Kampala. Dirty, noisy, stinky, friendly and loads of fun.

We've made home base here for a couple of days so that we can explore all of the sights and sounds of this crazy town. Uganda highlights include crazy shop names (including "please mum -for all your baby stuff" and "jolly nights motel"), amazing scenery (think tea and banana plantations) and a safe and relaxed atmosphere. Everywhere is teeming with people, loud music and weird smells (some good, some horrendous). We're staying smack in the middle of town and just wandering around is entertainment enough.

We finished up in Nairobi on Sunday after a truly amazing Indian experience at Haandi resteraunt. We literally arrived in Uganda 5 minutes before Sally and we met up between immigration and customs.

In true Tyson and Louise style we had kind of arranged gorilla tracking permits (unconfirmed from the Uganda Wildlife Authority so all we had really done was transfer $1500 to a dodgy African bank account), with no way to travel the 10 hours to Bwindi and nowhere to stay when we were there. Yeah, we're planners alright.

This was sorted out in about 5 minutes by the good people at UWA and a lovely man maned Moses drove the three of us through the stunning Ugandan highlands in the most comfortable bongo van ever. We went through village after village with tiny houses and shops, people selling there wares, or just wandering about and masses of children, most of whom gave us excited waves as we drove through. We did witness one of the most disturbing sights Africa has to offer. A furry smudge on the highway with a tiny black hand pleading vainly to the heavens. Monkey road kill. No more serving drinks in a miniature tuxedo or participating in illegal gambling knife fights for that little guy. Tragic.

Arriving in Bwindi was pretty exciting after a long drive and a couple of Nile Specials were well deserved. The three of us woke very early the next day excited about the prospect of tracking gorillas.

Facts:
There are approx 650 mountain gorillas left in the world.
They don't call it Bwindi Impenetrable Forest for nothing.
Dianne Fossey has nothing on us and is, in hindsight, a bit of a mole.
Bwindi is in the corner of Uganda bordered very closely (2.5km!) by Rwanda and the Congo.

Setting off at 8.30 am with a guide, some porters for the rotund Americans and three heavily armed army dudes it took two hours of climbing up a steep path through farmland to even reach the Forest. Once there our guide was in radio contact with the trackers who had set off earlier in the day. They were near the group of gorillas (M group) that we were tracking. It seems that they were having a bit of a rumble in the jungle with H group and that we'd have to wait a while.

Soon we were off the path and crashing through the jungle. It was hard going, and we had to leave our bags (including water and passports) in the jungle as we approached the gorillas. They were however, quite a sight to see. The silver back, or the dominating male of the group, was a whopping 250 kgs and looked every bit as big as that sounds. Was he a little bit scary? Yes. The others included mothers carrying babies and others crashing through trees. We were only a couple of metres away from these wild creatures and the beautiful sight of them in the peaceful jungle was only marred by the sound of gorilla flatulence (that's pop-offs for Emma and Lucy). They are long, noisy and they smell terrible!

We followed them for a while until we heard crashing from the other direction. Gorrila trouble. The guide was excited and a little concerned. Group H was coming back for another rumble while we were there. "If the silver back charges at you while they are fighting, don't move". Sure, if 250kgs of gorilla is chasing you are you going to stand still? Luckily we didn't have to find out. We saw the two groups meet up (and we were the first tracking group ever to see that) and we saw a lot of chest beating and growling. Then it was time to head back.

We got back to camp at about 5pm. It had been a very tough day trekking but we returned triumphant. We had seen about 25 gorillas (about 3% of the total population. The same as seeing 180m humans in a day), seen amazing jungle and conquered the impenetrable forest.

Now we're back in Kampala. Home to another Haandis restaurant which we will be spending more than a few shillings at.

Stay tuned for rafting at the source of the Nile, chimpanzees, elephants and whether or not Tyson and Louise ever see their washing again.