12. Uganda - Tuesday 13th October

Up at 4.30 a.m. today for our trip to the Equator and Lake Mburo National Park. Most of us got some sleep during the 3 hour drive to the Equator. There was a small cluster of shops around the sign and there was a painted 0 degrees line. The coolest thing was the three basins ( one North, one South, and one on 0 degrees). We were shown that to the north of the equator the water swirls clockwise as it drains away, to the south it swirls anti-clockwise, and on the equator it drains straight down with no swirling at all. Amazing - the three basins were only a few feet apart! 

We had breakfast in a lovely wee cafe and I gave out the malaria tablets - I usually give them out at breakfast at Luwero, but they need to be taken with food so I had to bring them with me today, and I checked my bag about five times to make sure that I hadn't forgotten them!

In the cafe we saw a little tortoiseshell kitten - I mentioned to Gabriel that I haven't yet seen a cat in Uganda and he was surprised - the Luwero community cat is called Sumta and she is black and white - I showed Gabriel a picture of Tom and he confirmed that she looks like him. I haven't seen Sumta because after eating all the rats in the main house she has now moved on to other houses to continue her rat killing career.

After another 3 hours in the bus we arrived at Lake Mburo National Park which is about 120 km south west of Kampala. It was amazing. We saw monkeys, zebra, giraffes, warthogs, buffalo and antelopes. Gabriel told us that if the weather hadn't been so dry recently we might also have seen elephants and lions, however they have moved to the swamps which are further away from the roads. But I'm really happy with what we saw; I was so excited to see all those animals, especially zebras and giraffes.

We then went on a boat trip on Lake Mburo which was a very special experience; we saw beautiful kingfishers and big fish eagles but the highlight had to be the hippopotami. Their big heads would suddenly appear above the water and look around before slowly sinking down again. We were really close to them: there were several big groups. 

We had lunch in a restaurant overlooking the lake; the food was very simple but the setting was fantastic and the wooden building was painted in zebra stripes!

For the last part of our visit to the national park, a park ranger joined our bus and gave us some information about the wildlife that we passed. For example she told us that the white spotted bushback (deer) is an endangered species. She pointed out topies and said that they are the fastest antelopes. And the big deer that we saw are called waterbacks who are good swimmers

As we left the national park at about 6 p.m. we passed lots of little villages surrounded by fields of banana trees - this is a cash crop in western Uganda. Groups of little children cheered and shouted as our bus went past. 

When we stopped for petrol on the way north we bought a bag of roasted bananas from some street vendors - there are nine types of banana in Uganda and one type is specifically for roasting. It would be ok to eat raw when it's very ripe but is better roasted. I quite liked it but George said that he prefers his bananas raw. 

We passed the end of the (nicely tarmaced!) road that leads to the President's private residence. There was a police car there for security. The Ugandan elections are in a few weeks and the President is expected to be re-elected. He has been in power for thirty years but although he is less popular than in earlier years, because of corruption and sending Ugandan troops into Somalia, there is apparently no strong opposition.

The journey home to Luwero was lengthy and not without incident. Four hours into the journey - and still south of Kampala - the bus developed a fault with the fuel pump and we had to stop. After a bit of a wait a mechanic appeared and examined the engine. Much discussion, footering and revving ensued. It turned out that the fuel pump was jammed with part of plastic bag (that had been used as a temporary fuel cap) that must have been sucked in during refuelling. The mechanic repaired it and after an hour or so we were off - but 15 minutes later the bus broke down again. It was another bit of plastic bag. After another hour's delay for more repairs we were finally on the way home. Everyone slept on and off during the journey and I was certainly fast asleep for the last couple of hours, so when I woke up we were arriving at the house, much to my delight. It was now 4 a.m. so we had been travelling for 22 hours, of which about 13 were spent driving and 2 broken down! Deborah and Bush were very kindly waiting up to welcome us. All the pupils headed to bed straight away and George and I relaxed for five minutes with a wee cup of tea!