A record!

We hit a record! 24 people in a minibus that seats 14. Booya! I had my left cheek oh so uncomfortably sitting against the door and the right half on a seat, half in the air.

The last couple days haven't been too much to write about... Elections day - the 18th - everything seemed closed. It continued on into Kasese where yesterday and this morning it seemed like nothing was open... We had difficulty finding a tour agency to help plan for Jack's hike on the Rwenzori mountains, which was our only true reason to stop in this town. Had ourselves a local diner while we watched the news about the elections with provisional results being reported.

Sorry for the lack of excitement, not much has been going on. Still exploring everywhere, still enjoying the socialness of Ugandans. Made it to Fort Portal today for a better chance at finding a tour agency. Found out the pricing is absolutely ridiculous as usual... Uganda and Kenya, as we were warned, have very expensive package tours. Example - they were offering a combination package of a trek in the Kibale National Park and a lunch around the crater lakes. Their advertised price for the two of us was 550$US. As we continued to talk and made it clear we didn't have that kind of money, he offered it to us for 390$US. 160$ price drop in a heart beat, how much profit do they get!? You basically pay a ton of money for them to drive you around the different places that are accessible by local transport. It's basically just for convenience of being able to do it all in a shorter amount of time. Luckily for us, we have time! So we'll attempt this on our own.

The most exciting part of Fort Portal is a restaurant called Duchesse. I had a club sandwich with fantastic homemade multi grain bread (they fry all their breads here so everything is so greasy!). Jack had herself an open faced sandwich with grilled eggplant, cheese and pesto. Fresh, non greasy foods are so so welcomed at this point. Who would have thought, I, the Queen of fast food, would be looking for fresh!

Pictures are of the Tooro Palace and the Royal Tombs we visited. The King of the Tooro district was crowned at 3 years old... Must have been quite the responsibility! Lol. They are burried with their most important possessions such as spears, drums and serving jugs. When the president reviewed the Kings' involvement in the country, it was said he would take everything away from the Kings and remove their power all together, but decided to make them in charge of culture...

The funny part was the caretaker for the tombs (guy in white shirt) looked like he was woken from a nap to bring us over. He was shirtless when he came out of his house, his daughters got him up. He was groggy. Hardly spoke English so his daughter who spoke ever so slightly more English accompanied us. They explained that just like being King, being the keeper of the burial grounds is past down from father to son and is an important role.

If all goes well, I'll be making one of my dreams come true in 2 days... So stay tuned. Until then, I'll try to contain my excitement...Read more