Caught between a rock and The Bad Place

The Gorilla Trek had the feeling of the climax of the Uganda section of our trip, which it probably was, but the days following it have certainly measured up.

The day following the gorilla encounter, we headed a few hours west to Lake Bunyoni, hailed as "Uganda's Switzerland". There was not a Swiss Army Knife nor a block of cheese to be found (unfortunately for Mar), however we could see what they meant. The lake itself was enormous - it took us a good hour just to drive halfway around it - and it was surrounded on all sides by mountains. Stunningly beautiful. We were greeted by a two hour downpour (hello early rainy season), but it ended in time for us to walk around to the nearest village, see some of the local kids do a traditional dance, and we even managed to get a free boat ride back to our camp from some Slovenian missionaries (I think they liked the fact that we had been to their home country).

The next day we made the long drive to Jinja, long beloved by limerick writers needing a place that rhymes with "ninja". Not too much to report that day, but the following day we had perhaps our most thrilling day of the trip so far - white water rafting on the Nile River. Having little to no rafting experience, we were quite surprised to find that we would be tackling a number of Level 5's along the way. But we went along, and despite flipping the boat a few times, we survived with just a few scratches and a solid sunburn. Thankfully our guide decided to skip the Level 6 rapid known simply as "The Bad Place"... good call. So we had a fantastic time along a beautiful stretch of the Nile, and we met some great people. We even thought about heading back out today, but decided to relax, read, and nurse our sunburns with some cold bottles of Nile Beer instead. A wise choice, I think.

The pictures above are of Lake Bunyoni and rafting - Colin's in the back with the black helmet and Mar is the one near the center of the boat cowering in fear of losing a contact lens. And scroll down to see some more photos we uploaded today.

Tomorrow we leave Uganda to back to Kenya. It's 3 or 4 consecutive camping days ahead, so it may be a while until our next post. We hope all our family and friends are doing well... take care!