Hello from the Nile River!

A lot has happened since we last posted! On Monday of this week, we went into the Congo and tracked the mountain gorillas! It was a thrill - possibly the biggest adventure of either of our lives. We woke at 5 am (the 3rd or 4th time on this trip already!) and were taken by van to the Congo border. Since we're really not legally supposed to be in the Congo, a "special arrangement" was made, allowing us to pass through for the day in order to do this hike. We split into 2 groups and were driven to the base of the mountain (Virunga) by 2 Toyota Land Cruisers. The roads were rougher in this part of the Congo than any we'd traveled so far. It took us about 1.5 hours to go 10 miles! When we got to the base of the mountain, our guide Martin was waiting for us, along with 3 armed guards. Todd and I were in the group that was headed to track the family that was a long hike into the jungle. We were told that the gorilla family was about a 3 hour hike away the day before. (They track the movement of the gorillas daily by checking out the trails they leave, of poop and bamboo scraps, which is what they eat.) When we got to the spot where they'd been the previous day, we started to get really excited! The guides were showing us the "evidence" they'd been there, and they split up in different directions to go find their trail. Well, we ended up hiking another 2.5 hours to find them. As exhausted as we were, all was forgotten when we heard the screeching of those animals. The first one we saw was the Silverback. He's the male gorilla, the man "in charge." And, WOW, was he intimidating! A massive animal, and not one you want to mess with, as he is very protective of his family! There were 11 in this family, several females, several adolescents, one female with a very young gorilla (only 5 days old) and, of course, the Silverback. We followed them through the brush, Martin cutting the way with his machete. We did get charged by the Silverback a couple of times. Talk about skid marks! The key is NOT to run, but rather to fall on the ground in submission. I certainly did that!! Getting off the mountain was also an adventure, as it was almost 5:00 when we started to head back. Our guides were lost, and all arguing in some Ugandan tribal language about which direction we'd need to go to get back! Martin did have a GPS, but of course, the only coordinates he had on it were the ones for the gorillas!! (Not the base camp!) Dark came about 7pm and we were still up on the mountain. We got back to our van about 9:30 pm, exhausted and glad to be alive. Since the borders back into Uganda had closed, we had a tricky time getting out of Congo, but we did it and were back at our campground about midnight.......Whew! Since that day, we've traveled east back through Uganda, stopping at a beautiful lake called Bunyoni and another brief stop in Kampala. We rafted the Nile yesterday in Jinja and are staying here for a total of 3 nights. It's nice to stay still for a bit. Today we are spending a day by the pool (our campground is right next door to a 4 star resort which allows you to pay to use the pool) and tomorrow we get back in the truck to go back to Kenya. I wish we could post more photos, but if we are lucky enough to find a computer with internet access, it's almost always been dial-up and posting a pic is impossible. We'll try again from Nairobi, as we have some fantastic shots to share.