Friday 22nd

Today marks the start of our epic journey home. We're expecting it to take around 38 hours and i'm really not looking forward to it much. Our guides dropped us off in town at 6AM where we waited for the bus. Anticipating our sunburn we had specifically asked for window seats, but when we sat down and tried to open the window it was clear that it had been glued shut.  It must have been forty degrees on the bus, and my face, shoulders, back, chest, knees and backs of my legs were severely burnt. It's possible that I may have forgotten to use suncream yesterday. Anyway, after 5 minutes I thought I was going to pass out. I no doubt had sunstroke and sweat was literally pouring off us like salty waterfalls. 

After a few minutes of what felt like torture I moved to the back of the bus to find an empty seat and an open window. Of the six I checked only one could be opened, so that's the one I sat by. Karyn and Mike quickly joined me. Despite the horrendous heat of equatorial Africa, it would not surprise me if all the windows on every vehicle were glued shut, as the people here seem to be immune to the heat. I don't think I’ve ever seen anyone voluntarily open a window.

The roads in Kenya are pretty bad so progress was slow. We eventually arrived in Nairobi at about 4.30pm but had 2 hours to kill before getting the connection to Kampala. We thought it would be best to try and find a restaurant to wait in rather than sitting by the side of the road, so I left Mike and Karyn with the luggage and went a wandering.

Nairobi is rather like London; the buildings are tall and grey, the roads are busy and it's impossible to find anything. After about twenty minutes, having found nothing of interest and fearing that my navigational skills might not be up be getting me back to the bus stop, I headed back. On the way I checked out a hotel restaurant and decided to fetch the others.

After dinner, we returned to the bus stop to find that our bus was not there, and no one could tell us anything of use. “Yes, it's coming” said the guy at the desk. Yeah, like I believe that. We sat with all our luggage by the side of the road in the dark, literally and metaphorically, at the mercy of the Africa bus system.

Three hours later at 10 o clock the bus shows and we can all breath a sigh of relief.