We have a new truck member today. Nick; a lawyer who lives in Ealing. I am not sure what he made of the motley crew he met this morning who could barely speak let alone make scintillalating conversation. We left at 8am and then proceeded to another campsite in Jinja where we sat in the truck for about an hour before we decided to let ourselves out (the rebellion has started) and order more breakfast. Potato wedges have never tasted so good. We lolled around there for another hour before departing in the truck and then couldn't quite believe it wen the truck turned around and returned to the same campsite again. We waited in the truck for another hour. We finally left Jinja at 11:45. I am not exactly sure why we needed a 7:30 breakfast or indeed why we all needed to accompany Elton ten minutes down the road to collect our gorilla permits or why we have spent half a day in a truck to go absolutely nowhere. Goodness, anyone would think we were the paying holidaymakers!

Eventually we left Jinja and after about an hour and a half stopped at a supermarket to buy lunches and supplies for the next few days. The supermarket, as in Kenya, was very well stocked and not dissimilar to ours at home (including the price tags). We had lunch at a coffee shop where I ate a dreadful burger that managed to be both dry and dense at the same time.

We then sat around the supermarket carpark for about two hours waiting for the truck to materialise as driver George and it had gone AWOL. My hangover, mood and fatigue were worsening with every hour of waiting. We finally reached Entebbe, Uganda's capital, when it was nearly dark, around 6pm. I have no idea why it took us nearly ten hours to travel 40km, it seemed a completely wasted day. To top it all, we were still on cooking duty so had to summon my last remaining strength to cook a chilli "concussion" as Elton calls it for twelve people, without the essentials of cumin, kidney beans and fresh chillis. In our exhaustion, Jacqui and I made enough rice to feed the five thousand. I was utterly worn out I couldn't face putting the tent up so shared with someone and crashed out in a room in the hostel instead. So much for seeing some sights of Uganda's capital. But as we were cocooned away in the Campsite, there was no hope even if I'd been bursting with energy.

The next day, Thursday, the sun was at least shining and we were off wretched cooking duty. I think Kylie and Chris, who are coincidentally from Chiswick joined the truck and today we crossed the equator and stopped on the magical line to get a demo of how the water drains down the plug hole anticlockwise in the Southern hemisphere, clockwise in the Northern hemisphere and doesn't swirl on the actual equator but just drains vertically through, baffling! Whilst I torturously watched Nick wolf down a waffle to die for, I had a pretty good fruit smoothie. Back in the truck again for what seemed like most of the rest of the day whilst the weather changed to damp and overcast and then the rain started. We picked up two English girls, Jo and Laura. By the time we arrived in Mbarara, the heavens had fully opened. The campsite was very strange, it had an odd aura, like an old asylum or hospital. The wine was even stranger; it was so musty and dark it was undrinkable and had a very challenging discussion with the barman to explain that it wasn't that I disliked the fact it was sweet but it was actually mouldy! Switching to beers instead and again everyone abandoning the tent for rooms in the hostel due to the torrential rain, it was a strange evening and I decided to take an early night.

I should have made the most of the 'luxury' of the previous night as the next day, on Friday, we drove to Queen Elizabeth National Park. It wasn't a patch on Masai Mara, although there were plenty of warthogs roaming around. I was feeling pretty exhausted and rubbish again- not sure why really, maybe drinking beer or still tired from Kili? We had to camp in the National Park overnight so our only facilities were a drop loo and very basic outdoor shower. Elton gave us a serious warning that there was a high likelihood of animals wandering around our tents at night, so we had to pitch close together, and were not to leave the tent to go to the loo or wander anywhere at all after dark in case we encountered hippos, lions or hyeana amongst other creatures! We had a great dinner of chicken, sausages and baked potatoes made on the campfire and I again took an early night. Lying in my tent I could hear the noises of the animals very nearby, it led to a very restless night especially when I awoke around midnight to me and jacquis tent being completely trampled by what I think was a hippo. I have never moved so fast or felt so alert upon waking. It was truly terrifying and me and Jaqui began huggin fearing our days were numbered. We heard rustling for ages afterwards and my ears were pricked. I was not leaving this tent alive. I lay there like a sitting duck. By the time my 5am alarm went off, it was still pitch black but I was bursting for the loo. I went to walk only a few metres from the truck behind a bush but again heard non-human hippo-esque snorts and ran for it, back to the truck and simply squatted down by it, too terrified to care!

In typical Absolutey Awful Africa style, we had Elton barking at us at 6:25am that we only had five minutes left to get the tent down and I could not get the infernal antique piece of cloth into the fricking bag. Very kindly, Jo offered to finish packing it up for me. Nick also had to leave his half dismantled for a very grumpy Elton. So Kylie, Chris, Laura, Canada, Nick and I left to go to the Kyambura Gorge for a trek to hopefully sight chimps in the wild.

In true Africa time, we arrived early, waited a for a very long time and then finally set off at 9am. Our guide arrived, alarmingly armed with an AK47 of course and sternly told us it was against Ugandan law to take photos of anyone without expressly asking permission first... just after I had taken a snap with him in it. Gulp. For the next two hours we stepped slowly through the forest until we heard the chimps in the distance when our guide would order us to "Run!" and then we would scramble through the undergrowth to find the chimps had already moved on to a new spot. In the meantime we saw a baboon fight and they charged past us by I wasn't fast enough to get the money shot. We carried on plodding through and suddenly I simultaneously saw two large grey shapes charge from the undergrowth in to our path and Francis load his AK. I didn't need to see any more, I legged it quickly and hid behind Nick. Our elephant friends were quick to retreat though and by the time I turned around, they had disappeared. It was great to see the apes up close and get out and about in the forest. We left and then met the rest of the truck post-trek already en route and started the four hour drive to Lake Bunyoni.