Semliki National Park part III

I woke up naturally at 7.30. I ate my cornflakes with water and a banana. Tadeo made me tea. He's a super nice guy and a great guide. He seems to really care about the park and it's animals. He's always smiling and willing to give any help I need. We set off at 815. No epic hike today though, I just want to stay around the swamp forest area looking for De brazza monkey again. We get to the area and venture off trail. Tadeo sees a De brazza on the ground but I don't see it. We search and search, it' really quiet. We often stop to listen for movement or the call of the e brazza which sounds like air being forcefully blown over the top of an empty glass bottle. When we hear it, we move in that direction. Some of the vegetation we struggle through is extremely thick and mosts small shrubs have thorns. Rattan, a spiky vine used for making furniture, is abundant and it always catches me as I pass by, tearing at my flesh and clothes. It catches on to me at the slightest passing. We keep crisscrossing from the trailless forest to a trail and then back into the forest. Tadeo is putting in a lot of effort and trying is best, the De brazza just seems to be particularly elusive today. We pass one spot of brush and I get covered in my arch enemny - ants! Man, do I hate ants! These ones are very small and seem to get in every corner of my skin and clothes. Not only are their bites painfully for being so small but they are also itchy. Even a while after passing through the area, I keep getting bit by ants who have taken their time to wander on my clothes before they decide to latch for dear life on my tender skin. I have to take off my shirt so Tadeo can kill the unreachable ants on my back. He's getting bit too. Back at camp my body is covered in cuts,red marks and raised bites. We searched for the De brazza monkey for 4 hours straight but with no success. Can't say I didn't try though. I'm glad I saw them yesterday or else I would have stayed another day but I'm happy with my experience in the park and will leave tomorrow.
I would love to stay another night at the park campsite but this means I will have to pay the $20 park entrance fee, so I move to the village of Ntandi, 2.5km away. I eat rice and beans for lunch at camp and then Tadeo accompanies me to Ntandi. He shows me a 'guesthouse' I can stay, run my Anette. It's a concrete cell of a room that someone obviously lives in most of the time, but it will do for one night. I don't like small villages and this one is no exception. There's no privacy, constant noise from goats, chickens, dogs, crying babies and everyone watches every move I make. I try to sit outside my room to write in my journal but this attracts little kids who won't leave me alone. Sure, they don't mean anything by it, I just like my alone time. I don't mind when it whenm they are interested in me and ask my name and country but get annoyed when they start asking for money and gifts. I bucket shower in a stall that also functions as the urinal and it reeks badly. I can't wait to leave this place. There's no electricity but most villages, like Ntandi, have a generator and someone plays terrible music full blast. I miss the campsite. I eat g-nut sauce over rice for dinner and read in my room till bed.
There are many transport options back to Fort Portal but the safest and most comfortable is the daily bus which leaves at 5am. Anette said she would wake me but I woke up with my internal alarm clock at 4.45am. I didn't sleep well, they didn't provide a mosquito net ( I left it, along with some books, in Ft. Portal, damn!) and it felt like things were on me and mossies buzzing around and I was itching periodically enough to disrupt any sound sleep. I was on the main road at 5am and sat on a log in the darkness to wait for the bus. A few other waited as well. At 5.30, the guy from the village mosque starting going off. There is no electricity so he just sang/yelled at the top of his lungs. Why do mosques always have to call people to prayer over a loudspeaker at ridiculous times of the day? Though there isn't many mosques in Uganda, it was quite annoying at times in Malaysia and Indonesia.
The bus finally comes by at 6.30 and I get a seat by the conductor on the left side close to the window and side door of the bus. The bus is almost packed. It's still dark but warm. We beging to climb the narrow road of the Rwenzori mountains. The driver is cautious and slow, I like that. There's one scary bit as we have to make room for a huge truck to pass us. They drive on the left in Uganda, so we were on the outside, close to the cliff edge. The conductor got out to direct the driver while backing up. He backed up slowly and the cliff edge came closer and closer until I couldn't see any road looking straight down out of my window, we were that close. My heart was pounding, as I'm sure others where. We were so close to the edge and then we moved forward a bit and then backed up more! This was intense. Finally there was enough room for the truck to squeeze by and we carried on to Ft. Portal.