Stayed at a campsite at the Amabere caves where our guide Wilson showed us the volcanic crater lakes and the locals catching grasshoppers which are in season after the November rains and are a highly-prized delicacy! There were grottos here.
Went on to the Kasenda volcanic crater lakes after crossing the equator just North of Queen Elizabeth National Park. There were black & white colobus monkeys and huge birds called the great blue Turaco. Met a Belgian couple, Marlene & Guy, who were overlanding in a South African bakkie (pick-up).
We noticed the fuel tank was leaking again, the third time from exactly the same place! We resolved to get it fixed again in Kampala.
Arranged Ethiopian visas in Kampala which was a fairly easy next-day service. We had hoped to get Sudanese visas in Kampala too but there is a 4 week delay!
Took George, the Landy to CMC in Kampala to have the fuel tank welded again. Eventually got it fixed after having to return because there was now a leak from the sender and the guage was malfunctioning (float stuck). They fixed the former but the latter is still a problem and they didn’t re-fit the tank properly despite two attempts. As seems to be usual in Africa lots of fuel spilt too!
Met Mark & Blanca at the Red Chilli Hideaway campsite, who are crossing Africa in a blue forward control Land Rover 101 called Grommet. They have been on the road for 14 months. We had seen the vehicle (somewhat unusual!) driving south to Livingstone from Lusaka and it turned out they were en-route to see John Finn of Livingstone 4×4 who we had previously met in Lusaka. Also met Tony again at Red Chilli.
The traffic in Kampala is crazy (Guy had warned us that it was a training ground for Cairo!). It took us over an hour to get out of the city.
We then headed to the Ssese Islands via the campsite at Musaka (where we met Patrick again who now claimed to be 12 years old and not 10!). We also met a Ugandan called John who lives in Royston and was visiting relatives for Christmas. We had an interesting and informative talk with him about Ugandan politics.
The Ssese Islands are reached via a free ferry which takes 50 minutes and seems to leave when it feels like it, early or late! It was an hours drive across the Island to the campsite run by Luke, a interesting ex-Pat Dutchman who had worked for many NGOs in Africa and had many tales to tell. The Island is lovely and is heavily wooded. The beach was fine white sand and there were lots of Pied Kingfishers hunting at the shore. We relaxed in hammocks in the shade near the beach.
Headed back to Red Chilli in Kampala for the night before heading off to Jinja and the source of the Nile. Here we stayed at the incredibly busy Nile River Explorers campsite and went white-water rafting on the river Nile. We have been rafting before in Peru and Nepal but nothing like this! We went through 4 grade 5 rapids and the boat overturned on 3 of them!! Even the safety boat over-turned twice, sadly injuring the guide who had two bad cuts to his face from the oars and was shaking badly in deep shock. This was a thought-provoking moment on the river for sure, as was the point when we stopped to walk around a grade 6 rapid (unsafe to run with the amount of water!) and a friendly local told me that someone had been drowned there the previous week (and said may god bless me when I returned to the boat to shoot the next rapid!). Lots of locals come to the River to watch the crazy Mzungus (white men) on the rapids. Being in the rapids after having been tipped out of the upturned raft could be quite scary when you went under and could see the daylight through the bubbles! We ceratinly swallowed a bit of the Nile between us! When you surface there are often a series of large waves to negotiate and you have to time your breathing between them. It is all done very safely though with many small manoevreable safety Kayaks to collect you if you are thrown away from the boat or can’t hold on to the raft in the current. It was great fun but I much prefer to stay in the Raft!! At times it does feel as if you are in a washing machine!! The grade 5 rapids were called wonderful names like Total Gunja, Big Brother, Overtime and Itanda (The Bad Place!). Overtime had a bad wave-trough named the G-spot which if you hit it, which of course we did, meant you were going to get a soaking for sure!
In the evening we watched a video taken of us during the day. This is when you really realise the size and power of the rapids you were riding earlier in the day! Sadly I didnt get any photos as I couldn’t take the camera. Good thing I didn’t too as the waterproof containers in the safety boat proved they weren’t really waterproof (lots of soggy cigarettes were smoked by our fellow rafters between rapids!).
Our guide said that the Ugandan government have given the go-ahead for a hydro-electric dam scheme which will probably destroy the rapids, seems amazing when it is the biggest tourist hot-spot in Uganda.