A Refreshing View of The Truth

Today's Uganthem... Prepare to have your mind blown

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It was actually a relatively chilled start to the morning today; waking up at 7am for breakfast at 7;30 (only 30 minutes to get food?! Unheard of!) and our boy Mohammed picking us up at 8am. The drive was long and the sunset mediocre, but when we got to the road we were aiming for the vista totally justified everything. Bradt guidebook described the road as the most scenic in West Uganda and they were spot on. We got some excellent views on the landscapes and one or three shots of a local fishing village, which is where this shot was taken.

I'm going to take a minute here and interject with what I referred to in the Uganthem; the thing that I think will blow your mind.... Obviously the 'waves' in this photo are fishing nets laid out to dry behind the boats. If you look closely - and the same thing occurred to me when I saw them - then you might be forgiven for thinking that they look like mosquito nets. They are. Charities in the UK are sending over mosquito nets to Uganda to protect the locals from malaria and it's necessary as most of the locals live with malaria. However, the first thing they do with the mosquito nets that arrive from The West is stitch them together and make fishing nets out of them. They fish Nile Perch in Lake Albert, but because they use mostly paddle-powered fishing boats they fish near the shore which is where young Nile Perch live. The local fish stock is being destroyed because the Nile Perch never grow up and get old enough to reproduce and move in to the deeper waters found further from the beaches.

Nothing in International Development is ever as simple as it first appears.

Like I said, the views from this road were phenomenal - sprawling landscape, and then in the far distance just a finger of land stretching out into the abyss of Lake Albert; seemingly unending save for a smear of land on the distant horizon: The Democratic Republic of Congo.

On entering the park we made our way to Red Chilli to check0in and drop our bags. We then nailed it down to the ferry to cross the Nile and do our evening game drive. The evening game drive was mostly cob, water buck, warthogs and buffalo, but as we thundered along a remote track, Axel spotted some giraffe chilling out about 40 meters from the road so pulled up to pap them. They were distant, so lots of the detail and texture wasn't visible but their mannerisms were very funny and seeing them from afar allowed them to act very naturally. It was my first wild spotting so I was very happy.

Red Chilli hostel was the first one we stayed in where it hadn't been either a) totally empty or b) completely lacking in Mzungu so it was quite a novelty. The foot also looked awesome so we ordered a plate and got the beers in. Everyone else went to be really very early but we stayed up talking, listening to (and discussing) music and watching the lightening light up the sky whilst the rain poured down.

A great night.