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.