Our entrance to Uganda was exactly as one would picture it: Green and misty. Or at least, that is how I have always pictured it. Things to note about Uganda, therefore include:
- It is indeed as jungly, green and misty as one imagines. There are also a huge amount of banana palms – everywhere. They do love a good banana palm.
- We are back in the lands of smelly people. Kenya was a bit of a break, and, admittedly, Uganda is not as bad as Ethiopia, however, some of our matatu rides so far have been nothing less than eye-watering. (Thomas likes to refer to the stench as being able to strip paint.) Obviously a generalization – but there you go.
- Indian food. Uganda has a lot of it, and it is excellent. This was a pretty fantastic surprise after about nine months without any Indian food. Largely this is due to the indentured workers being brought here by the British to extend the railway line from Kisumu to Kampala (the line from Mombasa previously ended in Kisumu and from there things were shipped across Lake Victoria to Kampala). The workers stayed on and, after being chucked out by Idi Amin, they returned under the new guy, Museveni (still in power since the 80s). They now hold pretty much all the economic power in the country. Long story short, Uganda has great Indian food – a definite plus.
- The local food is also generally a lot better than Kenya, not least because they are more fond of banana mash (matoke) than corn meal mash (ugali). While I admit neither of these sounds particularly appealing, trust me, that given the choice, most of us would opt for the banana mash option (unless you are, of course, Kenyan, in which case ugali is a birth right without which it is not possible to feel full and no meal would be complete – much like rice in Asia).
- Uganda also has what I will refer to as “various meat on a stick” all over the place on the roadside – not so good for Thomas, but roadside bbq is totally my new favourite thing. And, finally, they have a street-side item called a Rolex which consists of an omelet with some tomato and onion (avocado if you are being very fancy) rolled up inside a chapati – all for a princely sum of NZ75c.
- They are pretty big on formal greetings in these parts. Generally this means that it is polite to greet a person by asking “How are you?”. The correct response being “I am fine”. As a result, pretty much every person one says hello to will respond “fine”. When a child knows any English the following refrain will chase you around town pied piper of Hamlin styles: “How are you? How are you? How are you?”. If they know a bit more English and are cheeky, they also like to yell out “give me my [money/shoes/water/bottle/pen/t-shirt/etc.]”.
- Thomas has discovered a “Coffee Spirit” that comes in a 100 ml plastic bag. It is apparently: “Great Taste and Easy Drinking” and can be bought from the shacks around town. These cost about NZ40c and it turns out that they are indeed “easy drinking” as he managed to turn up fairly drunk shortly after discovering them. It appears that he is not blind yet, however, so this is generally all good.
- Jesus. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but since we have come into East Africa, everyone seems to think that Thomas looks like Jesus. And they all feel the need to tell us about it. Always. This results in us walking down the street in pretty much any town we arrive in and within the space of ten minutes about five people will start calling out “Je-sus, Je-sus”. Suffice to say, they must be absolutely bombarded with pictures in these places. Also suffice to say, Thomas does not have too many problems with being compared to the savior. Not exactly something that encourages him to do away with that manky beard. Thanks, East Africa.
We met up with the source of the Nile at Lake Victoria in Jinja and did some white water rafting and kayaking. I have no pictures of this, because we were just too damned cheap to pay for them, but suffice to say it was epic and now we both want to take up kayaking. There was also a very good rolex guy and this excellent sign.
We also went up to Sipi Falls, which was a stunning area with a bunch of cliff tops that rise up from some large plains and over which, torrents of water plunge to make huge waterfalls. I guess these were particularly impressive as we were there in the rainy season. The area was also dotted with a huge amount of local farming industry based around banana palm, coffee, beans and local vegetable plantations. It was all very picturesque and our guide for the day had me sliding down muddy cliffs for quite a while.
We went through Kampala partly because one has to do this to get to most places and partly because it is always relatively interesting to see the capital city of any country. Not much can really be said for Kampala other than that it has good Indian food and foreign restaurants – see above. The transport hub in the city is crazy busy at all times and it has been a while since any driving or traffic has particularly phased me, but the boda bodas (motorbike taxis) in Kampala managed to scare the living daylights out of me.
We also visited Entebbe on Lake Victoria. Most people know Entebbe as the main international airport in Uganda and the site of the rescue mission by Israeli commandos of hostages taken from a diverted Air France flight back in 1977. It was nice, but again, less than overwhelming.
From Entebbe we decided to head West to Fort Portal and after a magnificent fight with the security men at one of the bus stations, we managed to get on a bus that did not have any security checks – never sure whether this is a good or a bad idea, but these guys really manage to piss us off. Fort Portal was a nice town, but there is not too much to do.
The main draw in the area is a bunch of overpriced national parks and a series of volcanic crater lakes that stretch southwards and have a heap of cheap walking opportunities, monkeys and community run tourism efforts. We spent several days in the crater lakes area which was absolutely fantastic. Our community camp had four types of monkeys on their grounds (which kept Thomas amused for hours while I finished rereading the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and we did a lot of walking around the area to check out the lakes and waterfalls.
We hitched our way south to a town called Katwe, which was a total hole, but had a spot on Lake Edward with heaps of hippos lounging among the fishing boats. We also managed to get picked up from the side of the road by a beer promo truck – best hitch ever.
This whole area has been gazetted as Queen Elizabeth National Park, so we saw a bunch of animals (including an elephant, hippo crossing the road, buffalo, etc.) without paying the entrance fees. We did, however, pay to go chimpanzee tracking in an adjacent forest, which we both thought was pretty fantastic – although the pictures were not really as good as the experience.
Heading south, we hit Lake Bunyonyi, which is beautiful, but ruined somewhat by the number of overland trucks filled with Australian tourists that had set up camp in the area. As a result, our time spent there was short-lived and we hung out in Kabale for a couple of days.
From Kabale, we went to Kisoro, where we hiked up Mount Muhabaru in Mgahinga National Park. This was amazing, but also incredibly strenuous. The hike is up a volcanic cone and begins at an altitude of 2300m. It is 6km to the summit that contains a stunning crater lake and you hike up to 4137m over that distance. Needless to say, the hike proceeds directly upwards and we were puffing heavily when we reached the top. It was spectacular though, and as you walk around the crater, you pass across the Rwandan border and can see to DRC.
And finally, yes, we went and saw the gorillas. They were pretty damned expensive, but we got it for less than the usual amount and they were really quite excellent. We also decided that it was fairly unlikely that we would get the chance again any time soon. There is not much to really report on these other than that we saw them, but one did give us a bit of a bark at the end which made us both jump. Also, I would note that while they are somewhat majestic creatures, they are not particularly graceful. Before we left we watched one silverback spend a good five minutes picking his nose, and then eating it. Delicious.
Generally, the people in Uganda are really pretty great, and travel is fairly easy. Clearly this latest installment has very few of the frustrations that seem to have characterized many of my Africa posts! The only comment I would make is that while it can be very cheap to live in Uganda, the tourist activities are very expensive (and often quite overpriced for what you get).
The only remotely spicy happening that I can report (other than the general smelliness that abounds) occurred while we were hiking up Mount Muhabura in Mgahinga National Park (and subsequently while we were tracking gorillas). This area is just across the border from the town of Bunaguna in DRC (which is about 13km from Kisoro). Bunaguna is/was one of the rebel strongholds in DRC and as of Monday 28 October is apparently under the control of the DRC government. While we were hiking up (and down) the mountain on the Thursday, pretty much the whole day we could hear shelling in the distance. Apparently there are refugees streaming into the town (5,000 on Tuesday alone), but all we saw of this was a refugee camp on the way into town, and not much else. I did get to speak some French to a Congelese woman I met in a grocery store.
October 2013