Getting wet in Uganda

Two days ago we crossed into Uganda on our journey towards the gorillas. The landscape is amazing...mountains, lush vegetation and lots of animals like MASSIVE safari ants and baboons.

We are now in the town of Jinja which is where the source of the nile river starts from Lake Victoria. To celebrate we decided to have a truck party in our campsite last night that involved lots of card drinking games, trying to climb into a kayak suspended upside down above a bar (not a very coordinated effort) and my favourite...the "dance-off"!! Let's just say we have a few robot dancers in our troop that could rival Mr McCann!! Feeling quite dusty today but steve and I had to come into town as we are on dinner duty so have to go to the local markets to buy the food. Ah, life on the truck!

We have also had our first rain in the last few days and suddenly the reality of camping in the rain came crashing down. After packing up our tent in the rain at 5am one morning Steve and I promptly decided to upgrade the next night for a massive $16 and stay in a room at the campsite instead!!! Luxury!!! It was SO nice the next morning when everyone else was pulling down their tents and we just strolled out of our room! mmmm. Although enough gloating..we are back in the tent now!!

Off for some snacks!

xxx

Beach time in Lake Malawi and Zanzibar

Currently sitting in a small beach village on the coast of Zanzibar which is absolutely beautiful. The sand is fine pure white and the sea an amazing aqua colour...ahhh this is very nice!

Since last writing we have travelled through Malawi and up into Tanzania. Malawi was one of our favourites so far and the people were the friendliest we have come across - it was also quite cheap which is always a bonus - one dollar beers and 30 cent cokes. We stopped off at two different campsites on Lake Malawi - KanDe Beach and Chitawinga and spent several days enjoying the freshwater and crusing about the local villages.

We spent one day with a local "beach boy" and had lunch at his sister's house and visited the local school and bar where we had some crazy beer called Shaky Shaky that is fermented with milk and comes in a square cardboard container (like milk). We politely had a few sips and tried to pass it on (it was disgusting) but Steve kind of got stuck with it and ended up having to keep slugging away.

We also did a hike into the hillside to see some waterfalls and a village called Livingstonia where Dr Livingstone had a base. 10 hours later we hauled ourselves back into camp complete with an array of blisters and dehydration. Gav forgot to wear his underwear and at the top had to buy some vaseline to ease some unfortunate "chaffing" that was going on....nice! We had managed to make a chocolate cake to take with us (not a mean feat when you don't have an oven) and the local boys who came with us told us it was the first time they had ever tried chocolate cake...they also sold us some homemade post cards that were very cute hand drawings.

From Lake Malawi we beelined towards Tanzania to reach Dar Es Salaam and after two days of driving ended up in Friday night rush hour and we watched the hours tick away before we finally made it to our campsite. It was quite good though as we were literally stationary in the city for several hours and we saw loads of activity going on. Even better when we did arrive (15 hours after setting off) we had arranged for a local to buy us some seafood from the local market and cooked up a giant seafood feast of tuna, red snapper, prawns and calamari...yummo!

From there we have had 4 days to do our own thing and inevitably we all headed to Zanzibar for some beach time. Steve and I spent a night in StoneTown which is a great place to check out. It was actually quite a big night and in the wee hours of the morning we were feasting on local Zanzibar pizzas and even found the old travellers faithful of banana and chocolate! The next day we rather shabbily got up for a spice tour and then arrived at a small beach on the north eastern part of Zanzibar where we have been chilling out and enjoying seafood and cocktails. Tonight we have arranged a special meal between a few of us where we get our own private beach fire built, a table brought out on to the sand, and have an all you can eat seafood feast for $15 US per person. Can't wait!!!

I tried to upload some photos but seemed to get a mild electrocution in the process...might try again from another computer!!

xxx

lots of amazing wildlife and 14 minutes of terror

We've just crossed the border into Malawi and have just had an animal extravaganza at South Luangwa park in Zambia. We went on a morning and evening game drive and saw loads of animals including a leopard, lions, elephants, giraffe and hippos. We did however have a slight hiccup on the first drive which you can read about below and see the lion picture on this post.

The campsite was amazing. It's called Flat Dogs and is actually on the edge of the game park (which has no fences or structural boundaries). So right in the camp there is an amazing array of wild animals that walk in and around the campsite. The picture above shows elephants next to our truck and there were also giraffes and heaps of monkeys roaming around. At night there were hippos and elephants walking around our tents which was a bit crazy! Let's just say that on the first night we didn't get too much sleep as the noises were unbelievable!!!

In terms of life on the truck we are getting very settled in and finding the camping and driving much easier than at first. We're getting pretty quick at setting up the tents and we have a few good cooks on board so we are all eating well! It was Maree's bday yesterday and we made a cake on our little campfire things (which is quite a time intensive exercise) and had a bit of a party in the campsite. When we're not up to an activity there is always stuff going on - a workout, game of cards, doing some washing, reading (just finished Shantaram and highly recommend it) or seeing a town or local life.

Now we are looking forward to a few days of chilling by Lake Malawi!

Ok, so here is is....


14 minutes of terror

To set the scene, imagine you are in a completely open jeep which is about 1.5 m off the ground and has open bench seating that seats 3-4 people across the seat. Our group of 11 was in one jeep and we were driving around finding animals where the driver then stops and turns off the engine so that you can watch them for a bit.

We had seen a lot of animals including a lioness by herself, and further on a big fat daddy lion who was sleeping by himself and the driver told us was waiting for his pride to return and bring him a meal as he looked a bit thin and hungry. We had just been looking at a giant python snake which was basically as far out as we were driving so on our return we spotted the big male lion again so went for another look. We pulled up about 5m from the lion (they drive really really close to the animals) and stopped. Hanna said she couldn't see it properly from her angle so asked the driver topull forward another metre, which he did. He then switched off the engine and we merrily took some photos and enjoyed the lion.





It then came time to leave and the driver went to turn the engine over again, and there was nothing. He tried again and there was nothing, not even a slight indication that the engine was going to start. So at first I thought this was quite amusing and very exciting. Steve however was the passenger who was closest to the lion and was suddenly not very amused at this scenario.





The driver very very slowly and quietly got out of the vehicle and opened the bonnet of the jeep. To try and get the battery going again he then tried to hit something which made a loud clanging sound. Suddenly Mr Lion was very awake. He is about 3.5 m away from us at this stage and raises his head and glares at us all. I look at the driver who by this stage is quite visibly shaking and sweating. He tries his radio. Nothing. He tries his mobile phone. No reception. I ask our guide Gav if he has a weapon and he says no. I ask Gav whether we could get out on the other side of the vehicle and walk away and he tells me that "if you do that you're going down". Great!





All of us adopt the submissive pose and avoid the lion's stare and look down but the lion is starting to get a little pissed and by this stage we've been there a good 5 minutes which is longer than we should have and the lion is not going back to sleep. We slowly start to realise that this is really not a great scenario at all and in the silence we are all staring to freak out a bit. So we sit, and sit, and sit not really sure what to do. The driver is making no move to do anything so it's just us and the lion who is still staring at us.





In the distance we then see another jeep approaching so we think great we are saved. This jeep then fails to see we are in trouble (with our bonnet up I don't know how) and pulls up really close on the other side of the lion and it jumps up on it's feet and looks at us all. Scared, they drive off and leave us there!!!

Luckily in the commotion the lion decides it is all too much and walks right up to our vehicle and then past us...when we quickly clank the engine and drive off really quick!!!

Agh! It's hard to describe but it was a really scary experience and we were all shaking afterwards. THere were a few drinks at the bar!!!!!