Unfortunately, the adventure part of our trip did not wait until we arrived in Uganda. A cancelled Alaska Airlines leg of our itinerary from Monterey, California to Entebbe, Uganda played havoc with the rest of our embarking schedule. We arrived in Entebbe a full 60 hours after we flew out of Monterey. Our checked luggage was not there to greet us. This put us in Entebbe a day later than our original plan, which forced us to charter the tiny plane pictured above for a flight across Uganda so that we wouldn't miss the first of our two cherished gorilla-trekking dates. Just before boarding the tiny plane, we rushed to the nearest little village to find the nearest little shop that carried clothes that could tide us over until that hoped-for but not actually expected day when our own clothes would catch up to us. We each found a few things we could wear without looking completely idiotic, but I'm not going to show you what we did look like wearing them.

After a 2-hour flight full of wondrous scenery and not-so-wondrous turbulence, we staggered out of the tiny plane onto the grassy field that served as an airport, said goodbye to our wacky Australian pilot, and said hello to our guide Gabriel Ochieng of Mantana African Safaris, who drove us to the tented camp that we'd be staying at for the next few nights.

We had purchased permits for two days of gorilla-trekking. We had an extra afternoon at Bwindi on the first day, so we took the opportunity to stretch our legs and hike in a flatter part of the rainforest. I asked about seeing lizards and snakes as I always do, and was told that people see lizards from time to time but it's very rare to see a snake. Still, rainforests are generally full of snakes, even if they are often hard to find, so I had my hopes up.

By the way, the sign pictured above was intended to point out the way to the Gorilla Forest Camp, not the way to Uganda.

Bwindi is a gorgeous lush green rainforest. We discovered that a gorilla trek starts out on a path, but eventually heads out straight into the mass of vegetation. A panga-wielding ranger blazes the trail with sweeps of his long blade, and the rest of us push and pull our way through. It's wet (being a rainforest after all) and muddy and steep and humid, and there are many biting flies and ants. But it's all worth it at the magical moment when you come across wild gorillas.

Most of the gorilla pictures I got were of partially-obscured faces in the forest greenery. This was the only full-body shot.

While passing through a cultivated area on our way out of the forest and back towards the spot where we were to be met by our vehicles, I discovered a pretty little chameleon on a passion-flower bush. Unfortunately, the lighting and a breeze combined to make my pictures of it terrible. Fortunately, I told a local man that I was looking for chameleons a little while later, and he found this beauty nearby for me.

Based on this one trip, the chameleon distribution in East Africa seems identical to the snake distribution. I saw two of each in the few days we were at Bwindi, and then one of each in the remaining two and a half weeks of our trip. This little fellow is Chamaeleo elliotti, or Elliott's Chameleon.

Fortunately it didn't rain hard and we had only one minor twisted ankle incident on the way down. And when we met up with our guide Gabriel, we were very happy to discover that our long-lost luggage had finally caught up with us.

Thus ended the physically strenuous part of our African adventure, as well as the clothing-challenged part. The rest was a piece of cake.

Onward to Queen Elizabeth National Park