Day 153: Stitch and Sew to Top of the World

We got up at 08:00 after the strange night a packed almost everything out of the vehicle and removed the things from the roof rack for the service. Hugo took the vehicle to Stitch and Sew at 09:00 and they could help him immediately. We still had an air-filter and fuel filter from South Africa, which they said they will use. The service would also only take one hour.

Hugo went to the Gardens Hotel for breakfast and a large cappuccino. An hour later the vehicle was done, but Hugo forgot half our cash was in the camera bag at the campsite. He jogged the 1km to the site to get the money and to tell the others to pack up and then took a boda-boda back to the garage for 1000 UGX. The service cost 285 000 UGX, the labour being only 50 000 UGX and the rest for oil, consumables and an oil filter.

Hugo then went to fill up the car, bought chicken and bacon from Andrew and Brothers supermarket and even went to a car wash to wash off the Masai Mara mud from a month ago. Back at the campsite we just quickly put everything in and on the vehicle and set off. The campsite cost 25 000 UGX, which is a major rip off for what we got.

Caro and Sekar then wanted to buy flip-flops and Daniel wanted to go to an ATM, so we only left Fort Portal at 13:00.

We set off to the three crater lakes on the Fort Portal – Mbarara Road which is a proper tar road (not Gravel as indicated by T4A). We stopped at the CVK Resort next to Lake Nyabikere.

The view is amazing and the staff seemed friendly, but the camping is next to the highway and the toilets are a bit scruffy.

We then turned back to the turnoff we missed for Top of the World.

The small gravel road goes between two of the lakes and then to the top of a hill overlooking the third lake. From their viewpoint one can see all three lakes, but only small pieces of each. The campsite is almost 400m from the parking space and there is no way to access it by car. It costs $10 per person, but at least there were proper flush toilets and hot water showers.

The view from the campsite is really good so we took two ground tents and went camping without the vehicle. If you only have a roof top tent you could probably also sleep in the carpark. We made a big fire with proper wood and could actually cook and braai chicken and make pap all on the fire.

After dinner we played some cards with thunder in the distance. The wind started to pickup so we packed up and prepared for rain. While brushing teeth a few drops fell, but there were no heavy rain in the night.