Monkeying Around in East Africa

Well, it was entirely by accident that our first weeks in Africa were dominated by exploration of the Nile River, but it has certainly made for a great trip. Right after landing in Uganda, we made our way out to the small town of Bujagali Falls. Our accomodation was a "luxury" tent that overlooked the White Nile only about five miles from where it empties out of Lake Victoria - an absolutely beautiful spot. (Thanks to Yve Heit & Adam Saville for telling us about it!)

As we hinted before, we had a fantastic whitewater rafting trip through tons of Class 4 & 5 rapids - much more extreme than any of our previous outdoor endeavors on this trip. We had a great crew paddling with us - a Lithuanian, his German wife, and a hilarious Irishman who recently quit his job as director of "fem care" marketing for Proctor & Gamble in Great Britain. Our guide was a very competent but slightly crazy Ugandan named Peter who liked to say things like, "In this rapid, it is 50% that we will go upside down." It turned out that his figures were surprisingly accurate, as we did do a lot of swimming on our trip down the river. Sadly, no pictures to share from this adventure, as the camera would have been a bit too waterlogged. But we do have a video to prove that we really did conquer the Nile by raft.

While in Bujagali Falls, we were excited about spending some time doing volunteer work with a local education organization. But, as often happens with short-term volunteer work, the organization couldn't put us to as much use as we had hoped. Still, it was great to see an organization at work and meet some of the students participating in their program. And, in the end, we did paint enough walls and haul enough woodchips to call it a good day's workout.

We spent a day in Kampala before undertaking a journey to Cyanika, a remote Rwanda-Uganda border crossing. This turned out to be our most 'Amazing Race'-esque adventure of the trip. We needed to cross the border by 5 pm and thought things would go smoothly when we set out from Kampala at 6 am. However, a broken fuel pump, an uncomfortable wait in a crowded mechanics lot, an argument about bus fares, and a speedy drive in a Toyota Corolla over 80 kilometers of nearly impassable dirt road found us running across the border at 4:58. And, in true 'Amazing Race' fashion, we arrived breathless on the Rwandan side of the border only to learn that there was an hour time difference. We could have stopped to use the bathroom after all...

Safely in Rwanda, we spent the next two days tracking the very cute golden monkeys and the utterly amazing mountain gorillas. It is impossible to explain what it was like to stand amidst the gorillas, but suffice to say that it was a magical experience. And, of course, we were relieved that they were too busy eating to recognize Sarah as one of their own and drag her off into the forest as we had feared. Phew, another primate kidnapping narrowly averted...

The rest of our time in Rwanda was spent touring Kigali and the incredibly well-done Genocide Memorial Museum. Obviously, the memories of the genocide are still very fresh for nearly all Rwandans, but they appear to be making a great effort to come to grips with what happened and to look toward the future with optimism. The Rwandans that we met were incredibly friendly and open, and it is hard to believe that such a terrible thing could have happened in such a beautiful country. The conclusion of the museum's exhibits put forth a hopeful message, and we can only share in the hope that Rwandans can truly make it work.

We must give a another shout-out to our friend Yve for putting us in contact with her wonderful friend Julie, who is living and working in Kigali. Julie kindly invited us to stay a night in her house and took us to the neighborhood bar where we were greeted with hugs and kisses and participated in an impromptu English lesson. It was a great end to that leg of our trip.

Now we are just wrapping up our first day of safari in Tanzania. We canoed in Arusha National Park, and Sarah successfully overcame her greatest fear of the whole trip - death by hippo.

We're having a tough time with pictures right now, but we have managed to add a few to some of our earlier posts, so scroll down for shots from Beijing & Egypt.


Sarah and Gus with gorillas. We have about ten thousand more photos of them. Some are eating, some are climbing trees, some are sleeping, some are picking their noses... Pretty much par for the course with mountain gorillas and we loved every minute of it.