Yes i am going to write in English this time...I know you all read better english than I write swedish anyway but please continue to skriv till mig på svenska...

Back from Uganda and what a fantastic safari...two back to back gorilla safaris visiting The Ndali-Kasenda Explosion Crater Fields - an area that was blown up in violent volcanic explosions only 8-12 000 years ago....you know...that means that our stone age ascendants were witness to that...them and the chimps and gorillas and elephant and other wildlife...everybody was pretty much in the same stage of development around that time as we are now...everything that took place there happened very recently...geologically speaking. After driving the Ndali Kasenda Fields we drove further south into and through the Katwe Crater Field...at more or less the same time as everything was blowing up at Ndali Kasenda, huge hot bombs of heavy molten magma were bursting up and flung for long distances in snappy explosive eruptions independent of any volcanic feature visible on the surface ...except i guess the ground temperatures can't have been pleasant. I wonder if animals would pick up that and if so how long before any violent volcanic activity would they get the message that it was time to leave that area....all of the aquatic life was killed off by the toxins thrown out in the ash...even today there is little or no aquaculture in these areas...apart from a mid scale fishing industry operating on Lake Edward on the borders of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

You can get very special salt there however...for the no-hopers in Uganda and the Congo - people with no home or tribe...or none close enough to avail them of any other avenue of employ there is the option of working a salt pit. A terrible existence for the wretched. And yet - for some, the beginning of something that they hope will lead to something more. An education, albeit for their own offsping instead of themselves. In hopes of securing a future that will offer them a little more scope than building walls of sodium saturated mud in your bare feet at temperatures that exceed 36 degrees celsius...and thats on a cool day.

Dramatic, powerful scenery...and as always with africa...moments of intense emotion - elation...happiness that fills your heart with excitement to where you think that you are just going to explode with the pure colour and light that you see in this miracle of african magic mixed with wildlife and friendly people. Intense sadness at certain things, life is so really and truly broken down into basics in africa...but people wake up in the morning to the sound of a rooster crowing...or seven...cattle steaming long moaning bellows into cool morning air free of the sounds of urban living....people wake up and greet each other and cattle have to be moved and watered, the wind that brought in half an inch of dust over the night has to be dusted off and a meal should be ready with a cup of tea around midday...just in time for when visitors are likely to be arriving or men and boys coming from their fields...children play and sit with their cousins, brothers sisters and family day in and day out - they grow up together and build bonds...they walk cattle, chase goats, throw stones at the crocs and do everything in their formative years with their immediate family. They have such strong family bonds and rivalry between fathers and families will be respected and continued by sons and their sons - anybody who has been to africa has seen the water train...almost always girls, who - according to size carry their own size of container, balanced delicately on poised necks....unbelievable really...and no wonder how they do it so well....they start carrying small cans almost as soon as they have learned to walk....its only a cupful but every drop counts

A few days fishing on one of the most beautiful rivers I have ever seen and certainly one of the most famous...The Nile...what can one say...I really don't know...but I have heard the expression now a few times...and it fits so well. "Its the Nile." Unbelievable country....totally undisturbed river frontage. Uganda has from what I have seen an incredibly well protected river with undisturbed riverine frontage for significant distances along its course...it is truly wonderful and an ecological exception when compared with so many of developing Africas rivers. The DRC doesn't fall within the boundaries of developing africa for me you see...because there you have another exceptional river and a whole wide open scope of crazy possibilities...just completely lawless really and if in any stage of development at all it would unfortunately have to be löabelled as regressive country....tthey really do seem to be going backwards....

The Western Rift Valley is classified as being home to the greatest ecological biodiversity anywhere on earth...I can sort of understand that, but it does sound like a very extravagant claim.

And GORILLAS!!! My goodness me...nothing ever prepares you for whatever happens to you when you are out in the forests of Bwindi...beautiful magical rainforest with giant ferns and monkeys high on green canopy leaves, duiker...imagine the crashing panic of a small herd of forest elephant bashing their way through highland swamps - they don't like people up there them eles you see...but the gorillas....Mr Big Silverback Badass - my goodness me when they give you an angry look it can make you scared. Oh but the babies! Yeah! They are so damn cute...and they are so much more curious about our being there...says a lot about the silverbacks role in the family watching how all the youngsters will flock to him and around him, but learn quickly when to tease out his playful side and when to just sit close to him and enjoy the security of knowing he is close.

Yes Uganda.....what a trip....