After a day of relaxation with Chris and Jenny, Shea and I decided to make a short venture north to Murchison Falls. We also managed to convince ourselves that it wasn’t much extra effort to take a four hour detour first to the equator to capture that elusive equator photo.
Unfortunately Bubbles suffered a second snapped fan belt which necessitated some roadside repairs. The delay from our detour combined with the repair time meant we weren’t going to make it all the way to Murchison. We decided to stop off at the Uganda rhino sanctuary, roughly half way there, and look for a camping spot. Unfortunately we arrived after the gates were closed and opted to bush camp rather than pay $20 to summon a game ranger to escort us through the reserve. We drove around campsite hunting with the aid of our ridiculously bright spotlights (a.k.a. “The Apocalypse”*) till we found the perfect spot just off the road. Well, we thought it was the perfect spot until a few gentlemen from the Ugandan Anti-Terrorism Police arrived and kindly asked us to move. Apparently, we had scared some of the locals with our spotlights who had subsequently reported us to the authorities.
The next day we took a visit to the sanctuary which contains only 16 rhinos. Each rhino is assigned a 24hr, two-ranger security detail. Applied to the South African context, with our roughly 20,000 rhinos, that constitutes a serious job creation opportunity. We headed next to Murchison only to discover it was going to cost us $250 to see the falls because of all the “tourist pricing” associated with our foreign vehicle and passports. Probably should have looked that up in advance. We turned around and headed back to Kampala after washing down our self pity with goat kebabs and a healthy glass of drinking yoghurt.
* This name was chosen so we could scream “Engage the Apocalypse” every time we used them.
Joburg to Scotland 