Each day in Uganda brings new scenery, food, and campsites. These memories aren’t so much concentrated around a particular theme or story, so I present them here as a collage of moments from the ten days we are in this country.

On the first night we stay in the capital city Kampala at Red Chilli Hideaway, a new and especially nice lodge with campgrounds. There’s a swimming pool, free wifi, and best of all they sell mouth-watering wood-fired pizza next to the pool.

I spot this little guy curled up across from me as I access wifi.

Perhaps the best way to form an impression of Uganda is to simply gaze out the window of the overland truck — you’ll see a blur of tea plantations, rural villages, soccer stadiums, and locals carrying goods like banana stalks and jugs of water. Just scrolling through the next dozen images will give you an idea of what it’s like to drive 10+ hour days through the beautiful Ugandan countryside.

We stop for a quick bathroom break (bush toilets only) and get out to stretch our legs.

I’ve mentioned there is a small library on the truck (a shelf jam-packed with good reads). The titles constantly change as passengers pick up new books and leave behind ones they’ve finished reading. I grab a book I haven’t read since high school — Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, a story about a father and son in South Africa struggling with the societal structures that would give way to apartheid. I eagerly read it again.

One of the roadside highlights is passing by the equator a couple of times. We stop for photo ops:

Here’s a campsite we stay at in Kabale, right after our time in Lake Bunyonyi and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. That’s Thomas (one of the infamous German brothers) below right and a big pile of love on the left.

Cheryl from Australia snaps a pic of our guide Riaan wearing her giraffe beanie.

Riaan and Juliana — our fabulous husband-and-wife duo who share duties as our guide and driver — whip up another tasty meal.

Juliana’s making chocolate pancakes for dessert… lucky us!

And they’ve cooked rice, roasted veggies, beans, squash, and chicken stew for dinner, prepared with help from those of us on cooking duty today. It’s hearty and delicious.

The next day we stop by vendors selling hot food and within moments they’ve surrounded our truck. We open the windows and exchange money for lunch — chicken and beef kabobs, roasted bananas, and soft drinks.

Cheryl is my food model. She happens to sit behind me on the truck so whenever we eat something tasty I ask her to pose and she graciously obliges.

Here’s a few of the times I turned around and said, “Hey Cheryl, can I take a picture of you eating that?”

We make one more stop at a different point along the equator.

They demonstrate how water swirls in opposite directions on each side of the equator, not unlike a place I visited in Ecuador a few years ago.

In the southern hemisphere water swirls clockwise, and in the northern hemisphere it swirls counter-clockwise. And exactly on the equator it drops straight down without swirling at all. The man doing the demonstration drops a flower in the water so we can more clearly spot this effect. It’s likely all bogus but we snap photos just the same.

My tent mate Kamani from New Zealand poses at the equator:

We also spent a few days in the city of Jinja, which is located along the Nile River in Uganda. It’s a tourist hot spot with lots of activities like white water rafting, horseback riding, and quad biking. I’ll share a full post on that soon.

Thanks to Acacia Africa for discounting the 18-day Mountain Gorillas to the Mara tour in exchange for blogging and photography. Opinions are my own.