tanzania...well the border anyhow.

we didn't quite make it to tanzania. oh africa, what should have been mildly easy ended up being a trek and a half.

we left kabale, uganda in the morning. we spent the night in a mildly nice hotel in kabale after coming down from bwindi nat'l park and seeing the gorillas. one of our guides gave us a decent price on a ride down on the back of his motorcycle (only a 52 km ride) and got a friend to carry Gabe. it was quite the adventure - my life only flashed before my eyes a few times. but there was something very magical about flying threw the ugandan countryside on the back of a bike. the sun was setting, there was mist on the hills... but I could go on an on.

after the night kabale we were going to attempt to go to tanzania via bus. the grabbed a bus - with the same driver we had from kampala a few days earlier. ugh - that man is the enemy. he tells you the bus is leaving in a hour, the bus actually leaves 4 hours later, and takes nearly twice as long to get there as you expected. not to mention it was freezing cold and we arrived in kabale at 4 am and had to bang on a hotel door to get a room. a $5 room with two mosquito nets tied together to form a high ineffective single mosquito protective device.

needless to say our second bus ride with brian was equally as unsuccessful. we spent 3 hours sitting in a trucker town for no apparent reason (of course the reason being they don't leave until the bus is full to the brim - we had chickens on board both ways.)

we arrived in masaka very late but decided to try and make the border. we borded another bus to mutukula (the border town.) the conductor was very helpful and we it became clear we wouldn't make the border in time he paid for a small car to take us the rest of the way. a small car filled with 9 people. who knew a toyota sedan could hold that many people.

we crammed/flew to mutukula but missed the border by a half hour and had to spend the night. gabe claims it was the worst night of his life. sean paul's delightful music was blaring until 2 am, two cats got into multiple fights that sounded very painful, the loudest mosquitos in history invaded the room and it was hot. needless to say neither of us slept well.

in the morning we made for the border. left uganda and walked across to tanzania only to discover visas for americans cost $100, no exceptions. so we went to the bank for money. except they had no ATM, so we would have had to backtrack all the way to masaka (88km) and then back to border.

needless to say tonight we are in kampala headed back to nairobi. gabe and I decided to time and money weren't worth it. so tonight we catch the bus to nairobi and then we go to masai mara nat'l park instead of serengeti. screw you tanzania.

oh africa!