Today will mostly be spent in the vehicle as we have a 6+hr drive to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest - home of the Gorillas!
We had a fairly leisurely 08:00 start and as we arrived for breakfast the other Ian eagerly told me he'd managed to get some really great shots of Turaco so I wander a little way down the hill and these are the best I could get. I'm starting to wonder though if other Ian's idea of a great shot might be somewhat different to mine as I think these were pretty poor.
These two were much closer, just outside the restaurant area.
African Pied Wagtail singing its little heart out.
Juvenile Vervet monkey with a nasty sore on its leg.
The next load of photos are all taken through the vehicle window, which is less than clean and also may have a colour cast. But I can't resist trying to capture a feel for the country as we drive along. Bananas play a big part in most people's lives and they are everywhere.
Banana markets are held in lots of small towns - this picture looks weird because I had the camera set for silent shooting because I didn't want the clicking to annoy my fellow travellers and therefore was using the electronic shutter rather than the mechanical one. Because we were travelling at speed, the image is warped due to the rolling shutter effect.
We saw many people peddling or pushing bikes loaded with hands, I've no idea how much the bananas weight but they look pretty heavy.
The lucky ones were motorised.
The countryside is rather beautiful.
The next 3 demonstrate just how loaded some of the vehicles are. It's impossible to see the driver of this motorbike.
And this guy seems to be carrying his complete market stall on the back,
A couple of shots as we drove through a town.
Everything is very labour intensive, I don't think we've seen any heavy machinery at all.
The man carrying sticks isn't particularly interesting but the crop behind him is pineapple.
Another example of the vicious road blocks.
These are adobe bricks being stacked for drying. They build up a kind of chimney with them and then set a fire inside to speed up the drying process.
We stopped at a particular roadside swamp where Gerald and Olly were sure we'd see the elusive Papyrus Gonolek. We stood around for an age whilst Gerald played his bird call app hoping to entice the bird out but no luck.
The view across the other side of the road.
I couldn't believe just how laden this guy was.
We then crossed over the road to try again and although we didn't find any Gonolek, we did see this lovely row of Chubb's Cisticolas
And a Lucia Widow Dragonfly
Obviously many people here don't have vehicles and so the variety of things we've seen carried is quite amazing. This chap is carrying a bed frame (sorry about the edge of the windscreen).
Whilst these two ladies are manhandling an extremely long pole - it must have be 20' long or more.
We then drove through a tea growing area but there were no tea pickers to be seen so we didn't stop.
