Our recent road trip to Murchison proved this beautifully (bullet points have made this easier for me to swallow let alone stomach):-
- Thursday 11th April - pack car to the hilt with bags, toys and gear for the Lodge, including large steel racks that go onto the roof
- Drive 2.5hrs past villages, trembling goats and hundreds of kids, eventually ending up on a piece of straight, sweet, empty tarmac
- Traffic Police leap out from a hedge and pull us over for speeding. Get issued with a ticket and fine
- Arrive at Lodge, place looks alive and wonderful after so much rain
- Drink African Tea overlooking the Nile
- Drive to our cottage and unload all the necessary gear
- Chris reverses car but to avoid a path the back wheel hits soft earth and.....
- Car rolls over and ends up on it's roof
- Chris unhurt, car battered with popped out windscreen
- Following morning a group of 15 men hand roll the car the right way up. Leo watches transfixed and the buckled steel racks get taken away for scrap
- Two days later Chris drives crumpled car 6hrs to Kampala dressed like a gangster - hoodie pulled up, sarong wrapped around his face and sunglasses (essential to stop insects piercing his head)
- Quote for panel beating and repair work is received. Surely Leo could help to reduce the costs with his hammer?
- Chris returns to the Lodge the following day in a hire car
- Spend 4 days doing work related stuff
- Manage to do a game drive that Leo went bonkers over - BULAFO (Buffalo) GIIIIIIIRAFE, HIPPPPPPO, ELIFANT, PIGGY, PIGGY, PIGGYYYYYYYYYYY (warthog)
- I loose my mobile phone
- Following afternoon we whizz up the Nile to the mighty Falls in a Duro Boat. Leo squeezed into a life jacket made him look like a mini, yet chubby, James Bond. He loved every single wind swept second
- Thursday 18th April - Pack up hire car with bags and toys. Car doesn't start due to rubbish battery
- Chris kicks car and fiddle with battery. Car starts
- Leave Lodge and after 2hrs reach the tarmac
- Traffic Police leap out from a hedge and pull us over. Hire car insurance is out of date. Get issued with a ticket and fine
- Continue on our way annoyed
- Traffic Police leap out from a hedge and pull us over for speeding. Get issued with a ticket and fine
- Continue on our way completely pissed off. Leave the tarmac and take the dirt road
- Cow barrels down a hill and smacks into the hire car taking out the headlight
- After 50mtrs we run over a chicken
- Beyond fed up
- Drive over the dam into Jinja and the car battery splutters. We slow to a maddening stop causing mass hysteria and the TRAFFIC POLICE, who assume we are terrorists about to blow up the bridge, come shouting and waving guns at us
- Leo shouts 'lizard' and 'motorbike'. They do not laugh
- Car gets pushed out of the way by a knot of men in army fatigues
- We're too knackered to even comment let alone express emotion other than '2013 you have to be kidding us'!
- Get home and look for mobile phone - totally MIA
- Chris goes out to see a mate for beer/S
- Leo refuses to go to sleep, I ignore him and switch on laptop
- More SHOUTING and SHOUTING and then the word to make any parent shudder.....
- POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
- Think that sums up our week
- Oh and I promised Chris I wouldn't tell anyone anything, but some days just tell themselves.
