Death Cab Ride For Cutie

I've not heard much/any of Death Cab For Cutie but the title suits my experiences of today so I'm rolling with it.

Today's UGANTHEM..... It's in caps because it's a big tune.

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As I've said, nobody ever regrets waking up early, but I did seriously reconsider our decision when we woke up up at 4;45am this morning. The matatu driver met us at the hostel bang on 5;30am so it was a good job we sorted ourselves out last night. He'd obviously had far too much coffee to drink because he drove like an absolute nutter. I distinctly remember thinking 'If we roll over now then we're very definitely all dead' which doesn't make for the most comfortable of rides. The death ride journey took about 4-4.5 hours in total and Axel shared my experience of when we drove to Lake Albert to test our Longtail motor because the woman next to him spent the whole journey vomiting in to a bucket and periodically hurling it out of the window. Lovely.

We eventually rocked up at Hoima and we managed to escape the perils of having too many people piling in to our matatu on the way. They're designed to take 14 people so clearly Axel and Kris suffered the misfortune of having 27 people on one of their journeys.

We didn't fancy waiting 45 minutes for a Matatu to Masindi to fill up so we just grabbed a private hire (high-rollers!) that took us straight there instead. Obviously we didn't take the first offer we had because that guy had his whole extended family in the car/boor/passenger footwell and 3 weeks' luggage in the boot... I think he was travelling to Masindi and fancied trying to spread the cost of fuel with some passengers.

The road was a total POS but at least this guy wasn't trying to make the news by killing 3 Mzungu in a car crash. We did get pulled over the by the Police - yes, my heart skipped a beat or three - but they just waved us straight through after they saw it was Mzungu. The Police only try to rip off the locals, they never ask foreigners or travellers for bribes.

Alinda Guesthouse was our humble abode for the evening and it's a real nice place to stay. They recommended us a driver who's going to take us all around Murchison Falls and the National Park which is pretty tight.

We ate at Traveller's Corner which is pretty much the 'Little Rock' of Masindi. After lunch, Axel and I explored the town and the markets, which is where this photo was taken, whilst Kris stayed back and did something. It was sleeping or Interneting, can't quite remember.

After the market and our explore we just kicked back at the hostel and wrote some more Trog entries for previous days. The news was on the TV as we were writing and the fire at Westgate Mall in Nairobi was unfolding. We met a few people throughout the trip who had previously been in Kenya and they'd visited Westgate just a few days before the terrorist attack; they said it was quite haunting to know that nothing other than random events got them out of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As tomorrow was another start we just chilled in the hostel and watched the first episode of 'Suits' that I've had on my iPad for well over a year, haha. Axel had never seen it before, but the initiation was met with a warm reception which is even better considering he hates watching TV shows.

Peace

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The colours in this photo were so bright and vibrant, but the sky destroyed the picture so I decided to monochrome it. I loved the perspective of standing at the Rolex stand looking in to the market (we were waiting for food) and I thought a long-exposure, even a hand-held one, would come out quite nicely to try and depict the busy-ness of the goings on. Unfortunately as soon as you take a camera out everyone stands still! It took a few shots to get this, but I'm happy with the final results.