15 July, Day 32: To Murchison falls

Annelie is feeling better today, which is great. She slept a lot better too, we all did. The camp is up and ready to go by 09:00 and we head out to the Murchison falls National park.

And, it’s Marietta’s birthday today! Cheers and congrats all round. Marieke and Dirk hung flowers on Mattie and Marietta’s tent, and her birthday gift was a 2 Stoney Ginger beers (her favourite) wrapped in plastic with flowers. Very cool :)

Stop off at the shopping complex to buy lots of drinking water and pick up a new MTN simcard, which I can hopefully use for 3G access. On the road again!

TRAFFIC!! Oh my Lord, the Traffic. Grid lock, morning traffic, absolute bedlam and chaos. Bouda-Bouda’s overloaded with furniture stacked 2 meters high, sugarcanes, planks, people, you name it. Traffic wardens trying to direct it all, the 4 4x4’s (Powered by Souf Afrikan driving Vernuf) give as much as we get (that’s is, not a single inch!) in this madness). Fanie gets reproached by a traffic warden: “We drive in a single lane here!”. Clearly she needs to open her eyes a bit more, I see 4 lanes in this round about (which I have aptly renamed a “circus”, since that’s what they’re called in London, and it seems more fitting).

Slow going to get out of Kampala, but we make it eventually (not before a pit stop for Annelie). Off we go, with a sigh of relief. Beautiful fresh asphalt all the way and we cruise along at 120km/h. Then something strange happens. I radio over the 2-way about these strange white marks on the shoulder of the road, every 10 meters. Probably nothing, may be a construction artefact. A few kilometres further, we discover the answer. Speed bumps. Speed bumps, every 10 meters, without fail, for what was going to be 6 kilometres. WTF?

Ingenious, that’s what. As Dirk aptly put it: “Say what you want about these bumps... they WORK”. The intention was clearly to slow down traffic for the construction crews downstream. They really did work. But we were well tired of them after about 1 km!!

We eventually adopt a slalom technique, where we veer right to left, left to right to drive over the bumps diagonally. This worked out quite well, and we managed an even pace, other traffic notwithstanding.

Turn off the sexy asphalt onto a dirt road that’s a little worn by weather. Arrive at the gates to the park were we’re taken to town again, $210 per vehicle to enter, but we stay for 3 nights. Again they have issue with $100 US dollar notes with a series date of earlier than 2004. Again we argue that it’s legal tender. Again we get stonewalled. Again we have to swap them out for other currency.

Anecdote: when travelling Africa, exchange LOTS of US dollars, so you don’t run out like we did. And make sure they’re all of a series later than 2004. Unless, of course, you enjoy arguing with underpaid government officials...

Enter the park and we’re treated to a beautiful drive through thick forests creating a dense canopy over the bright red, dusty road. Starts to rain too, which makes it even more interesting and beautiful. See lots of baboons, warthogs and antelope.

We arrive at the Nile River Lodge (not to be confused with any of the other Nile river lodges around here). Mattie would like to stay in a lodge and treat Marietta on her birthday. No luck, all the lodges this and the other side of the Nile are fully booked. We arrive at the Red Chilli camp (yeah, it’s a franchise). No bars or Mosques or dogs around. Good start. Crappy camp site though. Speak to Andy, the manager about boat trips on the Nile and safaris etc, and book a sunset cruise to the falls tomorrow.

All done, we opt for the Nile River Lodge’s campsite. Nice grassy patch on a hill, 5 mins walk from the lodge (and use of the bar), with a staggering view of the Nile! But, it’s going to be very very hot up here, good reason to break out the gazebo I’ve been lugging around all this time. There is a shower and toilet off to one side, boxed in with green corrugated zinc sheets. Very... interesting.

Spot LOADS of hippos in the water and you can hear their calls all the while. There are 2 other campers here, their tent off to one side.

Our guard this evening, Sidilla who will be looking out for us tonight. Dirk and Marieke breaks out the deboned lamb joint for this evening’s meal, and I bake a 1KG beer bread. This takes about 2 hours to bake, since I used to bigger cast iron pot. Doh! No matter, we have the fresh bread with apricot jam as desert, and there’s a lot leftover for breakfast tomorrow. We share some with Sidilla. The 2 other campers arrive back, they’re from Sweden. I share some of our bread and jam with them too.

Off to bed, to the soothing sounds of Hippos, Fish Eagles and the Nile thundering in the distance.

Highlights: Beer bread!

This view!

Hippos!

[G & A], out

The wheels on the bus goes round and round