Hello!! How are you all?

It's now day 6 here in Kampala - and Pen and I are ready to move on and get to the game parks! I'm probably not in the best of moods to be writing today but I guess I may as well share the good and the bad... so let me get the less awesome stuff off my chest first!

You can almost chew the air here at times due to the car exhaust and dust in the city. The pollution is incredible. Combine this with the heat in the middle of the day and it's stifling. Add the constant harrassment and attempts to rip us off, and today you've got one CJ with her cranky pants on!! haha! I shouldn't complain I s'pose, it's been great up until now and good fun to experience. I'm still trying to get my head around tipping as well, certainly not used to it. You tip everything here. The poverty that you can see as you wander through town is sad. The worst is at night when we head out for dinner and the young kids come asking for money... We saw a little boy who can't have even been 12 months old sitting on the corner of the street at 9:30 at night with his mother nowhere in sight. All you want to do is give them something to help, but you'd be mobbed if you did... a terrible thing to see and really makes you appreciate what we have back home....

On to more pleasant tales. We've really just used the week here to chill. The culture shock has settled now, and we feel quite comfortable walking around town at most hours of the day. There are constant cries from the locals "muzungu, muzungu - how are you?"... meaning "traveller". We've managed to negotiate the roads and have jumped on the boda boda (scooters) through peak hour a couple of times to save our legs! a few close shaves but we came through unscathed!! Have been to every craft market in town I think! Saw the endless sea of minivans at the taxi park - unbelievable how many there are. Heard and then saw the back end of a political gathering in the city centre - very interesting. Fortunately we watched it from the hotel window but it was chaos for 5 minutes or so and the police came in to break it up as people went running down the side streets. A number of them bore the brunt of the cops frustration and received a beating. Pretty scary to see! Freedom of speech isn't recognised here.

The culture of the hotel staff is very different from home... we've had a few knocking on our door at 7 in the morning asking for a loan of money, and another at 10 at night just to ask our name... bizarre! They laughed at the fact that we had an afternoon kip one day. The lady who's the cleaner on our floor is a delight and so incredibly appreciative of tips.

Killed some time yesterday with a movie at the local cinema - yes there is one here... Met the rest of our tour group last night and we should have fun over the next few weeks. We head east to Jinja tomorrow for some white water rafting at the source of the Nile, and then on to Murchison Falls further north for some wildlife.

Time's up! Keep in touch and thanks for the messages!

cj xox