A troubled first night

We had booked a banda for our night at UWEC.  What we hadn't bargained on was it being close to a night club, which was intent on keeping the loud music going til 5 in the morning.

Our banda

Also hadn't bargained on there being a mouse (and or bat) squeaking loudly and pissing on my leg in the middle of the night.  There was also the steady pitter patter of poops landing on the floor from a great height.

My pillow also had a very funny smell.

On the plus side there was hot water in the shower room (not sure if we knew how much of luxury this was.......) and box with approximately 500 condoms sitting on top of the loo.

After the night club finally gave up on the music, the chimps in the enclosure nearby started their morning chorus of screaming and yelling.  So we gave up trying to sleep and got up to see the dawn over Lake Victoria.

It's hard to say whether I would recommend staying here - maybe on any other night of the week ie not a Friday, it may be quiet and peaceful, but not getting much sleep certainly clouded our view of the place.

We headed for breakfast, passing various animals in the sanctuary - including some giraffes.

Our first wildlife (ie actually wild) turned out to have arrived in Africa even later than us.  A just born vervet monkey, with its mother licking the afterbirth from its head was sitting just beside the path from our banda to the cafe.

Tiny baby vervet monkey and mum

This improved our mood no end, and after oohing and aahing over the tiny infant we headed for breakfast.  The cafe at UWEC looks out over Lake Victoria, where you can watch both humans and birds fishing. The cafe is the perfect play ground for the young vervet monkeys who seem to enjoy pushing the patience of the cafe staff as far as they can; knocking over chairs and stealing breakfasts from under the noses of unsuspecting and sleep deprived customers (eg me). Karen had a very nice omlette, we shared some crappy Nescafe coffee, and I had sausages, toast and some fresh fruit.  The monkey had some of my fresh fruit - didn't seem keen on the toast.