The alarm was set for 420 ready to leave at 5. Most of us were not best pleased so hoped the walk would be worth it. It was a dark drive down bad roads to Lake Mburo National Park but on the way we were told we could opt out of the walk if we wanted to and 7 of us took up the offer. I decided to opt out as it would be a good opportunity to relax, walk around for a bit on my own and get a head start on preparing food for everybody else. As we found out later it also gave us an extra $40 refund at the end of the trip.
We set up everything that was needed for lunch next to the entrance to the park and then went on a nice little free walk just outside the boundaries of the park ourselves. We saw Zebra, Warthog, Waterbuck, Cows, several species of birds, monkeys and Lida was also fortunate enough to see a Klipspringer. After finishing the walk we started setting up for breakfast.
Breakfast was ready very early as the others arrived back almost 90 minutes later than planned. By that time we had already had our breakfast, which turned into brunch, so that we could pack up ASAP when the others had eaten and had also had a long conversation about various topics with the guards from the entrance.
We had no time for lunch so stopped at the side of the road for kebabs – I’m not sure what meat they were but they were hot and fresh. Plus it was nice to try something from the side of the road as we had seen so many places like that throughout the trip. Earlier I recommended not buying things from the side of the road but these seemed hot and were fully cooked.
Later in the day we stopped at the equator to take some photos and stop for shopping. I stocked up on supplies, including a Mzungu t-shirt and Uganda sticker for the front of Oscar (Al wanted one from each of the three countries as Oscar was being retired to the Gorilla route after our trip and I wanted to leave my mark on the vehicle). There was also a nice coffee shop where we stopped for a few minutes. [Update 2013 – I’ve found out the sticker is still on Oscar even after 18 months of travelling around India and Nepal]
We didn’t have time to stop at Kampala due to the delays at the park and arrived late at Jinja which meant there wasn’t any time to make a proper dinner so we made tomato soup with bread before sitting at the bar for a few drinks before heading to bed at around 11pm.
