From Lake Bunyoni, we caught a boat ride, taxi, bus and matatu (shared minivan) to arrive in Katunguru, a small town sitting at the entrance to Queen Elizabeth National Park. As soon as we got off the matatu we were approached by a friendly and persistent local guide who wanted to take us on a game drive. Embla, Kersten and I hadn’t really discussed our plans here, so we grabbed a beer to shake off the transport day and look at our options. We opted to take the game drive, bargaining down from $100 to $80 for all of us, plus the national park entrance fees, as Kersten had not done any game drives on this trip and Embla still needed to spot a leopard to check off all her Big Five animals. And well, we were here weren’t we? 

Our camp, Tembo Safari Lodge, had an awesome location right on the river. Embla squeezed into a tent with Kersten as I still had mysterious bites/bumps/rashes on my body. By now, I had pretty much ruled out bedbugs and was onto the theory that I may have bilharzia. Known as snail disease, it’s very common in Africa, particularly East Africa with all of its freshwater bodies. I had been warned that it was definitely present at Cape Mclear on Lake Malawi, and maybe present in other lakes, but had been given pills to take 6 weeks after my last swim which would clear it up. 6 weeks had just occurred, much later than the rash/what I thought were bed bug bites had appeared, so I didn’t really think this was the problem. Plus, I had never had bilharzia before.

To make matters worse, thinking I had bed bugs, I went to take an anti-histimine, but ended up taking one of the bilharzia pills, after another traveler was convinced that was the name of the pills. It’s probably not recommended to take pills out of their packaging, but with internet, you can always identify the pills you need. Just don’t trust other travelers!

Anyway, I took the rest of the bilharzia pills, but was a bit lax about it. But didn’t think much of it, until, I ruled out bed bugs and started looking up bilharzia rash. I decided I would hit up the nearest pharmacy in Kampala and if that didn’t work, hit up the doctor.

The small town in Queen Elizabeth National Park certainly had neither a doctor nor pharmacy, so with nothing I could do, we woke up at 6am for a game drive. The landscape was really nice with mountains in the background, and the game viewing was decent. I feel a bit spoiled after South Luwanga, but still enjoyed the ride. Plus, Embla got to see her leopard, and this was the first time I saw one in a tree from a good vantage point.

After lunch we took a boat ride to observe birds and hippos, and a lot of really loud Americans who joined at the last minute. The boat ride was nice, if not amazing, but it wasn’t crazy expensive by African standards ($25 USD for two hours), which was a nice change.

The next day our blissful camp spot had become an ant highway. I scrambled out of my tent to put on my shoes as quickly as possible and move everything away from the tents, but not before ants were everywhere, literally. It was a bit of a rude awakening.

Luckily, the bus came right on time and we were able to stretch out, and even better, it arrived on time! 8 hours after leaving the park, we reached Kampala. Upon which we embarked on the scariest boda boda (motorbike) rides of our lives. We were all pretty used to boda boda rides by now, but the ones in Kampala are on their own level. They go against traffic, the wrong way in roundabouts, on sidewalks, don’t offer helmets, and two of us hit other motorbikes on the 10 minute ride to our hostel. While carrying a bag in front of you, one on your back, and the inevitable grocery bag, it’s a bit of an experience. We were happy to arrive.

My first stop (after beer of course) was to hit up the pharmacy, where I found a lovely pharmacist who looked at my symptoms, and declared that yup, I most likely had bilharzia, and that I should have taken the drugs 6 weeks after my first swim, not the last one, and that they hadn’t given me enough based on my weight. She even weighed me to confirm. Armed with medicine, I felt much better after she said it should start working right away, and that I should start immediately with dinner. We spent the night on the hostel roof with views of Kampala in the distance.

The next day was Kersten’s last day as she was only on holiday for a month and had to go back to work, so she headed to Lake Victoria to see it, while Embla and I stocked up on supplies from Shoprite (a South African grocery store). We wandered in downtown Kampala for a while, where I was able to replace a couple of shirts that had been destroyed (the colours had run) in my effort to kill all of the bedbugs with boiling water, which in hindsight, I probably didn’t carry with me from Kigali, but were in fact bilharzia symptoms. Oh well, I paid $1 for both shirts at a second hand shop.

The next morning, we bid a farewell to Kersten, with promises to visit for her town’s version of Oktoberfest, and Embla and I decided to catch a movie at the mall across the street. We had seen they were screening Ugandan film fest movies, which turned out to be free, and horrible. Seriously. I lasted 10 minutes into a film that was nominated for best feature film, but was overacted, overdramatic and overly complicated. Plus, the bilharzia medicine seemed to be kicking in and I had a bit of a fever and was inexplicably tired. Apparently, the movie did not get better.

With my bilharzia officially clearing up, Embla and I headed off for a traffic-filled matatu ride to Jinja, on the Nile and Lake Victoria.