Today we were travelling from Entebbe to Tororo and this required a nice and early start. Our first stop was Lugogo National Stadium where several of the African nations were preparing for the T20 World Cup African qualifiers. It had a fantastic thatched hut pavilion and there was plenty of training going on- I wanted to go out and join them. A press conference was held for the players and coaches and afterwards we managed to pick up at bit of press ourselves which is always good to see. This was also where we picked up Flavia, our local coach for trip, who only at the age of 21 has played for the national side for nearly two years.

 

After lunch it was time to move on to the long leg of our journey. This was filled by some of the most competitive journey games I have seen; name the intro, I spy, and naming countries of the world to name but a few. Digibuti was even being claimed to be a country. Passing through Jinja we spotted the other CWB team already out here, it was great to see how they had been getting on. We also picked up Ronny our final local coach for the trip, a wicket keeper batsman by trade.

 

The journey didn’t last as long as expected, but it wasn’t without a near death experience. A petrol tanker thought it was a good idea to overtake with our bus charging towards it. With a clever last minute dodge towards the ditch by our bus driver Tony, the truck diagonally scraped past us- no harm done. It was great to have our first team dinner together and find out some more about each other. The highlight being Neil’s drunken university story, involving pub golf and a pizza delivery boy coming to the rescue. I have not cried with laughter in a long time. When food eventually arrived, Alan’s two hours later, it was time for an early night. A busy day of coach ed tomorrow.