On average, a Ugandan gets bitten by a mosquito 1629 per year, the highest statistic in Africa. The average person get Malaria 5 times a year: the more impoverished are more susceptible and young people in school can get Malaria every few weeks. It costs about $16 to get a blood sample taken and tested at a clinic, get medication and painkillers and go home, i.e. the cheapest and most common way to treat it. There are 30 million people living in Uganda spending on average $80 per annum on Malaria treatment. That is a total of $2.4 billion per annum. People don't have the money to treat or the means to prevent it which is why malaria still kills many more people than AIDS and it's the young and malnutritioned that are affected the worst.

We heard on Al Jazeera this morning that Uganda is the most corrupt country in the world. This statistic is probably itself corrupted by the greater freedom of speech the Ugandan press enjoy to release damning reports on its government. People all over Africa think Mr Zuma is joke especially after his latest romance. They also seem to know about Mr Malema and his rise and apparent fall from grace. However, politics in South Africa is mickey mouse since in Uganda the opposition party are getting sorted out daily with tear gas, the president is consideration changing the constitution to continue for a sixth term in office and a few hundred kilometres away there is a warlord in the DRC seemingly helped by the Rwandan government in armed clashes with the DRC army.

This malaria information and statistics we got from Anthony Esenu who met us at the Serena hotel in Kampala, the smartest of a number of upmarket central Kampala hotels. We waited in the lobby for him but Ant was easily traceable as the "guy who came in in shorts" in this smart establishment (the US government were have a meeting there at the same time). Anthony, the Chairman of Earthwise, took us through to the house we were staying and really gave us a good introduction to Uganda.

The road got progressively better out of Tororo, but the potholes that conquered us the night before continued for another 50km. This made the roads in Uganda the worst we'd come across as nothing yet had potholes a foot deep with rim-breaking potential. The next major town is Jinja, famous as the source of the Nile flowing from Lake Victoria. There is nothing really to make of another dusty African town although the tourism relies on a bungee jump from the Adrift campsite and the white water rafting. The bungee jump is not amazing compared to Storm's River and Vic Falls, just a cantilevered platform off a cliff to the river below. The rafting however is only one of two places (the other is the Colorado River) with category 6 rapids, they can't be used commercially. The rafting does go over category 5 rapids and probably the best in the world. But unfortunately it costs $150 pp and we didn't have the time to make it worth while!

After Jinja the road winds through some of the thickest forest I've ever seen. Uganda is amazingly green and there is farmland everywhere: sugarcane, tea and mealies the main produce it seems. The police are numerous and all armed with automatic weapons, although the 15 roadblocks didn't stop us once. We believe they are trying to enforce this major East African trade route against the violence on the Northern Kenya road, so probably a good thing if a bit unnerving.