I’m not sure of the origins of the ‘Hedgehog Game’, no doubt it all started as a dare! Matt mentioned the game a number of times after he came back from Africa, usually with reference to Sam. Apparently Sam managed to get up to twenty cocktail sticks – a feat that, as you can imagine, Matt held in extremely high regard. I doubt I could even manage one!!
Day 25 – 9th August
This morning we had the opportunity for a lie in, but everyone was naturally up at about 8am anyway. I had another hash brown this morning but it wasn’t quite as nice due to the swarm of bees which besieged our meal. After breakfast we finished packing and I settled up with the manager. Craig managed to jammily win himself a free T-shirt by telling the manager he will advertise the Crow’s Nest to other World Challenge groups.
We had to wait before we set off as Alex was hitching a lift to Mbale and the coffee dealer had promised to meet us at 9:45 to deliver his goods. In due course Alex arrived and we made ready to go. By 9:55 the coffee guy hadn’t arrived and as we hadn’t paid upfront Gav decided we had to move on (he was team leader today). After about 5 minutes, Alex received a call to say we were being followed by the disgruntled coffee salesman. Another 5 minutes passed and we were overtaken by a motorbiker who pulled us over and sold us our coffee.
A 4 hour bus journey followed as we made our way towards Jinja.
We were supposed to end up in the middle of the city and then make our way to the white water rafting centre, but somehow the coach driver knew where to go and we ended up at the Adrift Watersports Centre at the source of the Nile. The Nile itself is so wide that at first glance it can easily be mistaken for a lake. We walked in through the front gate and found ourselves in utter tropical paradise. The weather is perfect, there is a log cabin converted into a bar and we pitched our tents amid beautiful trees and chalets.
We had a quick financial discussion and decided that we would give 50,000 UGX per person for the duration. We then set about buying lunch; I had spaghetti with meatballs which was great, Chris ordered a fish and chips and was surprised to discover a deep fried local fish completely unlike any I have ever seen before; it had spines and weird fins.
After lunch we had our first hot water shower in weeks.
We saw several little lemur-like monkeys in a large bush including a baby.
For dinner I ordered a hot chili pizza, but everyone’s food was about 2 hours late so we got complementary drinks. The pizza turned out to be pretty mild in the end but it tasted really good.
After dinner we played some games. First was ‘Hedgehog’, a game from Craig’s army days in which you have to jab cocktail sticks into your head so hard that they lodge upright. Then Sam dared me to put lime juice in my eye, so Craig poured it in while I held my head back, much to everyone else’s amusement.
I found a frog outside my tent and shoved it in Gavan’s (I am sleeping in Matt H’s tent tonight). I haven’t seen his reaction yet but as he is scared of anything ant size and up it should be pretty good.
We are also playing “Tell It” where people have to say any of their comments about people to their face if people call ‘tell it’.
Gavan reacted as predicted to the frog; he curled up and refused to move until Sam and I ejected it from his tent!
Matt H and I got in our tent to discover a fat 4″ long caterpillar climbing up the inside wall!
Tomorrow is white water rafting which will hopefully be awesome.
