Back in Uganda

After the gorillas we drove back across the Ugandan border and stayed Thurs night at a campsite in Fort Coleb. The owner of the campsite arranged for a group of 50 local orphans to perform a show that night. The highlight of that campsite were the showers which were just like those on M*A*S*H. On Friday we drove to Mbarara and on Sat drove to Kampala (capital of Uganda) and stayed at a campsite called Red Chilli. We experienced our first night out in Uganda and went to Al's Bar to celebrate our drivers birthday. Was a great night with all the western classics being played and all the working girls were out in force. On Sunday we went to a resort called 'Hairy Lemon', which is on an island in the middle of the Nile River. It was established three years ago by an ex overland safari driver. In terms of accomodation it is the highlight to date. We crossed the river by canoe to a little inlet which had a volleyball net in the water. We had an awesome stay and will post pictures soon. On Monday we drove east to the adventure capital of Uganda, Jinja, where we camped at the NRE Jinja. This place is on the banks of the Nile River with the showers overlooking the river. Once we had pitched our tents we spent the afternoon visiting 'Softpower' education facilities (UK charity). First was a preschool for local children and then we visited a new centre being constructed. The third place we visited was a primary/intermediate school where we helped paint a classroom for a few hours. We tried to teach the kids to play hacky sack and then headed back to camp. On Tuesday we went whitewater rafting down the nile. This was our second highlight of the trip after the gorillas. We went over a few grade two and three rapids to warm up and then hit a couple of HUGE grade fives. The worst rapid (apart from the last) was G-Spot which flipped the raft and threw us into a huge standing wave which put everyone under the water for 10 seconds. Saftey kayakers were on hand so they picked us up as we popped up. We rafted 30km down the Nile and a lot of that was spent floating in the water in our lifevests (watching out for croc's). We had previously heard about the last rapid being commercially un-raftable (grade six) so as we pulled up we had to carry the rafts around to a spot further down the river to hit a rapid called The Bad Spot (grade five) which then threw you into another rapid called Another Spot (grade five). Only one girl from our raft pulled out leaving six of us plus the guide. After surveying the rapid we jumped in and paddled hard to hit The Bad Spot which as expected flipped us and held everyone underwater for a while. Anna popped up with a few scraps as the force was enough to push you to the bottom. Everyone scrambled for a safety kayak and I had to climb a cliff to get back to the main track. We finished up with a hour long drive to camp and a few beers that night. We stayed in Jinja Tues night and on Wed we started our journey to the Kenyan border to a town called Eldoret. Will try post photos soon.