Equator sign at Kikorongo
Kampala is the capital city of Uganda with a population of nearly 2 million and lies near Africa’s largest and the world’s second biggest freshwater lake, Victoria. We are here as guests of John and Tisha Morley who have magnanimously allowed us to stay in their beautiful home while they visit their children for half-term in South Africa. Once again a beautiful home like this is a refuge from the storm of rugged muddy tracks, rough campsites, long-drop latrines and hoards of people. A time to catch up on e-mail, blogs, schoolwork and laundry as well as get a local perspective on life in East Africa. John is as much a native here as anyone, having driven overland from the UK in the 70’s via West Africa and Uganda and stopped in Kenya, where he met his future 4th generation Kenyan wife Tisha. He is a successful self made engineer who is presently steering an Irish company here that has found crude oil at various sites in and around Lake Albert that have been drilled and capped and await government approval for extraction; a move that will change the fabric and future of Uganda forever. His laissez-faire nature is infectious and warm generosity exceptional as he instructs us on what to do in Uganda, how to work the flat screen TV and where the whiskey is kept! “Seriously, stay as long as you like”, a very tempting offer for a travel weary family recovering from a bad bout of flu!
patchwork fields Uganda
Fisherman on lake- Uganda
After our brief but wonderful stay at Kibogora Mission Hospital we are on the road again and soon stop at a coffee bean ‘factory’ nestled in the lush hills near Lake Kivu. The locals are warm in their welcome and guide us through the labour intensive process of coffee bean production from drying the berries, separating the husk from the bean, washing and a long drying process that leaves albino like beans ready for roasting. I’ll never look at a latte in the same way again. We drive on into the thick Nyangwe forest and have great sightings of beautiful L’Hoest monkeys with their white collars and silky coats and take a short walk into the depths of this rich vegetation with massive trees and towering lianas. The last elephant was killed in this forest in 1999 and reminds us how lucky we are in South Africa. We visit the excellent USAid sponsored visitor centre but balk at the short canopy walk for US$60each. Then it is on back to Kigali and Ilda entertains us with gory genocide details from her latest book and we are delayed by our repaired tyre blowing again and so arrive in the dark.
Mark and Samela Priestley live just below the British consuls’ home and enjoy wonderful views of Kigali and traditional life in the fields below their home. Their young children attend the International School of Kigali, like most of the ex-pats living here, and they enjoy quality lifestyle. We use the time to get the tyre and car shocks replaced for the second time on this trip, get some school work done and the girls get to walk the dogs and have their dose of DVD’s. A highlight in Kigali is the motorbike taxis which we use a lot and revel at being whizzed around the city. The car is fixed, visas due to expire and so we start the climb towards the Ugandan border.
Uganda appeals to me as the country where my parents lived prior to my birth and where my sister Amanda was born. Also a fascination, a bit like Rwanda, with a country that can be tortured, decimated and devastated so extensively and yet show resilience and recovery, to become the prospering and peaceful country it is now. We arrive at the border post in torrential rain and certainly seem to have caught up with the rainy season. The border crossing is quiet but we have to again go through the tiresome process of visiting first the police, then immigration and finally customs and forking out the customary fistful of US dollars. At least we get to drive on the left side of the road again and I am relieved that my comprehensive insurance is again valid.
The Ugandan town of Kisoro is nestled amongst towering 4000m high volcanoes and lies in the bottom corner of the country near Rwanda and the DRC. We opt for a clean guest house to avoid the rain and enjoy excellent chapatti and vegetable stew at one of the local eateries. The next morning we climb dramatically up a road under construction and juggle with massive lorries, bulldozers and mud. We discover later that this is one of the main arteries linking Uganda and the DRC and are relieved to get back onto tarmac and stop at the picture-postcard Lake Bunyoni with its glistening blue water and crop laden slopes cascading down to the waters edge. We watch traders arriving at the local market by dugout canoe and marvel at the tranquility of this place, touted in the guidebooks as a “Little Switzerland”.
Bwindi Impenetrable forest
Bike street seller
Our Garmin GPS takes us off the security of the tarmac onto a rutted dirt track towards the famous Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and we are gob-smacked at the dramatic transition from cash-crop agricultural land to the thick, literally impenetrable, forest that makes up the park and is home to nearly 300 of the world’s last few Mountain Gorillas. We can only pray that this tenuous border prevails. We seek refuge from the rain and camp on the verandah of the Ruhiga Community camp where we are spoilt by the locals with a wood fire and hot water for a wash. Samson, a park guide hitches a lift with us along the muddy track and we head for Buhoma, the headquarters for gorilla tracking. Alas we will only be distant spectators of this incredible experience because the age limit is 15yo and we are all coughing and spluttering which puts the gorillas at risk. Also the US$2000 price tag for the four of us is a definite deterrent!
Sandy considering his next bike for the Coast to Coast!
Crested Crane
We are on the road again, northwards up the Albertine rift towards Lake Albert and ease into the Queen Elizabeth national park. Unlike South African parks there is no gate or fence and crops and cattle give way seamlessly to buffalo, impala and the Ugandan Cob. We visit the QE pavilion after crossing the Kazinga channel linking Lakes Edward and George and over a coffee enjoy watching a herd of nearly fifty elephant grazing. This was the sight of the royal visit in 1953 and then again of the Duke of Edinburgh in 2007. We cross the equator and pose for photos where my parents stood about 50 years ago, only the rough dirt track has been transformed into a modern macadam road. We follow yet more rough tracks toward Kibale national park, this time hoping for an encounter with the chimpanzees, but are again flummoxed by age limits and viruses and Zara takes a turn for the worse overnight. Her high fever, delirium and vomiting have me digging deep into the medical kit and drawing up the Ceftriaxone and iv fluids but her thrashing refusal to have an iv line reassures me. Her Malaria test is negative and she wakes smiling with the dawn.
We view the magnificent Ndali Lodge perched on the edge of a volcanic crater lake but at US$480 a night we ease down the road to an excellent site and camp for US$10! We visit the local vanilla processing plant and learn about the lengthy process of curing and ‘sweating’ these finicky flavoursome beans which need about as much attention and TLC as a good red wine. Then we bypass Fort Portal where my Dad worked at the local hospital all those years ago and take the excellent road east to Kampala. I am struck by how things have changed in Africa since my backpacking days in Malawi and Zim in the eighties. Smooth tar roads, fancy luxury coaches and the cell phone explosion have transformed Africa beyond belief and somehow transport one too fast past the rich fabric of this complex and chaotic continent. In parts of Tanzania we witnessed a Chinese company laying broadband internet cable in areas that had neither sanitation nor piped water. What for I ask myself?
And now in Kampala and bliss. Tomorrow we try again for a primate encounter with a boat trip from Entebbe on Lake Victoria and then on up to Murchison Falls national park, the Albert Nile and perhaps a boat trip to the falls. Then beyond that, to Kenya.
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