Day 78: Flower and Fern Cottage and Campsite

In the morning, we meet Brad (and his four dogs), who owns the farm. He stops by the site, asks if everything is okay or if we need anything, and sets up a Starlink for us. Great! Good WiFi for the next few days. What a luxury. Only in the evening, we're asked to please put it in our car before it gets moving...

Brigitte tucks the laundry under her arm and drives with Brad to the main house (we could also walk :-)). Two hours later, Charity brings everything to our site to dry. How cool. A washing machine. Fresh bedding.

Brad provides us with a steak from his freezer; we can also get bread (to defrost), eggs, and eggplant from him.

We spend the rest of the day planning and researching, which always takes a lot of time. And we hike from the shade (cold wind, down vests, hats) into the sun (sweating) and back into the shade before we get sunburned...

A chimpanzee trekking is possible from Kigoma in the south (Mahale Mountains National Park) as well as in the north in Gombe, the place where Jane Godall began her research in 1960. Both locations can be reached by boat; in both, you can do one tour and return the same day, or stay one night and do a second tour the next day.

The difference between a one-day and a two-day tour isn't great, but the chance of observing chimpanzees is obviously better with two tours.

In Mahale, you have to bring your own food and drink; in Gombe, you'll be provided with meals, but it's $120 more expensive – two lunches, one dinner, and one breakfast for two people, not a small amount, but considerably more comfortable. So we decide to book with Elisabeth from Kigoma Eco Cultural Tourism – but we'll sleep on it for a while. Because the whole thing will cost us a whopping $350 per person.

We'd already received some information from Ian regarding visas for Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda, as well as Malawi and Mozambique (thanks for that), but we'll double-check with the Foreign Office and the border information on iOverlander for Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda. The latter is the only country with e-visas in advance, so we'll postpone it until tomorrow. More important is a rough route and time plan so we can submit an application for gorilla trekking in Uganda – assuming permits are even available.

In the afternoon, our heads are buzzing with information, and it's time to fire up the grill. What an exceptional meal: steak, raw vegetables (!), yesterday's bell peppers, and bread. So delicious!

We warm ourselves a bit by the fire, talk to Ian on the phone, and resolve to meet up somewhere between Kigali and the coast of Tanzania. We last saw Ian in Benin, but we recently saw Catherine in London.