Uptown Kampala - for the office of Mr Museveni, swanky hotels & boutiques, verdant surroundings & a rather large shopping centre.

Downtown Kampala - home of the taxi parks, compact bustle, hawkers & dust. The name Kampala derives from the Luganda expression Kosozi Kampala - Hill of Antelope - a reference to the domestic impala.

Pebble

It seems it is impossible for me to go anywhere, without acquiring a cat. Meet Pebble, otherwise known as 'Compound Cat'. I am now campaigning for a resident goat...

Matoke Tours

The mushy, yellow mash which makes Matoke, is a staple of the Ugandan diet. Made from plantain, the 'green bananas' are peeled, wrapped in large leaves & then steamed outdoors over charcoal. It is a common sight to see discarded plantain peels all over the streets of Kampala.

Matoke is usually served with ground-nut sauce, rice, potatoes & all manner of other yellow, carb-laden foodstuffs. Never invite a Ugandan over for dinner unless you intend to make it...

Ssese Islands, Jan 09

Girls' trip to the Ssese Islands - situated on the northwest of Lake Victoria. The Ssese archipelago consists of 84 islands; each one rustic and lushly forested ('cos it rains all the time!), with little clusters of beach huts and prolific birdlife. We spent a weekend on Buggala, one of the largest of these islands & had a merry time exploring, cooking bread over the campfire with some Danes, swatting insects out of the buffet & trying to avoid bilharizia. We also discovered a shipwreck!

007

James Bond party. Even Ursula Andress came.

Safari'tastic

Following the monkey business in Bwindi, the intrepid explorers continued in search of more Ugandan National Parks - & they were not disappointed... Lake Mburo provided warthogs, baby crocodiles, Ugandan Cob & some humungous hippos; Queen Elizabeth National Park was home to the tree-dwelling lions (though the ones we saw were quite determinedly staying on the ground). A terrific time was had with the chimps in Kyambura Gorge - quite a different experience from the gorillas in that they all went a bit bonkers, brandishing sticks at us & then hot-footing it up into the trees. Exciting stuff! Finally, we were hippo chicks once again, cruising down the Nile to the foot of Murchison Falls & floating with the crocodiles. Good times. (That was for you, Al).

Gorilla Groupie

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (sounds like something from 'Harry Potter', doesn't it?) is on the edge of the western rift valley, in the south west of Uganda & is home to the rare mountain gorilla. (Currently, they can only be found in s. w. Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo). We had an exhilarating trek through the forested slopes of the mountain, scrabbling up vines & cutting through the bush, until we reached the Mubare Gorilla group's habitat in the shady, bamboo forest.

The silverback was grabbing a bite to eat in one of the trees; whilst the rest of the group (including two babies) larked about on the ground - one of the young males even approached us & took a curious delight in my camera bag, but not before stopping to examine Jan's hair. The gorillas completely accepted our presence, although one little chap did beat his chest King-Kong style at us, which was quite amusing!

In 2004, I was charged by a hippo in Kenya's Masai Mara National Park. I would say that meeting the gorillas was as memorable a wildlife experience as that was, though a far more poignant one.