The roads the roads they made me deaf you know....

So we have made it into Ethiopia the hassle with the visas has proved worth the wait! we left Jinja and crossed into Kenya we then drove for 4 solid days not fun if you have ever seen the roads in the north of Kenya you will know what I'm talking about but although the driving is hard the scenery is spectacular and changed every day ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! we arrived into Moyale and spent the next day driving to Aber Minch stopping off in a real traditional market where i got shoes made from tyres! and LP got a chicken and 1L of the local spirit for his birthday (fortunately the chicken was just on loan so after a pat it was returned to his owner and even more fortunately for him the spirit was tipped out 'by mistake') the day got exciting when we got 2 flat tyres! (driving at a ridiculously low speed how does that happen?....4 days on northern Kenyan roads wearing them down that's how!) the next day we drove into Addis Abbaba where we ARE IN A HOTEL!!! we had a traditional meal complete with injera (a spongy sort of pancake that tastes quite vinegary nice dipped in sauce its Ethiopia's answer to rice) today we spent the morning sorting out our Sudanese visas we pick them up tomorrow then its onwards and northwards.....

a little community spirit

So we are now on day 4 of being stranded in Uganda and not looking like we will be moving on for another few days yes the view and surrounding scenery is stunning yes the locals are amongst the loveliest people I've ever met yes the sun is shining but despite all these checks on the checklist boredom is beginning to set in to be fair there are only so many days you can sit and read then sit and chat then sit and blog come on passports! luckily today we were rescued bySoftpower an NGO here in Uganda and a registered charity back in the UK today we spent the day out at Matai primary school re-painting it in a beautiful deep red....along with painting myself in the same colour...(of course i didn't actually paint myself but i am covered in splatter!) at 9am this morning Kibiina picked us up from the campsite...(along with the long term volunteers)...and we walked though the village to the Softpower pre-school there are 3 classrooms there the oldest kids are 5-6 we went into their classroom and we introduced ourselves and the kids sung us songs then we moved onto the offices and and resource centre where there is a library a drama centre and a demonstration garden where kids can learn new agricultural techniques there is also a health centre and a brand new family planning clinic opening this month we got a full tour of all the facilities and then looked through the craft shop...(where i brought a little fabric giraffe to be friends with my little fabric elephant)... then we jumped on board the truck and drove for about half an hour to the school where we painted our little hearts out....listening to the lessons going on inside ...(i learnt what a preposition a noun and and a verb are...yeah i don't think i actually went to primary school)...when the kids stopped for lunch they surrounded us wanting to know our names they all sat watching us paint...(literally watching paint dry hehe)...we painted till about 1.30pm when we stopped for a delicious meal of chipatis rice beans and sweet potato we all visited for a while and Kibiina told us all about growing up in Uganda it was all really interesting then we brought a t-shirt as a donation to the charity and took a photo in front of our freshly painted wall then jumped back on the truck 'home' if we are still around Friday we may help out again....AMAZING day....great way to pass the time....

Google Putzi fly...its not pretty!

So yesterday LP was feeling miserable.... his own fault of course....he was nursing a chronic hangover it was a big night that i don't remember...mostly because i wasn't there...and that he doesn't remember due to the copious amounts of tequila he consumed! anywho yesterday afternoon his day got even worse he had seven "spider bites" five on one arm one on his stomach and one on his head above his eye....(which swelled right up making him look half Asian giving him the new nickname Li) anywho again turns out they wernt spider bites they were Putzi fly larvae that's right LP had maggots in his arm...they lay their eggs on wet clothes.. (laundry) and then when you wear the clothes they burrow in and feed we had to cover them over with Vaseline to suffocate them and when they wriggled to the surface squeeze them like a big zit then pull out the offending maggot with tweezers quite a gruesome thing really and very pain filled LP described them as little hot needles wiggling in and out!...so word from the now wise make sure laundry is in full sunlight and if it doesn't get sun blasted don't wear it for at least five days!...we do of course have photos and i also believe that Mark has a little baggy of the maggots kicking about somewhere!....

a little catch up...

So we are still in Uganda now in Jinja just chilling and waiting till our passports arrive back from Australia where they have been sent to get Ethiopian visas we should be here about 4ish days its a beautiful spot overlooking the Nile so not a bad place to wait it out....

when we left Kampala we headed up to Kibale Forrest national park where we walked and walked and walked the first day there we got up earlyish and took a walk along the edge of the national park looking out for some animals monkeys mostly we were well rewarded we saw 3 species the red tailed monkey the red colobus monkey and the blue cheeked mangabe we walked for about 2.5 hours and had just got back when it was announced that there were free chimp permits for the afternoon trekking so we wolfed down a super speedy lunch and headed into the national Forrest where we spent about 4 hours trekking these amazing primates we saw 2 family groups all females and young one group was a female and 3 of her offspring ranging in age from 11 to a tiny 4 month old baby! we sat and watched them for about an hour before heading deeper into the Forrest where we saw another 3 chimps we watched these for about 25 mins as we had to head back to camp they were so lovely but as it was the heat of the day not very active mostly just slowly eating and grooming! then we got back to camp where we sat for about an hour when it got dark we headed out on a night walk we saw a tiny bush baby and a load of frogs spiders and other creepy crawlys! when we got back to camp we were invaded by safari ants so all the tents had to be surrounded by paraffin and we couldn't shower as they were blocking the path there! the next morning we got boda bodas (motorbike taxis) into town to the Bogodi wetland sanctuary to go bird/monkey watching there are 8 species of primate in the wetlands and we saw 6 of them red tailed monkey, red colobus monkey, black and white colobus, lo'hoest monkey,olive baboons and ververt monkeys we also saw a Jameson's mamba it was huge and right above Sam's head! that afternoon we were all walked out so just chillaxed until evening when a local music group came and performed for us it was a really diverse group from wee kids to well the opposite haha! it was really fun and we got up and had a bit of a dance with them...

next day we left Kibale Forrest and headed to Murchison falls the biggest rapid on the Nile and the most powerful waterfall in Africa we had three days there mostly sitting around as it was intensely hot we did take a boat trip up the river to the falls and a game drive through the national park which was really cool and we got 2 more monkeys a sub species of the vervet monkey called the tantalus monkey which was in the campsite and a patas monkey in the national park along the river we also saw a ton of wildlife...and a boat full of....Japanese tourists!

we left Murchison and spent night in Masinda camping in the garden of the Masinda hotel that's right the Masinda hotel the one where the queen stayed along with the cast of river queen heck yes!

and now we are in Jinja just passing the time.....