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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Swissboy" data-source="post: 3519328" data-attributes="member: 4926">While we spent a night at Abu Dhabi on the way to our Uganda tour, we did not do this again as we flew back. We had, however around 6 hours of lay-over time there. So we decided to have a look at the large modern Sheikh Zayed Mosque to shorten our waiting time. The visit was very much worthwhile. We had already seen the mosque on the previous visit, but only from outside. This time, we wanted to see it from inside as well. It is open till 10 PM which fit our schedule well enough. To facilitate things, we asked a freelance taxi driver to be our guide and bring us back to the airport as well. This was a bit costlier than necessary, but it was worth it for us to be sure it would all work out in time. The only thing that did not work well was that the fellow cheated us on the exchange rate. My fault, I should have done my homework better, or more precisely I should simply have consulted my own notes in time.To finish this report: There is always the question about the costs of such a birding tour. Over all, including our flights, we spent a total of around US$ 11000 for the two of us. That includes tips, and all the extra expenses. So it was not a cheap trip, and compared to our Madagascar trip in 2015 (<a href="http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=3327395#post3327395" target="_blank">http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=3327395#post3327395</a>) that was over a week longer, it was actually considerably more expensive with a comparable luxury of it being a private tour. But then, $1200 plus tips was just for the Gorilla tracking.Add to this the fact that we actually had two superb guides not just one, and that we had a more comfortable car. And Uganda is a more expensive place to begin with. If we had been able to do the tour as being part of a 5-person group as originally planned, we could have saved about $2150. And we did not want to be in a larger group than that. So in the end, we are extremely happy that we were able to visit Uganda the way we did, and we can only repeat that Deo and Brian (see post #1) are a team that is hard to beat.EDIT: I can't correct the pitta's name any more in posts #1 and 6. It should correctly read GREEN BREASTED PITTA! Sorry.</blockquote>

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