Go Bro!

Today's Uganthem.... It's fitting because the three of us have spent sooooo much time together recently and today was no different.

----------------

TL;DR - Travelled from Kampala to Entebbe, had a swimming pool full of water and diiiiiiiived in it, I'm a moron.

----------------

So in spite of a fairly late night last night and the fact that we could lie in, I still woke up at 5am and got up 6am... Sigh. Still, the sunrise justified it so it was okay. The morning was chilled; more games of pool (Axel beat me!) and terrible terrible coffee from the hostel, but all good.

We jumped on a hostel shuttle bus from Red Chilli to the town centre. The shuttle dropped us off at Nakumat shopping mall which is like a Mzungu Magnet, and since the attacks in Nairobi Westgate mall they've stepped up security efforts so now everybody gets a personal security search and every car gets totally searched too. It's moments like this that really re-ground you and make you realise that actually you're not totally as safe as you think. My personal opinion is that lots of the events get blown out of proportion and the world isn't as scary as you may think, but some street-smarts is always a good idea.

We grabbed the coolest special hire in the yard to take us to Entebbe where we could crash at Entebbe backpackers for a couple days. We stopped off on the way and took a few shots of Lake Victoria up close which was cool as the sun was shining (like diamonds in the sky) and everything looked booooo-tiful.

Entebbe backpackers was aight although the staff were grumpy as hell. We dropped our stuff, ate and then headed straight down to Lake Victoria Hotel where we'd been reliably informed that the pool was sick. I'd like to report: the pool was sick. Diving boards, awesome sunshine and some people next to us provided excellent music via a Bose sound system. PIMP! We filmed a load of shots of us all diving in, backflipping and just mucking around. Lots of people were very patient because we were making quite a noise haha. We got a couple of rounds of Niles in - although these were expensive at £1.60 rather than the usual 75p - and just chilled out. What a genuinely perfect way to round off the trip. We massively outstayed our welcome but we were still buying drinks and just chilling so they didn't mind as much.

This next paragraph or two perfectly describes how much of a moron I can be sometimes..... Read on for entertainment purposes:

We decided that it would be a good idea to check-in online to save some time tomorrow morning. I log on to my Emirates account (high roller!) and click 'travel options' only to be met with the message "There is no upcoming travel on your itinerary". Huh? That's strange, I'm flying tomorrow with Kris and Axel. I check my emails and oh, cock. It turns out that I've accidentally booked a different flight home to them and it was this day. Nobs. I didn't even know it, but as I was chilling out and enjoying the lions a flight was leaving Entebbe airport with a seat that should have had my ass on it. Oops!

Okay, so I call up Emirates (high roller!) in the UK and ask to speak to someone who can help get me on the flight home tomorrow with Kris and Axel. I'm in luck as they have seats available! Boom! Only thing is, they're business class flights and they cost $2,ooo so I just go ahead and book them..... Obviously not! I can't afford $2,ooo for flights so I just ask when the next economy seats are available. "Tuesday." Well, it looks like I'll be rolling solo in Uganda for a few days!!! Whoop whoop! Well for the princely sum of £150 (which we'll call an 'idiot tax') I re-arranged my flight for the Tuesday.

So I knackered all of Axel's phone credit sorting my life out and then took a Boda in to town with Kris to an ATM so I could have some money to survive on, top up phone credit and buy some food. I called my parents to explain the situation and the response I got was "Yeah, we figured the journey had gone a bit too smoothly so far..." They know me only too well.

I should have sat down to figure out how I was going to spend my last few unexpected days in Uganda, but that could wait until a later time because there were some dranks to be drank and some good times to be had. Axel bailed off to bed but Kris and I stayed up talking until about 3am covering all manner of topics. One of those talks where you write off most of it as utter garbage but actually it's incredibly important and one that long-lasting friendships are built on.

What a bloody great night.

----------------

I love this photo a lot. It's classic Kris and a great reminder of the day at the pool. This was taken before I realised that I'd ballsed up my flights so it was in the last few moments before panic and mass-laughter set in.