burnt

hello my friends,

first of all, shout out to my sis. she's having fun in NZ for the next 3 weeks. have fun BB!! you deserve a break today.

still in bujagali. yes, still.

everyone, from lydia, the watergirl, to simon at the bujagali chipati company knows intimate details about yours truly now. everyone greets me by name and asks about my mum's gallbladder operation.

seriously, i think i'm really burnt out from traveling.

good thing everyone's nice at the Ed. Rock (short for Eden Rock) Resort. AND, there's satellite tv for moments when i'm not reading a book.

i went to the Black Lantern last night. it's the poshest restaurant in bujagali. had their famous pork spareribs. not the baby back ribs exactly, however, the meat was tender and barely hanging on to the bone if you know what i mean. mmmm... good splurge for the M/C.

stay tuned for more blubberings.

couldn't resist...

thought i'd post some more whitewater rafting pics. looks like a riot, eh?

i forgot to wish my mum a happy birthday.

i'm still in bujagali falls. i've never stayed in one place for such a long time (goin on a week, eh). now i'm addicted to beer, women and mad rafting videos (not necessarily in that order). oh well, the addiction could have been to crack cocaine or something like that.

having been here for awhile, i feel the itch to move on. perhaps kenya?

note: i'm thinking of whitewater photography as my next career. too bad it entails something really terrifying: kayaking, eh.

another day at the office...

it seems every 10 years or so i must stare into the face of death. i dunno why.

you can cheat death so many times. one of these days death is going to win out. but in the meantime, i'll continue to raft rivers like the nile.

you heard it here, i'm chillin' out by the banks of the nile river at bujagali falls, uganda.

hey!! look!! some pix...

hello friends,

finally some photos.

l to r: silverback mountain gorilla, one tired monkey.

note: that silverback is the head honcho of susa group, the largest habituated group of gorillas in the park at a population of 38 (including 4 silverbacks). i'm something like 4 m away.

l to r: recovering traveler, local kinigi school girl.

note: met this girl while she was walking home from school. she was showing me her families craft store. everything was going fine until she asked me to buy her a french dictionary.

where's the king of scotland? or, a valentine's special edition of bubba goes to africa.

first, happy valentine's day...especially to all my female readers, if there are any.

so much for posting some photos. i had a nice pic of a silverback gorilla petting me on the head. this stupid computer is rigged not to accept new hardware. so uncooperative.

where am I? kampala, uganda.

so much has happened since the gorillas. not.

i made it to the meeting place for gorilla trekkers. unfortunately, i was all drugged up on anti-cold medicine. i did the humanitarian thing. i thought about the possibility of wiping out the remaining 308 mountain gorillas left on the face of the planet with my disease and i promptly reported myself to the authorities. they also with extra vigour withdrew me from the expedition. damn, that was hard to swallow.

for the next 5 days i convalesced at the kinigi guesthouse. the staff, god bless their souls, thought i was on my deathbed, imploring me to see the village doctor. instead i took out the real good drugs: the ciprofloacin, the world's most powerful antibiotic.

personally, i hate self-diagnoses of diseases. it's a good drug to have but i don't want to render it useless by overuse.

anyway, i couldn't have picked a better place to be ill. kinigi is situated on the edge of parc nacional des volcans. awesome mist covered volcanoes lie close to the north and west.

during my afternoon re-hab walks, dozens of village kids would approach me for money or to have their photos taken. i concurred with the latter but declined on the former. instead of being their sole financier, i would promptly cough on them.

eventually, i got better albeit days later.

the gorillas were spectacular. we saw the dominate silverback, numerous babies, and a rambunctious blackback male who kept taking enthusiasted, thundering charges at us. lucky none of us were eaten. anyway, it took an exhausting 3 hrs. to find them, including a final hour of bushwacking with a machete.

if you have an extra $375 USD burning a hole in your pocket, i deeply recommend coming over and seeing our closest relatives in the animal kingdom in rwanda.

from rwanda, i would travel over the border to the ugandan chill out capital, the beautiful lake bunyonyi.

for 5 days i chilled out at the "resort" of boonya amagara, run by jason, the american. it was more than just a resort, it was an experiment in environmental sustainability. solar powered and installed with special composting toilets.

my advice to others who plan similar environmental projects: have back up power.

the boonya had an excellent library and movie collection.

i managed to read "a walk in the woods" by bryson, and "swahili for the broken hearted". the latter documents an aussie wanka that did what i'm doing. i'm glad i didn't read it beforehand.

i saw 3 films: borat, death of a president, and donny darko. i'm still trying to figure out donny darko. at least, i'm part of the darko cult following now.

like i said, i'm in kampala now. i'm chillin' again. actually, i'm giving the recurring cough a rest. the smog here is abysmal. that doesn't help.

i'm thinking of booking myself into the local "western" clinic to have this thing fixed once and for all.

i've gathered valuable intell. on the next leg: ethiopia. it's going to be full on travelling. so, i better get my health in check, eh.

next? denial on the nile? or, do i just wanna go whitewater rafting on it?

stay tuned my friends.