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I’ve had so many fantastic experiences this week, but as usual the internet connection in Uganda is not one of them… have lots of pics I want to share with you, but it might have to wait until Monday when I should(!) have better connectivity.

But I’m doing well, Amos & I are still friends and I still have my big toe nails… so all good!

And already this morning I have had a lot of smiles…

• The way the rising sun colours the fluffy clouds a mix of orange and pink shades
• The young children’s big eyes and smiles when they wave a me and get a wave back
• The tarmac road with so many pot holes that people drive on a dirt road next to it… (more of an ironic smile!)
• 4 men on one boda boda!
• A baboon wandering in front of the car as if he owns the road
• The prospect of another game drive
• A male goat desperately trying to give a female goat a morning ‘surprise’ 😀

And on that note, I wish everyone a great and smiley weekend!

Getting out of Kampala was the first challenge…ended up with all my luggage on two boda bodas to reach where the rental car was waiting. But soon after we were on our way to Jinja – situtated at Lake Victoria and famous for being the source of the river Nile. More recently it seems to be the place to go in Uganda for extreme sports / water sports, so it’s full of young back packers who annoyingly party all night! (makes me sound old and grumpy, I know, but it was a right pain!)

Our tents overlooked the river and it was incredibly beautiful to just go for walks and enjoy the sunset! I also managed a quick swim although it cost me my sun glasses which are now at the bottom of the Nile!

Jinja, the town was nothing special – just a smaller version of Kampala – but we spent a morning there… Amos having a hair cut in the saloon (not a spelling mistake, that’s what they call it here…!) and I went shopping at the market. On my walk through town I got a companion, a young man who wanted to tell me all about this political party he wanted to start to try and reduce the corruption and killings happening in Uganda. He was talking quite passionately about the killings part…have no idea if there was any truth in it, though. Anyhow, quite an angry man for his young age!!

After a second almost sleepless night because of the heat and the noisy drunken backpackers, we got up early to get on the road north. Whilst brushing my teeth with the sunrise outside my tent, a young hungover (or most likely still drunk) guy came out from the hut above to pee over the balcony – totally naked 😳 He didn’t seem to notice me, and if he did, he didn’t care and just kept relieving himself! Gave me a good laugh anyway!

Right…after that, off we went! We followed the Nile north to Murchison Falls National Park. It was a long day of driving… and Amos did well on the really dodgy roads – I was glad I didn’t have to drive three! We just had one minor map reading / driving disagreements – seems that’s a universal thing… haha – but it was quickly resolved by asking a local boda driver!

The long drive was mainly filled with music and conversation (plus some silence when I fell asleep, which happened a few times – oops).

Whilst in Kampala I was preparing a playlist and asked Amos for some music wishes… I was totally speechless when he said Jim Reeves!! What?? Amos is 29… but it seems they used to sing some of his songs at school. Anyway that is now the reason why I have The Best of Jim Reeves on my iTunes!

During the drive I also found out that Amos’ favourite song at the moment is Major Lazer & MØ with Lean On… random!!

Other topics included sarcasm, flyovers & roundabouts and favourite foods!

Otherwise I just enjoyed seeing some of the country… one of the things that really struck me though, was how many children were out and about and therefore not at school – either playing, collecting water with their mothers or siblings or selling things at the roadside…

Amos told me that it’s expensive to pay for school for all children. He for example pays for his youngest sister, who is 11, to go to school. It costs around one million Ugandan Shillings a year which is not a lot of money to you and me (£225 p.a.) but if you consider that there may be 5-10 children in the family and that they normally just have 30-40,000 shillings to live of each week it is a lot! Therefore, many children never make it to school… and around 20-25% of the population is illiterate, majority of these women of course – fills me with sadness…

OK, so this is what I expect a ‘real’ African city to be like…pretty chaotic! In the centre the traffic jams are horrendous (Karen, do you remember how bad we thought the Vietnamese cities were…? This is ten times worse!) cars, boda bodas, people selling stuff and trucks everywhere… crossing the road is risky business.

All this traffic also makes the air quality very bad…no real fresh air and the heat doesn’t help (30+ degrees). Another irritant is the way that people just grab me because I’m white and they want to sell me something…that doesn’t happen in the villages!

So not really my kind of city although there are some very modern touches with fancy restaurants and nice hotels… Oh and some fantastic shop/restaurant names including the Jesus and Maria Supermarket, the Friendly Supermarket with friendly prices (yes, that is their slogan!!) and the Chilly Willy Restaurant. Ha!

Also, the city is still on high alert re terrorist attacks although it’s been a while since the last one – you’ll go through metal detectors and be searched for firearms etc at hotels, restaurants and big shops.

So after a couple of days in the city spent preparing for the road trip to other parts of Uganda, I was ready to get into rural Uganda again.

My friend Amos from the Big Beyond team is joining me… before Christmas I asked him to help put an itinerary together for me, but I was pleased when he said he’d take holiday and come along! In return I’m helping him do a business plan – so it’s a win-win!

It’s going to be a ten day road trip full of nature and animals including some chimpanzees hopefully!

And thereafter I’ll be back in the little community of Rubuguri for another four weeks of volunteering – am looking forward to the rural and super relaxed pace of life I so enjoyed there!

Wow, I really enjoyed the Namib Desert! Was sad to leave there, but elated that a lovely Scottish couple was so incredibly kind to give me a lift back to Windhoek. It saved me from another super expensive private transfer… Thank you, thank  you, thank you!

I know I say this everywhere I go… but it really was not enough time. I would have loved to go further north and further south to see more of the country and also just spend more time with some of the local people. I was for example shocked to hear that the unemployment rate is at 50% here and would have liked to understand more about why that is and how people cope.

But that’ll have to be next time, and I really hope there will be a next time… and if so I would rent a car – the roads are good and easy to navigate it seems, so if anyone fancies a road trip in Namibia in the next couple of years… let me know!?!

Now on to Johannesburg for a quick stopover before heading back to Uganda where I will spend the next six weeks.

 

Sunday 15th January 2017

5:30am, not quite awake but we’re off anyway…today to the Namib-Naukluft Park to experience the spectacular sand dunes up close!

As the sun rises we have entered the park and the red dunes are coming thick and fast. They all seem to have a number or a name. If a number it’s the amount of km it is away from the gate…which I guess makes sense although am not sureness why Dune 7 was in a totally different place to all these dunes… Odd!

After an hour’s time we arrived at the sand dune known as Big Daddy – the highest one in the area. And that is the one we are going to be walking up. I decided against going all the way to the top… would have been too hot plus I had plastered up my left toe nail so it wouldn’t fall off in the sand (it is very loose!) and the plaster was not holding very well in the sand. (Don’t see the nail lasting more than another few days to be honest 😐).

So went about half way up I guess… the sand was so incredibly soft and the views were stunning – I really enjoyed it!

The most fun was definitely getting down again, though! Decided to try and run it. Our guide Wilfred told me that I looked like a horse doing it, which I thought was bit harsh, but after watching the video he shot of me, I can see he was right! Haha! (Sorry I cannot share the video with you – not able to upload it with African internet speed sadly but if you want to see my horse impression when I get back, just say the word!)

With that run we ended up in what is called Dead Vlei – a big area where everything has been dead for 900 years because of new dunes cutting off the water supply. It was a beautiful place – the dunes didn’t look real somehow, was as if someone had painted them on! So utterly impressive!

After a nap in the afternoon and an attempt at packing I went to enjoy the Desert sunset one final time with a cold beer and the great company of our guide and some of the other guests…. and felt incredibly fortunate!

 

 

 

 

Saturday 14th January

As most of you know, a hot air balloon ride over the Namibian desert has been a dream of mine and on my bucket list for a while and today I managed to realise that dream.

Early start! Pick up at 5:40am by a lovely guy called Samuel and when I told him that this was on my list of stuff to do before I die. He looked at me with sadness in his eyes and asked ‘when are you going to die?’ I reassured him that there’s no set date which seemed to please him – bless him – haha! 🙂

We had the pleasure of watching the crew get the baloon ready – quite the effort!

There were sixteen of us in the basket plus our ‘pilot’ – think he is more accurately called a balloonist. And he was just great! Explained a lot about the landscape, the history of the desert and about hot air ballooning with a great sense of humour.

A few interesting facts for you…

• The sand dunes in the Namib Desert grow by about an inch every 100 years
• There’s water underground in the Desert but it has taken 20,000 years to reach there
• The hot air balloon we were in weighs 1,300kg

We spent just over an hour flying around… enjoying the stunning sunrise and the amazing vistas.

I cannot really explain how I felt hovering 1,000m above the Desert… definitely felt lucky and I became quite tearful (seem to have been crying a lot over the past few months – this ticking things of the bucket list is emotional stuff!!)  – tearful because I was realising a dream but also because I was not sharing it with anyone.

Later in the day I got annoyed with myself for feeling that it would have been more special if sharing it with another person… because of course I will always remember this day and it will always be super special… it was luckily the first time I have felt like that on my travels and hopefully also the last!

Anyway, after a very smooth landing, the crew packed up the balloon and we headed to a champagne breakfast that has been set up for us in the middle of the Desert! Surreal but totally wonderful.

Our balloonist (I think his name was Manny – but you all know how rubbish I am with names so it may not be, but let’s go with it) opened the first bottle of bubbles with a machete – impressive!  And he introduced the breakfast buffet with an African saying: ‘eat well today for you don’t know what will eat you tomorrow’. And we did eat very well indeed – it was delicious.

It was the perfect way to end an extraordinary and magical experience!

It took pretty much all day to reach the Atlantic Ocean from Etosha but at least the scenery that way was more interesting as we reached the edge of the Namib Desert.

We got the opportunity to stop a few places to buy local crafts and as much as I like to give back to the community by doing so, I felt the whole thing a little too staged…the way they were trying to ‘sell’ photos of themselves in their traditional outfits did not really appeal to me. And it made me think about how little we actually see of the ‘real’ Africa when travelling ‘just’ a tourist…and I felt really lucky to have been able to get closer to the communities, understand the people better and their challenges and cultures and knew then I’d made the right decision to return to Uganda for more volunteering during February.

After arriving in Swakopmund – which apparently means ‘diarrhoea mouth’ because of the smell from the ocean 😳 I started looking at the rest of my time in Namibia… I of course had to book that hot air balloon ride! And imagine my surprise and panic level when I found out that there was only two more days to do the balloon ride before they were closed for a month! I was lucky to get a space for Saturday, quickly booked a hotel close to the ballon place and then had to work out how to get to the desert at such short notice… the only way was private transfer…the most expensive taxi ride of my life! Yikes! But I had no choice…it’s on the bucket list!!!

The ride was pretty nice though – the landscape in the desert is extremely beautiful and when I arrived at the Le Mirage hotel I knew it would be special here… and I wm looking forward to a weekend of luxury in the most fantastic setting.

… oh and a group of giraffes is called a journey of giraffes if they are walking and a tower of giraffes if they are standing. And those are just a few of the things I have learnt these past few days which will come in handy when I go on the TV game show Pointless. (Jamie, don’t forget you’re coming with me!!! 😉)

I left Windhoek Tuesday morning together with a lovely group of people – two Finnish ladies, a Russian girl, an Italian girl, a man from the Philippines and our two guides from Chameleon Safaris, Alvin & Gideon. Although we have different backgrounds and ages I thought we had a really wonderful time together – one of the things I really enjoy by joining group activities like this is that you meet so many interesting people…

Anyway, it was a rather long and dull drive to get to Etosha National Park, no scenery as such and the main highlight was Alvin’s story about two hills lying right next to each other which were called the local word (which I cannot remember of course!) for buttocks…. I guess because they looked a bit like a bum, although a little uneven I must say! Apparently women used to walk in between the two hills in the hope of gaining larger buttocks – made me chuckle!

Etosha is a huge national park, with lots of different wildlife but because of the vastness the concentration of animals is not great and since it’s rainy season it was going to be even more difficult to see lots of animals because they don’t seek to the waterholes as much.

But over the two days I think we were pretty lucky with our sightings… here are my personal highlights.

More than one kind of zebra – who knew??
Well, I actually feel that I should have known this, but alas I learnt something else. These zebras were not just black and white, they were black, white and brown or more like bronze I think… so beautiful. Actually used to discard the zebra a bit on safaris, but have now become quite the zebra fan! When you really look, you see just how fantastic they are… and this type even more so, I think.

Leopard!
I have only seen a leopard in the wild once before – and that was on my very first safari in 2004 in Zambia, so it was a real treat to see one again… Alvin saw it sleeping behind some bushes by the roadside…amazing spot – so amazing that I forgave him for calling me Beti…! He told us that it was just his third leopard spot in two years, so we were very lucky indeed.

Black rhinoceros
I’ve waited thirteen years to complete the Big Five (Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard, Lion & Rhino) and had started to think it wasn’t going to happen… but it turns out rhinos for me are like London buses…wait forever for one and then several turn up at the same time. After the first day of safari we arrived at the Halali camp and I quickly bought a cold beer and headed to the watering hole, which was empty when I got there. So I focused on trying to take photos of the many wonderfully beautiful butterflies here (I failed!) when a rhino casually walked up to the water. I couldn’t actually believe it – just like that the search was over…. got quite emotional and shed a few tears.

After a while a second rhino arrived – I have no idea if they were male or female (apparently something to do with the size of their behind…seemed there was a lot of bum talk on our trip!) but they were amazing! What a privilege to be able to just sit there for over an hour and observe their behaviours. I in particular enjoyed the cute rubbing of their horns on the dead trees around the water hole and the way that they don’t just pee allowing gravity to immediately take over, but instead spray their pee behind them with the force of a water gun! Amusing!

And later that evening – after dinner and after being reminded to wear closed shoes after dark because of the scorpions (eeek 😳) – we quickly walked to the watering hole again and saw three rhinos just hanging out and seemingly getting ready to sleep… mesmerising!

Gourmet breakfast for lions
Wednesday morning bright and early… we missed the kill, but came across a pride of lions eating a zebra. Heartwarming in some weird way to see the rest of the zebra group (dazzle!) still standing around to mourn the death of their ‘brother/sister’… As a contrast it was rather exciting to see a bit of a kafuffle (is that the right spelling?) between two of the male lions – the roars were impressive!

Great white space
Is the meaning of Etosha and it is no surprise that this park is named after the vast ‘pan’ which is at the centre of it. It’s just barren land for as far as you can see…apparently this area was created during the ice age… Oh and the reason that the ground is so white is that there’s loads of calcium in it. Very impressive…I felt quite small and insignificant – actuallin the entire park…not just there!

And as another safari comes to an end, I think about how lovely it is that safaris can be special for so many different reasons… the types and numbers of animals you see, of course, but also the landscape and the setting, the knowledge you acquire and the people you meet… and this one had a bit of everything and I’ll of course never forget where I saw my first rhino!

‘How about’ is the African way of asking what you think of something… so what do I think of the Namibian capital?

Well… it’s not the most impressive place to be honest. If I didn’t know I was in Africa it could be any city in the world really. Doesn’t really look like Africa…

And initially it didn’t feel like Africa either but that was until I started meeting the people… they are of course super lovely and friendly like everywhere else on this continent.

Yesterday (Sunday) was just dead in the city, though. It felt a bit like a ghost town – seems that nobody leaves their houses or maybe they are at church…and all shops are either closed all day or close at midday. So I just went for a wander and all of a sudden I was walking down Robert Mugabe Avenue! How the hell has he deserved a road being named after him?!?!!? (turns out that he and the previous president of Namibia were ‘buddies’ and there’s a street named after Samuel Nujoma in Zimbabwe! 🙄)

Today was a lot busier, and more interesting, but as there are not really any sights or attractions in the city as such, I decided on a visit to the national museum which was opened three years ago and is supposed to tell about Namibia’s history and it’s way to independence. But sadly they have not done a brilliant job of it. I actually got more out of the three pages in my Lonely Planet guide – although some of the pictures were quite good…it just didn’t grab me as a story. One thing that did surprise me was how recent Namibia achieved its independence – 1990! I just don’t remember hearing or reading anything about it so just assumed it was longer ago.

After the museum I went to Joe’s Beer House – recommended by pretty much everyone I encountered. And it didn’t disappoint – I had a wonderful evening chatting to a few Namibians (two Man U fans and a Chelsea fan of course!), drinking Namibian beer and having the most delicious dinner I have had for a long time (excluding xmas dinner) – oryx fillets. So tasty – better than beef fillet in my opinion. If you don’t know what an oryx is, see pic below…

It was really insightful to talk to the locals about the Namibian culture e.g. opinions around eating dogs, donkeys and zebras, about homosexuality which is legal here and they seemed to be OK with same sex couples as long as they were female 🤔, about religion and current politics…seems that there’s still high levels of corruption here…but that does actually not surprise me considering that the country is so young.

So definitely a great day… now ready for a good sleep as well! Night night!

Sunday 8th January 2017

Thursday I headed to Heathrow T5 – very excited about returning to Africa, but turned out to be a false start. Flight to J’burg got cancelled so it was Saturday before I finally arrived in Windhoek, Namibia – 24 hours later than planned.

It was a long trip as well…not improved by spilling a gin & tonic on myself only an hour into the first flight, breaking the zip on my hand luggage bag and having an uncountable number of children screaming on the overnight leg.

Therefore, I have done little else than sleep since I got here. But today’s mission has been to plan my time here which seems to be difficult on a Sunday… and looks like I’ll probably won’t fit everything in, but then I have an excuse to come back, I guess!

What I do know is that I will be heading on a three day safari on Tuesday to Etosha National Park – and they have rhinos… 🦏🦏🦏  So keep your fingers crossed for me that I will finally be able to complete my Big 5!

Now out for a quick walk… It’s supposed to be rainy season now and it did rain overnight  but today there are clear blue skies, plenty of sunshine and 34 degrees celcious.