For my last weekend in Africa I went to Murchison falls in the north of Uganda with 5 others. We hired a driver to take us there and left at 7am on friday morning altho that was delayed until 8.30am as Nick (one of the guys who came along) over slept!
We went to a rhino sanctuary on the way which was really good. There are no wild rhinos in Uganda due to them all being slaughtered by poachers in the 70s and 80s when Amin was in power and the parks were not protected. They have had rhinos imported from other countries in order to reintroduce them. They currently have 7 rhinos with the first baby being born on wednesday! We drove into the reserve and then had a guide who took us to the rhinos. We saw 3 adult white rhinos who were massive! The rangers called to one of them to stand up so we could see it properly which to our surprise it did! They only have white rhinos in the reserve which are not as aggressive as black and so it is safe for people to see them. I didnt know but black rhinos are actually the same colour as white rhinos and not black at all, more a sort or grey and you tell them apart from the shape of their jaw and their size.

On the way back to the car it poared down and we got soaked so the rest of the journey to murchison national park was not very comfortable in wet clothes! We got to the red chilli campsite where we were staying around 7pm to find a print out of michael jackson's life on the bar which we were abit confused by until we heard the news! We set up our tents which was pretty quick especially as we had hired tents that are designed to be put up in 2 seconds! They spring out of the bag when you open it although they definately take longer than 2 seconds to put away!
On saturday we were up at 6.30am to leave in time to get the 7am ferry across the river for our game drive. We drive around for about 3 hours and saw loads of animals including giraffe, buffalo, wildebeast, deer, hippo although no elephants which we were told there were lots!
In the afternoon we got the boat ride up the river nile towards murchison falls (the main attraction). It was about a 2 hr trip and on the way we saw more hippos, crocodiles, buffalo butgain no elephants! The falls themselves were amazing! Murchison is famour as its the only place in the world where that amount of water goes through such a small gap as the whole of the nile passes through just a 7m wide gap! We got off the boat when it got as far as it could and hiked to the top of the falls. I dont know why everyone didnt do this as the boat cant get anywhere near as close to the falls and you dont get a sense of how big they are without walking to the top. This was the best bit of the weekend for me as they really were amazing. The power of the water and all the spray was better than niagara falls for me as it is in completely natural surroundings (very unlike niagara).
After we had taken all the pictures we wanted our driver met us for the drive back to the campsite. However on the way out one of the rangers who had been hanging around the falls asked for $10 each for walking up to the falls! He said that despite their being no signs and that we hadnt had a guide to bring us up we still had to pay as its a charged walk! We had heasrd that they may try to make us pay despite the park abolishing the fees a few years ago. We argued with him and eventually got away with paying him only 10,000 shillings ($5) for all of us.
On sunday we had another early start and were away by 6.40am to get to Bubungo forest to go chimp trekking! We had a guide who took us through the forest and followed the signs and markings left by the chimps. I wasnt at all convinced we would see them as most people i had spoken to had said they had been several times and not seen them but we were in luck and after about 45mins we found them! They were 30ft up in the trees and so just had to observe them from afar but in a way i prefered that as it really was them in their natural habitat. There were about 10 of them above us but our guide said their were 79 in the family in total! After an hour with them we headed back to the car and continued our journey back to jinja.
We got back about 7pm and went out to a club in town for Nick's birthday. We originally planned to go to an album launch which we had seen advertised but when we arrived the bar told us that the band had cancelled that day and so it wasnt on! So we went to a club called sombreros instead which was good, although not massively busy as it was a sunday.
Monday was my last day and i spent the morning packing my bag and trying to fit everything in it! In the eve a group of us went to the Black Lantern for dinner which is a realy nice resturant in bujigali where we had been staying. It was abit pricey but a nice way to spend my last night. We finished up the night with a few drinks in the NRE bar. A friend who id met in zanzibar came up to say hi too as she was in jinja which was nice.
I was sad to say goodbye to everyone i had been volunteering with on tuesday morning as id made some great friends in the last 3 weeks but ive got many invitations to visit so im sure we will meet again!