gotten everything done quickly, we now had some time to kill, so I decided to try and see the Uganda Museum. Of course, Negator (pronounced Neg-a-tor by the way, not Nee-gate-er) initially complained at the idea of this, but relented when I simply said I’d go on my own and just meet up with her later – and it was lucky that she did too. As it turned out, the rafting company we wanted to use in Jinga has an office right next door to the Uganda Museum. I knew from their advertising that they will pick you up for the rafting in Kampala if you like, which would be nice as it would save us the hassle of getting to Jinga and finding accommodation on our own. So we popped in and naturally they had space the very next day.

So that meant we could really relax, everything was now sorted out for the next few days. To celebrate we went to the best restaurant in the best hotel – the Nile Serena Hotel’s ‘Pearl of Africa’. It was all a little strange hanging around this fabulous five-star hotel for the afternoon (and blagging my way into getting a personal tour of the extensive leisure facilities), then eating in their very exclusive restaurant (and paying $95 for the privilege, literally over 10 times what we’d normally pay in a nice restaurant for dinner), and then returning back to our hovel of a guesthouse that was $5 for the night. It sure is nice to be able to afford to mix it up a bit now and again.

Chameleons

The guys, Matt and Harper, decided that they wanted to head for the Rwenzori Mountains (after chatting to a really friendly ranger in Queen Elizabeth) and seeing as how we didn’t have any real plans to speak of, we decided to head there with them (our guidebook had very little info on the mountains, but the guys’ book was much better). Again it turned out to be a bit of a journey for our poor taxi driver, traipsing along terrible roads in search of guide-book-mentioned accommodation, but we finally arrived at a wonderfully isolated place set deep in the mountain forest with the only sounds being a nearby raging river and the birds chirping.

The next day Sarah and myself do a forest walk with a local guide, Isaac. After only walking for about five minutes Isaac spots a chameleon and grabs it. He then places it on my hand and it crawls along, with its eyes rolling around madly like they do. I think this is just amazing – I can’t believe we’ve just happened to come across a wild chameleon – they’ve got to be one of the coolest animals in the world. Anyway, we put him back and continue along and it’s a really wonderful hike through the forest and along the river. Sarah gets a bit of a fright as her foot goes right through a log on a rickety footbridge across the river, but it was more funny than scary really.

That afternoon we did a village tour with the guys. It wasn’t bad I suppose, but was a little contrived. We visited a traditional blacksmith that was actually quite interesting, and he doubled as a witchdoctor and healer too. We met a local storyteller who told us (through our interpreting guide) about the old ways and marriage traditions (which went on and on for ages!), and a local farm where they’re trying new methods to improve productivity. Naturally the tour ended at the local craft shop, but in the garden there was another chameleon in a tree (a single-horned rhinoceros chameleon), but I think the lads had put him there and that he was really a pet!

Most people come to the Rwenzori to spend seven days trekking through the mountains but we didn’t have time for that, and anyway it wasn’t the best time of year (we later met a couple of English guys who had just done it, and although they said it was great, it was very tough going (through knee deep mud, etc.) and the weather meant they didn’t actually see much). Matt and Harper didn’t have time for trekking the whole route either, but they did do the first days route and then came straight back, but they’re both very fit runners. That day I just relaxed and went exploring on my own (trekked a couple of hundred meters along the Rwenzori trail) and actually found yet another chameleon, which I was pretty chuffed about.

The next day we all decided to continue heading north and had to walk down to the nearest village to try and get motorbike taxis to the main road. Luckily it was all downhill, as myself and Sarah shared a single moped taxi, with both our heavy rucksacks (very a-la-South-East Asia). On the main road we quickly flagged down a passing minibus and in no time at all we were in Fort Portal, which is a nice small town.

Queen Elizabeth Park

So the first stage of the jaunt towards Murchison Falls was a taxi ride to Kabale town and then a minibus to Mbarara (I know these place names mean nothing to other people, I just mention them as a note-to-self for the years to come when I look back on this trip). Just as the minibus leaves, a Western couple hop in, and when we arrive at Mbarara we get chatting to them (Matt and Harper from the States). Turns out they're heading in kind-of the same direction as us, and they also have a fairly loose, ill-defined plan. So we collectively decide to take a shared taxi on the next hop of the journey. Harper had been living for the past year in the Congo, and was an impressively seasoned negotiator, and so she managed to haggle a really cheap price between all us. After the hustle and bustle of a packed minibus, which stops every 4 minutes to let someone off or someone on (or to let the driver do his wife’s food shopping), the taxi was shear luxury and we seemed to be just flying along. We kinda decide on where exactly we want to go as we're driving along and finalise on trying to get to see Queen Elizabeth National Park.

The national parks are actually quite tricky to get into if you don't have your own transport. Generally the park gates are a good few kilometers from the nearest town, and then accommodation within the park (if there is any) can be many more kilometers further. But the fact that we now had our own taxi, as opposed to public transport, gave us the freedom to move about easily.

As you drive towards Queen Elizabeth you actually pass through a large part of it on the main road, and we pass a number of baboons nonchalantly crossing the road. A little further on we spot a herd of elephants not too far away, and naturally enough we excitedly get the taxi driver to stop so we can get a good look. As we're taking photos I turn around and on the other side of the road are two more elephants, only much closer. It was all a little surreal (in a very cool way, of course) just driving along a main road and stopping to look at wild elephants grazing by the roadside (a couple of weeks later an entire herd of elephants just happen to cross the road again as we’re driving to Victoria Falls).

So a bit further on we arrive at the gates of the park and persuade our driver to take us the 24km into the park itself to the Mweya Pennisula where a cluster of accommodation options are located. But when we arrive, it turns out all the accommodation is full, including the $300-a-night luxury lodge. It turns out the only other place that might have space is back outside the park gates past a nearby village. We have no option but to drive all the way back and try and find this place, so our taxi driver agrees to bring us. We get a bit worried as we get close, as the nearby village we pass through is extremely desolate and the road is nearly impassable. But when we find it we see that it's actually a nice new place with the accommodation being luxury safari tents. Naturally enough we cheer up, especially when they say they have tents available. The shock hits though when we hear the price - $100 per person per night. Now these are 'luxury' tents, meaning that they are really big, walk-around tents with lovely comfortable beds with mosquito nets and an ensuite toilet that even had a bath - but it's still a tent! Harper takes over the negotiating but even her protracted attempts only manage to get the guys down to $50 per person per night, and all four of us have to share a single tent (they were plenty big enough even with the extra beds) – so the guys were still getting their $200 per tent per night. You have to understand of course that up until this point we're paying $10-$20 a night for nice ensuite rooms, so it's all a bit galling to say the least, but we have no option now as its dark and we’re all pretty tired. Also our poor taxi driver needs to get home, and we'd dragged him all over the place (a lot of it on atrocious roads).

Early the next morning we get another taxi back to the Mweya Pennisula and try to get aboard the river safari. We have to wait to see if there is room, but luckily two people don’t show up and we get their places on the boat. The trip was superb, on a lovely boat just cruising along the river passing hundreds of hippos. The park ranger guy was constantly pointing out different birds along the way and giving us an interesting running commentary on the whole area. We also spotted elephants, buffalo, fish eagles, pelicans, storks and loads of pied kingfishers.

After the boat trip the same ranger guy took just the four of us on a 1.5-hour walking safari. We didn’t get to see much, but it was nice to walk in the bush, although at one point we passed a big bush and heard a loud rustle. The ranger stood back and cocked his rifle, which naturally got us all very excited (with myself and Matt eagerly edging closer to see what the beastie might be), but it turned out to be just a monitor lizard foraging, something both myself and Sarah had seen lots of before in Asia.

There’s really only one other main activity in Queen Elizabeth Park, a gorge walk, but it would have meant staying another night, which wasn’t really an option. So instead we decided to share a taxi again and continue on up towards Murchison together. So after a lovely late lunch at the luxury lodge we headed off again.