Following the previously mentioned hastily arranged flight to Nairobi Simon and I met up at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, which in the end was the best solution, despite being not in the budget planning as I had no idea where I was going. The Saturday was a day at leisure - which meant fending of Nairobi street vendors during a walk into the town centre. Really not a lot going on there and we were both happy to be heading off the next morning. Justin froim Zimbabwe and Francis from the Rift Valley were our tour guide and driver respectively and I must say both lads were great. Justin is a former cook who has now stepped up to the guiding position and while it was his 1st full tour and he had a few hiccups, in the m0st part he was great. And the forner cook thing was a serious added bonus as the food was too good, and the poco knows all about it now!!

The objective of the trip for me at least was 4 fold. 1. See the Gorillas, 2. White water raft the Nile at Jinga, 3. See the Maasai Mara and 4. See the Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater in Tanzania. Just writing those 4 things down and thinking back on them all I really have left this blog nonsense way to late as I could right pages and pages on each. But I wont (cos I cant be bothered writing it and I know you couldnt be bothered reading it either!). Suffice to say tho they were all awesome. Thinking back they were definitely the highlights, from trekking at 3000m to find a troop of Gorillas that were heading the same direction. When we eventually caught up with them we had less than an 30mins with them but they are truly majestic creatures. You cannot begin to imagine what the first person to come across these animals in the remote volcanic region of total dense forested Rwanda, Uganda, DR Congo border must have thought. In the same light you can see why Diane Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist) became so obsessional with them. At one stage the Silverback of the group brushed past myself and an Aussie guy called Adam and Im pretty sure it is an experience with nature we will both never forget. 10 hours of trekking through the densest undergrowth and up and down huge ravines made the day all the more unforgettable.

Our base for the trekking was a magical lake called Lake Bunyoni. It is a glacier lake and is 900m deep making it the deepest in Africa and one of the deepest in the world. It was a great place after many days on the road to unwind, swim, try and paddle the local boats, run (with the local kids!) and basically chill out after many miles and many many hours on as bad a roads as you can really imagine on what was essentially a converted lorry.

Upon arriving back in Jinga it was time for the white water rafting. Myself and Simon actively recruited a "no holds barred" boat where it was route 1 only on each Rapid. Definitely the best rafting I have done to date. It is mainly grade 4 and 5's and on these I may have spent little time on the boat itself, preferring to swim!! At one point during one of the big rows it decided to absolutely hammer down which was a quite amazing moment. The last rapid of the day is aptly named "The Bad Place". There are 3 different routes down this, the safe one, the 50/50 route and the suicide run, I'll give you two guesses which one we went for!!! The major talking point afterwards was, as Simon put it, that we thought your life was supposed to flash before your eyes before death but all we could see was water and a lot of it!!!

From Jinga the next stage was working down to the Maasai Mara and this involved a change of crew and truck for a lot of us - the others carrying on southbound after here which unfortunately my schedule wouldn't let me do....next time....