Uganda part 1

Uganda Day 1:  (sorry, we were driving so I barely took any photos)

3am wake up for my 5:30 flight from Mombasa to Nairobi.  A 90 minute layover, which if I may say so myself, I handled like a pro this time.  No assistant required to get me from domestic arrivals to international departures.  I even had a few minutes to wait before my flight boarded.  This gave me time to wonder what on earth I was doing.  Flying to Uganda to meet a tour guide I found through my friend’s aunt????   But by this point, in for a penny, in for a pound. 

I arrived in Entebbe and first stopped at the ATM to take out some Ugandan Schillings.  I am having a hard time keeping up with currency exchange now as this is my fourth currency in less than 3 weeks.  My maximum withdrawal was 800 000 USch.  I am too tired to do the math but I keep in mind that 20,000 is $7.50 USish. 

Then out the doors to see Francis waiting with a sign with my name on it.  He looks normal and not kidnappy so good start.  He introduced me to Robert, his assistant guide who would be joining us.  I wasn’t sure why but his value became apparent as the day progressed.  Francis is driving a 4X4 that is in reasonable shape.  I had imagined a beat up Honda but it is almost a real tour vehicle.  I was starting to relax.   My gamble paid off.  Two tour guides and a nice ride.  Joanne pats self on back.  (This isn’t even foreshadowing for bad things to come, it is fine).

Robert and Francis

Francis said that because I had arrived so early we could head to Bwindi Park that very day.  It is an 8 hour ride but we will stop at the equator.  (ok, maybe it isn’t ALL fine).  We had lunch at the equator.  Our table was right on the line.  I sat in the Northern hemisphere and Robert in the South. 

The equator was not too exciting but there was a guy there showing an experiment.  Three sinks, one in the north, one south and one right on the line.  Fill each with water.  Start to drain the water and then throw in a little flower for demonstration purposes.   The north water runs out clockwise, the south counterclockwise.  And the one on the line, the flower doesn’t move.  It just goes down without spinning.  I know everyone knows this but I thought it was a myth.  To see them all together was cool.

The experiment - south sink

The experiment, dead centre

I should go back and mention Entebbe & Uganda.  I, of course being from North America, had all sorts of preconceptions about Uganda.  Vague ideas but in general, a poor country with National Geographic-esque ideas added in for good measure.  Well, Entebbe and onward is really nice.  Way nicer than Mombasa.  The roads are paved properly.  The houses are big and look like they are filled with well-off people.  I did not see one mud hut until we were way, way into the back rural country.  And even then, they were nice mud huts compared to some in Kenya. It looks prosperous here and like they have a functioning government.  Far more so than Kenya. I finally saw Lake Victoria, no time for pictures.

Entebbe is followed by Kampala.  Entebbe has a UN centre so that might explain the obvious wealth.  But Kampala is still nice.  Then the towns got smaller and less rich as we drove through.  A few hours in, we hit an hour long stretch of road work.  That was tiring. Eventually, about five hours on the road, we hit the dirt roads of rural Uganda.  We had long since passed a town of any size.  But the dirt roads were good and we only had three hours to go. (THAT is foreshadowing for bad things to come). 

Well, three hours passed.  Francis is no navigator.  He was trying to find Kisissi Hospital.  He speaks English and a local dialect of Uganda, I think he called it Luganda.  But the people of west Uganda speak some other dialect.  This is where Robert shone.  He is better with directions and he is better with languages.   Thank God, because we must have stopped and asked 40 or more people for directions (I’m not exaggerating). 

Here are the three pictures I took on the first day drive.  I now see that there is a certain sameness to them (green, hilly, farmland) but it was so beautiful.

Pro tip:  When lost in the back country of Uganda, in the dark and rain, children and drunk men are unreliable.  Women are iffy.  Stick with the men on motorcycles, they give the best directions.  Unfortunately, there aren’t that many men on motorcycles around.

Each person we asked would tell us to go ‘direct’.  Keep in mind that most of the people we talked to are walking.  And we are asking about a place that is far away by foot.  So we would only get advice for the next bit.  But even that was not great.  Go direct but we would immediately come upon a Y in the road.  So we would ask the people at that junction.  Each intersection involved talking to more people.  We did some backtracking (remember, children and drunk men).

I really had no idea what was going on.  I just knew we were looking for Kisissi Hospital.  I assumed that our hotel was near that.  Nope.  We eventually found the hospital after the 8 hours.  But that was just, I don’t know just what it was to be honest, but that is where we started to go up hills.

 

Now imagine if you will a plate shaped like Uganda.  Now through a bunch of cooked spaghetti noodles on that plate.  That is the western Ugandan road system.  But dirt instead of noodle.  No street signs.  All the roads look exactly the same.  Some go up, some go down.  For a long time we had a cliff wall to our left and a black abyss to our right.  Then hours later, that was reversed. 

Being lost all started when Francis asked some men at an intersection about the road on the route he knows.  They said the rains had made them bad.  Francis said that bad could mean impassable, including mud slides that block the road.  So he decided to go the ‘other’ way.  (I would like to note that he changed route based on one conversation.  But forever after, every direction we were given had to be confirmed multiple times. I mention this because when we drove back, we took the original, shorter, route and it was fine.  Hrumph).

Anyway, long story still not short, two random passengers along the way who could lead us, 13 hours later we finally got to BwindiImpenetrable Forest National Park.  The last stretch was the worst.  I was going with the flow for the first 11 hours.  Good humour, enjoying the beautiful Ugandan scenery while we had light.  Wildly amused to the point of suppressed laughter at all of the direction asking.  But by hour 12, I was still ok but I would say I had switched to a more neutral stance.  And my legs had gone numb.  Did I mention how bumpy some of the road were at that point.  But by hour 13, I was done.  I didn’t lose it or say a word, but I just wanted to start crying and my legs and bum were aching.  I had my second existential crisis for the day.  Why am I doing this?  Who do I think I am?  I am too soft for this.

Did I mention that I had some sort of hallucinogenic/mystical/religious experience once night fell.  Do Ugandans believe in Animism? (I looked it up – they do).  Because once it got dark, I started to see animate beings in inanimate objects.  I would see a tree and believe that it contained the spirit of a man.  Or a rock that was a leopard. Lots of dogs, wolves and foxes.  Only the one cat.  A few men.  It was weird.  I think I understand the spirit quest better now.  Between extreme exhaustion, dehydration and having to pee so bad, my mind went all wonky.  It was kind of cool.  Who needs drugs when you can just drive for 13 hours straight?

We finally found signs for the park, so between Francis asking everyone still on the road (all drunk men by 11pm) and Robert in the back seat calling the resort every two minutes, we finally found it.  I didn’t know what IT was supposed to be, I had long ago given up hope of a hotel by this point.  We were too far from civilization.  There were no bathrooms for the entire way.  Seriously.   I would had to knock on someone’s door. And I would have rather peed on the road than use a rural Ugandan’s bathroom.

We approached the gate of the park.  We were staying in the tent-cabins in the park. (I found out later it is called Buhoma Community Rest Camp) How cool!  We were ushered into the dining hall/reception.  Sit down, it is time for dinner.  Seriously, it was 11:30 at night.  What is there, I asked since I hadn’t eaten since about noon, hoping for some cheese and crackers or a light snack.  No, they had beef and rice.  It made my stomach turn to think about eating a full meal.  Which reminds me, when I got out of the car, it was like I had been on a boat for days.  I was swaying and wobbly.  I finally got to use the bathroom (I was rather insistent when they were just trying to be nice and welcoming – no time for niceties after that long).

My bed in my tent

Bush Baby tent

Walkway from my
tent to the restaurant

My view

I am in ‘Bush Baby’ tent. Which is close to the dining room.  I was happy not to go too far but there were still slippery and gravelly (one would think these would not be found together – wrong) stairs to navigate.  I was informed for Gorilla Tracking, 7am breakfast, 7:30 briefing and then start out at 8ish.  I just wanted to go to bed and sleep forever but I set my alarm and fell asleep. 

Break time.  It is actually the end of day 2 but I am exhausted (still? again?).  It is cold here and I need to tuck in and go to sleep. 

Day 2 – I am going to skip the gorillas for the next post (even though I think I promised them in this one), because the Gorilla Tracking is worth a whole post.  Instead, I will skip to post-tracking and talk about the place we stayed.

I met an interesting fellow named Jeff at dinner.  He is from Namibia.   He has a Masters degree in Tourism Management and he was in Bwindi helping the community set up another resort.  One that will be higher end than the tents that I was staying in.  He gave me lots of background on our little hut village. 

Jeff

It was the first to be built for the Gorilla tracking tourists.  It has been there 20 years.  It is completely run by a community cooperative and all profits go toward conservation, community development and re-investment into the tourist trade.   The cooperative has used the profits to build several schools including a secondary school.  There is a fish farm and a water treatment plant.  The kids all still look scrawny and dirty but at least they are being educated and have clean water. 

Jeff had just arrived to help them develop the best management processes for the new resort.  Apparently it is only two family huts but very high end.  When I saw him, he had a pocketful of coffee fruit.  He had discovered that some women grow coffee right outside the park so he was trying to figure out how to serve it in the new resort.  Coffee?  No worries, Nikki, I have you covered – Gorilla Mountain coffee beans (in a tiny bag) coming to you soon.

So, there’s bit of background.  Plus he said our resort is nice and considerably cheaper than the ones outside the park (which didn’t look that upscale).

Before dinner, I joined Francis and Robert on the deck of their tent. Their’s was right on the edge of camp so they had a beautiful view of the forest valley and mountain.   We sat there and had a beer and I birdwatched.  I may have to do another separate post just to post pictures of birds.  Western Uganda has very different birds than the other parts of Africa I have visited.  I had booked a guided bird walk for 430-5:30 but just as we went to meet the guide it started to bucket rain.  No birding that evening.  Francis and I were trapped in the dining tent.  But still better than Robert who got stuck in the car.  Fear not, I was able to rebook for the next morning at 7:30.

I almost forgot.  After we got back from tracking, I hadn't eaten lunch.  I had given my sandwich from my packed lunch to some kids but I had a hard boiled egg and a banana (and some cookies which I didn't eat but they come back in a few days).  I started to peel the egg when I heard something over my bed.  There was a monkey trying to look in the mesh covered window.  He tried all six windows, peering in and pushing on the nets.  Then he managed to get into my bathroom.  I opened the zipper and he was just standing there staring at me.  I screamed, he ran.  I ate my egg in peace.  Although he did hang around the deck for a bit, hoping I was a soft touch, I suppose.

Is that an egg I smell?

How about the banana

Then dinner and to bed.

Update:  It is Saturday and I am back in Mombasa.  Today we kidnapped a kitten from the Kencada school yard.  He is about three months old.  He is the cuddliest cat, especially for a stray.  He cries and cries until someone picks him up.  He is ALWAYS on someone's lap.  We brought him home, fed him and gave him a bath.  He is orange and white with a very fluffy tail. We named him Kelele which means noisy in Swahili.  I will post pictures in the next post as I want to get this posted before I leave for Lamu in the morning.  (plus I don't want to get up as he is asleep in my lap).