Wed 29 Oct
Kurtz kindly got up at 0500 and gave me a lift down to the bus. It took 2hrs to reach Pakwach where my bus joined the vehicles queuing to travel in armed convoys along approximately 100km of rebel infested countryside. The queues inevitably mean that bus loads of people disembark and look for breakfast so not surprisingly there is quite an extensive run of breakfast vendors strewn along the sides of the road.

Fresh chapattis, fried eggs, and sweet tea were all readily available. I took breakfast with some fellow passengers, then grabbed my rucsac and found a bicycle taxi to take me the few kilometres across the bridge and on to the park gate.

After 3hrs a Cell Tell pick-up gave me a lift for the 23km through the park, crossing the Victoria Nile by ferry and dropping me at the Red Chilli Rest Camp just after the park headquarters.

Red Chilli camp was clearly something special once. Nowadays its need for renovation has been to benefit of budget travellers. Set in a clearing with grass thatched "rondavels" (traditional African style huts) around the edge and commanding views across the bush down to the Victoria Nile. Several tame locals included Kara a local bushbuck that had grown up here and just given birth to her first foal the week before, a few wattled storks impressive size and looking like waddling around aimlessly picking over any scraps they came across, and a pair of warthog that apparently have an annoying habit of raiding the garbage pit most mornings. Most attractively to me after a hot morning on the road was a bar serving chilled beers. After a week in polite company of tea totalling missionaries I finally enjoyed my first beer in Uganda. The afternoon passed lazily and the evening was chatted away talking with fellow travellers.