Uganda

Oct 24th ; We left Kinigi Village and went into town to fill up with fuel.
Fuel tank over full AGAIN we went in search of the border.
The border crossing at Cyanika was a normal crossing, and we were through and off again within 45 mins.

I must say that the people in Uganda have been very surly. We have been waving as normal and we have had blank stares in return!!
Oh well, carry on driving, they can't all be that bad - can they?!
YES they can! The only time we got a wave from someone, it was closely followed by them chasing us up the road shouting "mzungu give me money NOW".
So far the impression of Uganda is not good.

The roads have not helped our opion either. They have varied from good dirt road to very bad rocky washed away dirt road in a matter of 5km's! Oh and the roads from the border are not flat either, they climb and drop from 1000m to 2500m!!!

We arrived at the first major-ish town after the border and are greated by potholed tar!!!
This lovley road continued for the rest of the drive to Masaka (200km's away!)

Now this is just the roads and the poeple on the side of the roads, the drivers are a whole other kettle of fish!
I have never felt like we were about to written off and die so often as I have driving today!!
At one point we were turning a blind corner on an up-hill and ware greated by a coach coming the other way, on our side of the road, at speed. The best of it was HE did not move we had to swerve off of the road to avoid being hit!

Just when we though that the driving could not get any worse we drove into one of the worst thunder storms I have seen in a very long time!!!
We were crawling along at 10km's an hour and could just see the road infront of us.
The rain, however did not seem to have and effect on the Ugandian drivers. They carried on driving as if they were trying to win the Paris-Dakaar rally!!!

Finally after a very stressful and heart stopping dirve we arrived at Masaka Backpackers and Cottages around 7pm. The owners are very nice, and as we are very knackered had had more than enough for one day, we took one of the rooms in the backpackers.

Whilst Patrick was signing the visitors book I look over the last few names entered, only to find that the Canadian family and Dutch man we had travelled the West Coast with were here last week!!!!

It is a very small world after all.

Oct 25th ; After a good nights sleep we went through and had some coffee with the owners of the backpackers then it was time to hit the road again.
Back onto the rough potholed hell that are the roads through Uganda!!!
Between Masaka and Kasama we crossed the equater and entered the Northen Hemisphere again.
However the roads did not improve until we got to Kampala BUT the traffic made our going even slower!!

All in all it took us 8 hours to get from Masaka to Jenja - all 250km's of it!!!!!!!
By the time we arrived in Jenja we had both had enough of African roads, African cities and travelling!!!!!!!!!!!

To try and calm down we went to see the Source of the Nile River in Jenja. It was beautiful, just what was needed after a very bad drive.

From here we went out to Nile Perch Explorers Campsite for the night. As we turned into the carpark, there infront of us was the big yellow tortoise which carries Keeses and the Watkins family around!!!!!!!!!
We could not believe it, we had caught up with them!
After alot of hugs and kisses, we got a cold beer and settled down to catch up with all of the gossip.

They told us that Ben was in Nairobi ready to run his next marathon tomorrow.
We got his number and gave him a ring to wish him good luck. Patrick and Ben arranged that we would try and catch up with him tomorrow to celebrate the marathon.

We went to bed early, because if we were to get to Nairobi we would have got get up and go very early.