Our last few days in Uganda were spent relaxing at the beautiful Lake Bunyonyi- 'the place of many little birds.' There, we walked through the local villages, visited the most wonderful grandma on top of a hill, with her pot-bellied grandchildren, dirty and grimey, who hit their pig out of boredom. A place that is so rich in beauty, fresh water and fertile ground, is home to people of such poverty. One girl we met wasn't at school because her grandmother was at the market trying to earn enough money for her transport costs. She dreamt of being an artist. In Europe, we would pay good money to live somewhere like that, but there they struggle to get by each day. With a land so fertile that "anything you put in the ground will grow", it is a bit of a mystery to me as to why poverty is so rife. Land ownership perhaps?

Steering a dugout canoe is also a mystery to me. We managed to avoid a "Mzungu corkscrew", but our passage through the water was anything but fluid. After zigzagging to a 'quiet' island (which turned out to be the home of about 30 children from the orphan school, who jumped on us demanding money, food, balloons, balls and trying to scare us with freshly caught crayfish on our faces), we were pleased to beat the rain back home to our lakeside treehouse and a good cup of tea.

It rained a lot. Uganda is not disimilar to Scotland in that it is cold, wet, mountainous, beautiful and sells all it's electricity to neighbouring countries. We were hoping to visit an island market, but arrived just as another storm started, so the market was speedily and efficiently packed away, and we were herded into a little room with slanted wooden benches for an hour, together with about 20 others including a pygmy couple who danced and sung for us (later requesting money, only from us, which we failed to give them much to their disgust). The market appeared again as the sky brightened, and the buyers arrived in dugout canoes, as those already there began bailing out the foot deep water in theirs.

The easiest way to our next destination, Tanzania, was via Rwanda, which was a very interesting 24 hours, mainly spent discovering the history. A beautiful country with a free visa- a place I'd happily visit again properly.