Last day at Kalinzu

After my long day with the chimps yesterday, I just wanted an easy day today. I had planned on just walking the research road again. It turns out Frank and his guide, Lawrence, were also going that way so I joined them. I told Frank about about my tripod troubles and he showed me a way I could still easily attatching my camera to the tripod by just removing one small piece. He was a professional photographer and had this happen many times. We left the road to enter the forest and re emerged at the research camp and walked back. I spent the rest of the day hanging around camp. Frank went to the tea plantations around dusk to take photos and I stayed behind and collected firewood and built a nice teepee. After dinner we had our last fire at the campsite.
The next day Frank left to check out another forest nearby with Robert and we tentatively planned to meet up in about 10 days at Lake Bunyoni. We had both been to many of the same places in Uganda. I was on my way for a week of relaxation at the Ssese islands, a group of 84 islands in Lake Victoria. I wouldn't make it there in one day though. I wanted to get to Masaka, spend a day catching up on the blog and emails and then go. I wanted to take a bus and they come about once an hour. I missed the 10 bus and then next bus didn't come till 12 but it didn't stop! I hopped into a minivan instead for Mbarara. From Mbarara I took a proper bus going to Kampala but I told them I wanted off in Masaka and only paid to get to there. I couldn't see out the window well from my bench seat at the front of the bus and thought it was taking a while to get there. I asked where Masaka was and the driver told me we passed it 30km ago! I was pissed! No one rememeber the only white guy on the bus was getting off in Masaka. They stopped the bus and hailed another bus for me. I finally got to Masaka in a lousy, tired and hungry mood. It had taken me all afternoon and was now almost 7. I talked with friendly other passengers to get an idea of what I should be paying for the ride. Their ride from Kampala to Masaka was $3.50 and I should only pay $1 - $1.50, that was fair. I was a bit shocked when the driver asked me for more than the whole fair to Kampala! I told him I would give him what was fair but he was refusing. He wouldn't accept my money so I walked off the bus. He followed me into my hotel. There was no way I was paying the price he wanted. I was out of patience and politeness at this point and shoved the money into his pocket and told him in less then graceful terms to leave me alone and get out of here. That worked.
I took a room at the cheap Buddu guesthouse. I thought I would only be here for one night but I was wrong.