The Search Begins....

Some of you might be wondering why this blog is titled as it is. "Who is this Speke you speak of?", I hear you cry. "Are you being very witty and using the title of a rather famous sci-fi movie, but just changing the name?", is something else I can perhaps hear you say at a less audible volume. I will begin by answering the second question first: Yes, that is exactly what I have done.
To answer the first question I must first take you back to that wonderful century: the nineteenth. It was a time of unending joy and prosperity, at least for a couple of people living in Cornwall. It was also a time filled with a group of people calling themselves "explorers" who wandered around trying to find areas of the globe as yet undiscovered. One of these gentlemen was John Hanning Speke. In short, the life of Mr. Speke consisted of travelling around Africa, getting stabbed, going deaf and catching more than a couple of infectious tropical diseases. After all this hardship one would have thought that the universe owed him a nice quiet retirement, perhaps in Cornwall. But, alas, the universe had other plans: John Hanning Speke shot himself, whether on purpose or by accident, while hunting in Wiltshire. He died not knowing that one thing in his life he got right was that the river Nile did in fact start near the town of Jinja in Uganda; something he had postulated for many years before.
Obviously, I do not wish to emulate Mr. Speke's adventures in any way. However, some of the paths he tread, back in the days of tea, scones and imperialism, will be the very same ones I will walk in the coming months. So, I thought it only right that the poor sod get an honourable mention in this here blog.
Over the next two months I will endeavour to provide a continual, and hopefully borderline interesting, blog of my time in Uganda. But, as was proven in my previous blog about Korea, I cannot always promise prompt or coherent pieces of writing. My apologies in advance.