Mount Sabyinyo of 3800 metres. We trekked up through this darling in a day.

There was that time when I travelled around Uganda with my friend, Nikolaj and we had to get a malaria test at a tiny little local medical clinic in the small town of Kisoro. We had been travelling around Uganda for a few weeks before we came to Kisoro, our departure point for a trek up a mountain in the Mgahinga National Park. We spent a long day trekking up and own the mountain and by the time we got down, Nikolaj wasn't feeling so well. What felt like just a sore throat had turned into a fever only the next morning. We decided to seek medical attention to rule out malaria, which took us to a tiny medical clinic in downtown Kisoro. Needless to say, the experience was nothing like a hospital experience in the western, but my, did they know what they were doing! It was literally "just show up and wait in line for the doctor", and then we had the result within in an hour (no malaria, btw). Now, there's a kind of efficiency I wish we could copy in the Western world! It might also do us good to wear proper clothing when spending the entire day in the mountains. You know, just to avoid a malaria scare when all we you really have is a cold.

There was that time I met a South African magician in Uganda. We had come to the town of Masindi to track Rhinos on foot, and while there we ran into a proper South African magician. Or at least, so he thought he was. More specifcally, the boy, probably in his early twenties at best, had a deep passion for playing card magic tricks (which admittedly sounds less impressing, but why shatter his illusion?). But real magician or not, we had the pleasure (hm?) of being bombarded with playing card tricks for the few days we spent at the place. I seem to remember his illusion of being of magical blood even extended as far as trying to turn a buch of big moths into his own personal army - "Fly, my minions!"

There was that time when my travels in Uganda kollided with the ourbreak of the Ebola virus - which consequently led my friend, Nikolaj and I to travel around the country while trying to escape the virus (really, no one knew how serious the situation was at the time!). We refrained from shaking hands with strangers and kept an eye on the news. It didn't keep us away from the town of Fort Portal though, although it was really close to where the outbreak had happend, because this incidently also happened to be where you could go to track chimpanzees in the forests (yep, we really had our priorities straight!) In the end, I think the paranoia of escaping the virus gave us a harder time than the virus itself!

There was that time we came across a group of little kids on a road in Northern Uganda. Boy, did they love my camera! We had so much fun taking their pictures and in the end, I think I got one of the best photo shoots I've ever had on a trip. And that's from people who didn't once try to get money from me. How lucky can you be?!

There was that time I went Gorilla trekking in Bwindi National Park in southern Uganda with my friend, Nikolaj. But the story doesn't really start there, in fact, it starts back home in Denmark, months before departure, with our desperate quest to obtain the mandatory gorilla trekking permit from the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) - something which is a whole lot harder than you would expect! Thing is, you need the permit to go gorilla trekking in Uganda, and there is only to ways to get it: 1) from a tour operator, where the tours cost around 3-4 times as much as if you go independently (definitely not an option!), 2) directly from the UWA. Being students, or just not filthy rich, we went for the latter option. The problem with that choise was that getting in contact with the UWA is impossible, since they don't pick up the phone or respond to emails - ever! My attempt to contact them went on for months before departure, before I eventually gave up and we came up withg a plan B: Travel across the border into the Congo, because funny enough, you can buy permits for gorilla trekking in the Congo online, just like you would put a book into your shopping basket on Amazon! Having secured our permits, we were back on tracks! Or so we thought. That's when political riots started in the area, which meant the borders got closed off to visitors and our permits were cancelled. Eventually we had to travel to Uganda without any permits secured, hoping to obtain them once in Kampala.

Once in Kampala we hopped onto the backseat of two taxi scooters (boda bodas) and rode scross town to the UWA headquaters. There was only a very limited number of permits available, but we finally had some luck. The lady at the UWA office managed to persuade two other customers to move their trek to a different date so we could get their permits! So much win! Problem was though that they only accepted payment by cash, and y'know getting 500 dollars from an ATM can be tricky in Uganda - and the office would only hold the permits for us for a few hours until closing time. Yicks! So we hoppped back onto the back seat of two boda bodas, and went all the way to the other end of the city to get our spare credit cards, so we could take out enough cash. And this is not the time for the driver to take you to the wrong end of the city to the wrong hostel - but that's what happened anyway! We eventually got our credit cards, and then tried calling our banks back in Denmark to have them raise the limit for our daily transaction, but without luck. In the end, with the help of all of our four credit cards and a road trip around the city looking for different banks (Mastercard is apparantly bloody useless in Uganda!), we got our money, went back to the office and secured our permits just in time! Damn, this really wasn't supposed to be easy!

Later on our trip we finally went to the southern part of Uganda to Bwindi National Park for our trek. Yay! Nevermind the fact that we had to sacrifice an extra couple of hundred bucks to get out there because, of course there is no means of public transportation, and the locals are perfectly aware that their rusty old cars are the tourist's only option. Grrrr - but I guess, I can spare some money to support the locals for the chance to get face to face with the endangered mountain gorilla of central Africa!

Once finally there (after a VERY long and uncomptable ride!), the magic happened; we walked right into a pack of Gorillas - one which didn't intend to keep the 7 metres safety distance that was set by our guides! We would stand around, watching the dominant male sit on his lazy arse, chewing away on every branch he could reach without having to get up, but then, out of nowhere, he would get up and walk straight in between us! Absolutely amazing to be so close to animals in the wild!