Rwanda

Gisenyi

We got through immigration pretty quick thanks to our East African visa, although the people behind us in the queue didn’t seem to think so, as one cried ‘finally’ when we got our stamp!

The ride to Kigali was amazing, with perfect conditioned roads (thanks to the European influence), driving within the speed limit and time to appreciate the view. We curved round hills clustered with banana trees, tea plantations in the valleys as far as the eye could see and people working the fields.

I didn’t think Africa could get any greener after Uganda, but here we were with every shade of green imaginable and a weird kind of precision to it that looked like everything was neatly carved out and every square inch thought through.

We arrived in Kigali a little after 12 and booked a bus to Gisenyi for 1.30pm, just enough time to grab some lunch and watch the city go by from our restaurant balcony.

We eventually got on our bus after a lot of pushing and shoving- it seems that even though there are enough seats for everyone, everyone wants the best seat. So after been squashed by a few Rwandan women, I managed to secure us some decent ones whilst Luke was sorting out the bags.

The ride was beautiful (I only know this from the return journey as I was asleep for most of the time on the way there). We were looping round these beautiful hills and even the rain didn’t dampen our spirits.

Half way through the journey, we came to a village with a dirt road, which could have easily been mistaken for a river as half of it had turned into a fast flowing stream. Looking at the houses down the street, people were huddled in the shelter whilst massive puddles and streams were surrounding their homes. Cars were fighting to get down one side of the road so not to be taken with the stream. The water was a bright red earthy colour and the actual rivers we passed had burst their banks and were flowing into fields. It was the first experience we’d had of how the rainy season can really affect Africa. People were walking barefoot, with no rain jackets and a deep, persistent face of ‘you’ve just got to get on with it.’

We arrived in Gisenyi just before it got dark and struggled to make out where we were on the map. We settled down in a hotel which seemed decent enough and thought we’d figure it out tomorrow when the rain stopped. It didn’t stop raining all night, but we made it out for a plate of carbs (as usual) and a beer.




DRC volcano from Rwanda

In the morning, the sun was trying to burst through the clouds so we got up to discover the place whilst it was dry. Out from the clouds, we could see Karisimbi, a volcano sat in the DRC. In 2002, it had erupted, destroying the town of Goma – homes and livelihoods were covered in molten lava, and even the end of the airport runways were in two metre deep lava. Some died of asphyxiation, but most were able to escape, only to return later and try and dig the town out and rebuild their lives.

Not only was the DRC difficult to obtain a visa for, the political situation wasn’t all that great, with peaceful visits not guaranteed. Plus it was really expensive, so we thought we’d give it a miss.

We took a long dirt road down to Lake Kivu and strolled along the beach. Apparently you have to watch where you swim as you could die of asphyxiation from the CO2 around certain parts. We’ll give it a miss then!

Jumping on the back of a motorbike…. What’s this… one bike each only and you have to wear their spare helmets??? Rwanda has got to be one of the safest places for driving in Africa! We took the road by the lake, which gave us beautiful views of the bays and local villages, and eventually looking back, we saw the sheer size of Gisenyi.

We got off at Rubona (although my tablet wants to correct that to Ribena), a small town a few kilometres south of Gisenyi. We walked through the town and the brewery before getting a bit lost trying to find these hot springs that the book mentioned.




Hedge trimmers at work

Eventually, a kind student showed us the way and gave us a small tour. The hot springs weren’t as impressive as we thought, with only 3 small pools, where a group of people were boiling sugar canes and potatoes and a couple of boys sat in another, keeping warm.

To think Luke told me to put on my bikini ready for a swim. The other one we found wasn’t much better… although no kids, some guy was having a proper wash in there, all lathered up.

We took a bike back into town and went for a couple of afternoon beers before our usual plate of carbs again.

The language barrier here is a little more difficult than Uganda or Kenya. With a mix of local dialect, French and English, it’s hard to find someone who knows what you’re even ordering for dinner, let alone asking for directions. In 2006, the government announced that all school classes will be taught in English, not French. I can imagine in the long run it’s a good thing for the country’s development, but at the time it was a pretty drastic change considering not all of the teachers could speak English themselves. It took until 2011 to fully implement, but you can already see that the youngest generation is the most eager to help you with translations.

Kigali

The next morning, we jumped a bus back to Kigali without much trouble. We stopped for snacks half way, and everyone jumped off to secure themselves some greasy food in a paper bag. Luke was obviously being ignored in the queue so much so that I had to shout at the bus driver as he started to move away that we needed to wait! Lucky we both didn’t get off!

We found a room in Kigali pretty quick, having thought it might be a bit difficult, being Easter Sunday. We skyped home to delighted parents, and it was really nice to talk to them… although I was a bit envious of the chocolate eggs bouncing around.

Before I go into where we went in Kigali, I thought I’d give a history of Rwanda and the trouble it has faced. I knew about the genocide before I came, but not in as much shocking detail as I do now. And for anyone who hasn’t watched it, I recommend Hotel Rwanda – a really good film depicting the days of the genocide.

Rwanda was colonised by Germany, and later Belgium. Rwanda was split into mainly two different tribes- the Hutus and the Tutsis.

People already had their tribe from their upbringing, but the Belgians had different ideas. There were two main distinctions that Belgium came up with to be able to stamp their tribal group in their ID cards (whether it was their original tribe or not). These were:

1.       If you had more than 10 cows, you were a Tutsi, and the rest of your family

2.       If you had a small nose (and they measured it, just like the Nazis did with the Jews), then you were Tutsi.

Now, Tutsis were seen as the more intelligent and wealthy tribe, but they were in a minority. They had the most power given to them by Belgium, but they wanted independence in the 1950s, which called for Belgium to switch alliances and hand over power to the Hutus, who wanted democracy first, followed by independence. You can imagine the rift that was caused!

Rwanda eventually got their independence in 1962. What followed over the next 30 years was tribal fighting, with Tutsis being killed or run out into neighbouring countries, then Tutsis fighting back and killing Hutus in Burundi. Exiled Tutsis formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which was to play a major role later on in the fight against genocide.

A civil war erupted in 1990, when the RPF invaded Rwanda, but with support from Belgian and France, the Rwandan army repelled the invasion, with thousands of Tutsis dying in the process- shot, starved, bludgeoned or hacked to death.

In 1994, a peace treaty was signed between the RPF and Rwandan forces, but shortly after, the president’s plane was shot down and he was killed.

It was thought to be Hutu extremists who did it, to incite the genocide about to happen, but the propaganda radio for the Hutus made sure it was announced that it was the Tutsis who did it.




Interahamwe in training - mostly young boys

Training for the Interahamwe had already started long before this, with Hutu extremists training them (mostly young men) for the massacre about to unfold. It was said that 300 people a day were trained, helped by the Belgium forces. Their goal… to wipe out the Tutsis.

On the first day of the genocide, the Interahamwe were instructed to kill the moderate prime minister, and they did so, and in the process killed 10 Belgium UN peacekeepers. This caused Belgium to pull out all its troops… exactly what they had expected!

It lasted for 100 days, and many Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. People were raped, butchered with machetes, bludgeoned with sticks, shot, tortured and starved. Road blocks were set up all over the city to stop them escaping, homes were searched, houses looted, and IDs checked. Apparently there was a list of priority Tutsis to kill, then everyone else came in a quick second.

Ordinary people joined in the massacre, even children were killing! Bodies littered the floor, and the stench of rotting flesh filled the streets. Dogs were acquiring a taste for human flesh so much so that they had to be shot towards the end of the genocide.

Disgusting tactics were used- Tutsi children were targeted to wipe out the next generation, woman and children were raped by their ‘instrument’…HIV positive men, and some left to live to suffer, to be killed or raped again later. Some children were forced to kill their parents or watch them be killed and then eventually were taken out themselves.




Machetes - mostly flown in from China at 10p each

Sympathetic Hutus were also killed for showing any compassion. Many Hutus helped hide them as best they could, with some growing crops over a trench full of Tutsis!

They ran into the safety of churches and monasteries, but their hope was in vain as they were killed regardless. Some were burnt down with people inside, or grenades thrown in, killing hundreds. Priests and nuns turned against them, betraying them and forcing them out into the streets to be killed.

The mayor even turned Tutsis away, saying ‘you will die, but I do not want blood on my town hall, so you must leave.’

The UN had less than a thousand people in Rwanda, but they weren’t allowed to shoot or intervene too much due to a mandate. The world watched as the genocide ran for 100 days, and didn’t lift a finger.


Escapees trying to manoeuvre round dead bodies

The sad thing was, it would have only taken 5000 armed UN soldiers to stop the genocide. 5000 soldiers did go into Rwanda during the 100 days, but only to rescue foreigners!

The RPF eventually pushed out the Interahamwe and Rwandan army into the DRC and Burundi.

In the 100 days of the genocide, more than 1 million were killed, and 2 million refugees were found in neighbouring countries.

Hutus involved in the genocide were trialled in Arusha, Tanzania, but there were so many cases that Gacaca courts were set up, which were traditional hearings across Rwanda, with a judge appointed from the town.

The country is doing well now, and it’s hard to believe it’s the same country considering how well developed Kigali is, how resilient the people are, and how life just seems to be moving on.

On Easter Monday, we took a long walk into town and visited the Kigali Camp Memorial. This was the memorial for the 10 Belgium Un peacekeepers who died. They were cornered in a building next to the memorial which still has bullet holes in it. And despite defending themselves for several hours, with only 2 guns between them, and grenades being thrown through the windows, they were soon killed.


The building where the Belgians were killed, still with bullet holes

 



Columns for the Belgians

There are 10 columns standing together, each with lines through them depicting the age of each peacekeeper at the time of death. And each cut off at the top to represent the quick way their life ended. It’s quite moving, but the building with bullet holes in it right next to them really does make you realise that it wasn’t that long ago.

We walked down to Hotel Milles Collines, the place that Hotel Rwanda was based on. The owner was Belgian, and when the trouble started up, they upped and left, leaving a Rwandan guy in charge who was Hutu. To cut a long story short, he risked his life and those that served at the hotel to hide Tutsis from the genocide that lay just outside the gates.

The next day, 7^th April 2015, marked the 21^st anniversary of the start of the 100 day genocide. It was a public holiday, and from the roof of the hotel we were staying at, the streets looked empty, shops closed, barely anyone around, no buses speeding past. Just an eerie silence to the city.

We were told the city would start moving again after 1pm, so set off just before to visit the genocide memorial. We had to wait for it to open again, as it had been the location for the president’s speech, and there were obviously some important guests they were waiting for to leave the building too.




Victims of the genocide shown at the memorial

The memorial was very touching. It takes you on a walk through their history and how their tribes were segregated even further by foreign influence, as I mentioned above. It was really disturbing how ordinary people were involved, some scared foe their lives. It was made even more shocking from the images displayed of people lying dead in the streets, the injuries people had suffered and even a quick bit of film showing someone attacking a tutsi in the street with a machete several times.

There was a mass grave outside which was estimated to hold around 250,000 people. It had a fair few visitors that day, resting flowers on the graves, most likely from friends and family believing their loved ones were buried there.

There was a section at the top showing genocides across the world, some familiar (Auschwitz and Cambodia), and others I’d never heard of before. There were some interesting facts surrounding it, and some not surprising are that the world knew about a lot of these, but never got involved.


Poster depicting German, Cambodian and Rwanda genocides

With the city shut down for the rest of the day, we made the most of the best internet connection we’d had since starting to travel and watched a marathon of modern family.

We decided that the next day we’d try getting to Tanzania ourselves by minibuses and buses along the way rather than booking a straight bus for 12 hours. The only reason being that the reviews mentioned it wasn’t one direct bus, but several, not so organised, chaotic buses that take off at the speed of lightning… we’ll pass.

Thinking we should have got up earlier, we rose at 9am and managed to get a bus to the border which took 4 hours. The border wasn’t too much of a hassle apart from the false promise of a ‘one stop’ border. Not so ‘one stop’ when there’s a good 15 minute walk in 30 degree heat between each border post.

We changed what money we had up at the border with Tanzania, which was around £15, hoping that would get us to the nearest town and a cash machine… but you’re going to have to wait for the Tanzania post to see what difficulties lay ahead…


 

Uganda

Mbale

We took an early morning bus from Kisumu to Busia, waving goodbye to Kenya with our breakfast chapatti in hand. We had hopped on a big bus thinking it would be safer than a mini bus overtaking everyone in sight, however it seemed that our driver must have been an ex-mini bus driver! A couple hours of closing our eyes and hoping for the best, and we arrived at the border town. It looked like a construction site and if we didn’t ask for directions, would have easily walked past Kenya immigration. With our East African visas in hand, it didn’t take too long to pass through Uganda immigration, apart from an official asking to ‘inspect’ Luke’s wallet; insisting that he leave the money in it. Wouldn’t be so suspicious if he had checked me at all, or our rucksack!

We got a minibus on to Mbale, a few hours drive from the border. Our hotel had a great view of Mount Elgon, however we had only stopped over before heading to Sipi Falls the next day, although the king sized bed near on tempted us into staying longer (after the single bed we had shared in Kisumu in the heat it was heaven here).

Sipi Falls

We got up early morning and took a mini bus to Sipi Falls and decided on staying in an old school banda made of cow shit with a thatched roof. It’s a lot nicer than it sounds- it was a treat for us!!!




Sipi falls

Joseph was our guide for the falls. He helped out at our hotel and had taught himself English which was quite impressive. A really nice guy who we knew had overcharged us but thought he looked like he could do with the money. We walked through people’s land so a guide was highly recommended to keep you from being harassed by locals for crossing their land.

We walked first to the waterfall in the middle then climbed up to the ‘swimming pool’ from the little stream above. Already with bikinis on in preparation for this cool down, we were disappointed to find a pool with water collecting on the side. Somehow the thought of this dirty water on the side with possible essence of malaria and typhoid put us off. Onwards and upwards we climbed to the top waterfall through banana and coffee plantations. It was a beautiful walk and so green it was incredible. There were men at work in the fields as we passed through (how they work in this heat I don’t know)!


Sipi falls and a couple of posers

We took a walk down to the last waterfall, which was the largest of the three, at 100 metres tall. It was an incredible day, albeit a tiring one.

For dinner was good old beans and chapatti, the sample we seem to be surviving off. We were joined by a German guy, Dirk, who worked as a dive instructor in Turkey and travelled for 7 months of the year. We traded a few interesting travel stories before we made it back to the campsite in the pitch black.

Kampala

After a comfy sleep in our Banda, we woke up to monkeys outside with lots of bouncing, energetic baby ones around. We caught a shared taxi with Dirk back to Mbale, then a mini bus on to Kampala.

Luke has told me that I fall asleep too much on minibuses and as a result he feels that he has to stay awake to watch over our stuff. Apparently we should take turns to keep watch…nahhh…when the eyelids are that heavy, there’s no negotiating!

We eventually got to Kampala after a five hour journey and arrived at our chosen hostel – Red Chilli hideaway. We got out the tent again, and YES, there was a swimming pool here. Thank god for that, the heat is getting unbearable here!



what's the weirdest thing you've seem carried on a motorbike?

After the rest of the afternoon lounging by the pool, we decided to get out the next day and head to the Ugandan museum and also the UWA office to try our luck with booking gorilla trekking. Notoriously expensive and difficult to get hold of, we’ve heard of people having to come back every morning to the office to try for return permits as there were no treks to book onto.

We turned up to what was a well organised office to our surprise! And the lady told us that as we were backpacking and using public transport that she knew which sector of Bwindi National Park to assign us to. That’s great and all, but do you have any permits available? It seems whatever day we mentioned she had something for us. Amazing! So the decision was March for $600 for dry season or $350 for April over rainy season; literally, a day’s difference between the months saves you $250. Hmmm…a little more difficult on the walk there or an extra $250…it’s a no brainer! 2^nd April please!

Bouncing out of the office with delight, we headed to the Ugandan museum next door. The museum was pretty cool, giving you an insight into the culture and life or Ugandans. There was a school visit on at the same time and luke overheard a kid ask the guide at the museum how much they charge foreigners at the museum. Its 5000 shillings to get in (about £1), whereby a local only pays 1000sh. The kid went ‘that is too little, charge them more as they are all rich.’ Granted, a pound is nothing but I can see why other tourist destination prices go up so much with that mentality! Kid- you have no idea how much I have to spend to get a bucket of mussels and a bottle of Prosecco back home… haha!

On getting back to the hostel, Lauren and Brendan had turned up. We had a pizza and beer fuelled evening whilst catching up over the last few days, having taken a similar route to each other.

The next day we got an early bus to go and see Mengo palace. We had a little private tour, although you can’t actually go in the building, we were walked around the grounds. We were told a brief history of how the king was overthrown and the military set up at the palace with a general taking over called Idi Amin as prime minister and ruling as a dictator. We were shown a torture chamber which was also used as a prison as well up to 1985. The bottom part often flooded with water and if any prisoners stepped out, they were instantly electrocuted. It’s horrific to think it only happened less than 30 years ago and that there are people in the country knowing that their mother8/father was taken to the palace and never heard from them again- knowing that the torture chamber was there. The palace was eventually handed back to the royal family and is used as a second palace now but the torture chamber is still kept there to remind the country of what they’ve been through, and how they have come through the other end.

We got up early the next day and headed to Mpanga Forest where it was a £1 entry! It had a few paths which reception told us were easy to follow, so we picked the longest path that would take two hours in total. However, within five minutes we were lost and the path had split so many times. The woman said to keep to ‘the path that is well maintained, not well walked,’ whatever that meant!

We picked another straightforward path and along the way saw loads of different beautiful butterflies and some monkeys and birds. On the way back, Luke (king of directions) decided on a detour back to the entrance. We got so lost that we ended up asking a young boy collecting water which way we should be going, and surprisingly his English was pretty good. Poor boy didn’t even have any shoes on and he was carrying 10 litres of water balanced on his head. He kindly offered us to show us the roads, and even walked ten minutes out of his way to direct us to the main road. He wandered off straight away before we could even get some money out to give to him! But I sent Luke running after him. The kid didn’t even expect anything and his face was full of nervous delight as Luke handed over some money.


Our 'guide' in Mpanga Forest

We spent the next day chilling out by the pool and trying to get an all-round tan instead of the ‘I’ve worn a t-shirt and shorts for the last 2 months’ patchy look. Unfortunately Luke had an invincible feeling that day, which the sun didn’t agree with. I spent the rest of the day with my lobster boyfriend as he hid in the shade. Tut tut!

Lauren and Brendan left the next day, heading to Fort Portal, and although we originally had plans to move on to Entebbe too, Luke’s burn kept us from chucking the backpacks on to sore shoulders. I wasn’t complaining… another day by the pool!

Entebbe

We squeezed onto a mini bus heading to Fort Portal, and after an hour (with about half of the journey trying to get out of a traffic jam in Kampala), we arrived at Entebbe Backpackers. We pitched our tent in the only shade on the lawn and headed put for the day. We walked all the way to the botanical gardens which were beautiful. It bordered Lake Victoria, and we took in the view from a park bench. It’s so weird to see a lake that endless, it really does feel like you’re by the beach looking out at the ocean.

A small section the botanical gardens is a jungle, which was used for the old version of Tarzan! Although not massive, you could see why it was used, with its vine wrapped trees, huge tree trunks with roots going off in all directions, and dense forest when you stepped off the path.

We took a stroll onwards to the Wildlife Centre which was technically a zoo, but it never buys or sells animals. All animals are either born at the centre naturally or rescued (usually orphaned or a result of poaching). It was pretty cool, and even though it was in captivity, I saw my first white rhino in Africa!

The next day we checked put Lido beach, and unfortunately it was a ridiculously hot day, so with no shade and lobster not having turned back to his original colour, we walked on to the next beach. We checked out Resort beach as well, but yet again we had the same dilemma.

We had a bit of lunch, actually a LOT of lunch- their lunchtime specials in Uganda for veggies seem to be either beans, peas or groundnuts (which are peanuts and something else ground to a purple paste) with ‘all foods.’ So all foods is a plate of enormity including rice (understandable), sweet potato (pretty nice), posho (which is the same as ugali in Kenya but tastes a little better), cabbage (everyone needs their greens!), yam (purple and like chewing cardboard) and what I can only describe as flubber (a purple bit of rubber that is flavourless and bouncy). Well there you go… all foods! Roll out…

We headed off the following day to Fort Portal. We jumped into an empty mini bus back to Kampala which was soon overflowing, and then got on a Kalita coach to Fort Portal, a four hour journey. As I’ve mentioned before, the bigger the bus, the safer the journey. This was the exception to the rule. Stupidly sitting eight at the front with a view of all that lay ahead, we were privy to some of the worst overtaking we’d experienced so far. With the conductor having to hold the coach door shut for fear of the door flying open at 100mph, and the driver thinking he was playing Mario Cart, we weren’t having the best time of it. Apparently road rules were just a mere guideline to the driver - it’s not like he had 60 odd lives in his hands!

Fort Portal

We found a double room with a TV, but no hot water. Oh it had a switch for the boiler in the room alright, but the only thing you’d get from that was a big fat electric shock whilst showering- something the owner only told us on day two, once I had figured that out for myself!

And the TV…you got told from the timetable in your room which channel will be on at what time. A typical ‘you watch what we want to watch’ system.

The first full day we had, it bucketed it down in the morning! Undeterred, we took a boda-boda (motorbike taxi) to Kickugami Wetlands once it let up a bit. We got a guide and donned the full waterproof before setting off. It was a pleasant walk, and although the rain meant that most of the birds would be difficult to spot, we still saw some monkeys (red tailed, black and white colobus and red colobus).

After the walk, we headed up to Kibale Forest at the Sebitoli Sector, having seen in our lonely planet that chimps were being habituated there. We thought we’d try our luck, and the staff were so keen on making a little backhander that they came up with a deal for the next morning that resulted in them charging us a resident fee for entry into the park and an additional amount on top if they found the chimps! Worked for us… most other places charge up to $150 per person for a chimp trek and you have to pay up regardless of whether you find them, so a finder’s fee sounded good to us, for just $30 each!

We rocked up the next day in the rain at 8am, full of optimist. Our guide was called Harriet and she had mentioned that for the last two days the chimps had been very near the entrance, only some 200m away! Sooooo full of optimism now! So off we went, and within 10 minutes Luke had bundled into the back of Harriet nearly knocking them both over when she had stopped to listen to the sounds of the rainforest. Oh dear, good start! We spotted loads of monkeys, birds and other creatures, including several ants who had managed to somehow find their way underneath my trousers and my waterproof to be biting me on my hips! But after two hours of walking and no sounds from the chimps, we were starting to lose hope, and after five hours, Harriet had to. We headed back to the entrance unfruitful with our visit, but at least we didn’t have to begrudgingly hand over the finder’s fee. I guess it was all good practice for our trek to find the gorillas, as we did go off track and some of the paths were pretty slippery and muddy.

The next day we had a well-earned rest, and it’s not as if the rain that pelted down all day was the most inviting! Although the following day was still rainy in the morning, we took the opportunity to head out to the crater lakes whilst it wasn’t so misty. We headed to one that was just over 20kms away on a boda-boda. We quickly came off the security of the tarmac and headed down a wide dirt road that was a bright orange colour. Half way through the journey, we came to a section that had clearly seen better days. The rain had set in and there were people pushing their bicycles along it, others trampling through the mud in their wellies or bare feet, and boda-bodas making their way through at walking pace. After what seemed like forever, we turned up at the main crater lake. It was beautiful and so peaceful- a little oasis surrounded by dense rainforest. We came across a whole load of monkeys and there were about 20 black and white colobus that seemed used to being so close to humans that they were only 2 metres away at some points, even the baby ones!




Vervet monkey and a babs

We walked on another hour to the next crater lake, which reminded me of being near one of the lakes in Scotland. It was so peaceful...until it wasn’t. Before we knew it, we were being run at by about 20 kids shouting ‘mzungo’ (white person) at us, all with wide smiles on their faces. For a second I had a flashback to that day in Ethiopia by the lake, and from the look on Luke’s face, so did he (probably remembering that lump of shit hitting the back of his head). But this was Uganda, and the children here are just full of glee at seeing you, usually screaming ‘how are you?’ at us. The children circled us and we said hello and asked a few names. Then, at catching site of an available boda-boda, which was a rarity round here, we decided to grab our chance to head back to Fort Portal. We jumped on and the kids once again surrounded us as we said goodbye. But as we took off, they started running after us screaming their goodbyes, and god knows why a couple of them thought to hang onto the back of our motorbike! Some of them had to dart out of the way, collapsing onto the grassy sides to avoid another boda-boda coming from the other direction. But safe in the knowledge that they were all alright (taken from their beaming faces), we sped on.


Black and white colobus

Katanguru

We took a mini bus (after waiting for nearly 2 hours for it to fill up) to Katanguru, a small town with nothing really going on, but it wasn’t the town we were after…. It was Queen Liz national park. The mini bus drives straight through it, and there were loads of animals on the side of the road, including waterbuck, kob, warthogs, deer and even a few elephants!

When we got to Katanguru, we were talked AT by some guy trying to get us to hire his 4x4 for the day (it’s a mini bus actually mate). We soon realised that if you want to do the boat ride or even the chimp trekking, you have to pay the park fee as well. Costs were mounting up! And from what we had just seen, apart from maybe a lion, some hippos and crocs, there wasn’t much else. After our trip to the Masai Mara, we’re now using it as a benchmark for what we can see! So we decided to jumps on a boda boda for a couple hours and whiz up and down the main road again as we were told most of the animals do tend to congregate around there anyway. It was beautiful, with the Rwenzori mountains as a backdrop and vast green stretches of bush as far as the eye could see.




Equator!!!

We reached the equator statute and had a few cheesy snaps there. We wanted one of the two of us together and asked the driver to take it, to which he said OK and went to pose for a photo alone...

Luke asked again after we humoured him, taking his photo the first time, but he just went back to pose again. Haha.

We told the driver that we didn’t want to go off on the side roads as you’d have to pay the park fee, but he told us of a little fishing village he could take us to and knew a road back to Katanguru from there, and assured us no park fee would have to be paid.

The fishing village was lovely, but it was difficult to understand our driver- ‘there are no fish in this lake ever, only hippos’ followed by ‘these people survive on the fish in this lake’????

As we headed off down a dirt road, I was more and more sceptical of this ‘no park fee’ business, and when we were nearly back on the main road, we passed the park offices and the driver just told us he knew we wouldn’t have to pay as there are no rangers about at that time! Thanks mate, it’s only about £2 if you get stopped but a whole load more if we do! One truck of rangers whizzed past us about ten minutes later, but luckily hadn’t seen us coming off the dirt road, phew.

We stayed in this sleepy little town for the night, and after accidentally leaving the bathroom light on for an hour, Luke opened the door to my worst nightmare…HUNDREDS OF MOZZIES! I kid you not, there were loads of them! So we wedged the ill-fitting door in with socks and flip flops to stop them coming into our room, turned the light off in the bathroom and sprayed the doorframe and floor with deet. We hoped for the best, but about a hundred made their way through and into the bedroom. Aghhh! We had the mozzie net down, but you could just hear them all buzzing around. Of course I got a few bites (Luke none yet again- how does he do it?) regardless! 


Men enjoying a gam of ludo

Rutoto

Jumping on another packed mini bus the next day, we headed to Rutoto down a ridiculously potholed road. It was an even smaller town, not more than 100 metres long.

Its only mentioned on a map in our guide book; with no info on it, but people at Katanguru told us there were hotels there. None in site, and everyone telling us there weren’t any, we were about to give up hope when someone kindly obliged to show us a room.

He led is through a bar to the back and spoke to a woman who grabbed some keys, and then off we went again, we walked through a banana plantation and past sheds of ducks and goats to find a little square of rooms. Pretty clean, we grabbed a room and dumped our stuff.

We headed to Kalinzu Forest Reserve, the main reason for our visit… to chimp trek! They were optimistic that we’d find them, with an 80% chance of spotting them. Sure, let’s go! So off we went with our guide Lawrence who told js that if we didn’t find them today then we could come back km the morning for free.

The jungle was so dense and beautiful. Within minutes we spotted a chimp and her baby, but it was for about ten seconds before she swung off and disappeared, we didn’t even have a chance to take a picture.

We carried on through sludge and jumping over puddles and streams. It was really cool, and we spotted loads of other primates along the way. But three hours into this four hour trek, we had lost hope yet again. And soon enough we were heading back to the entrance, with no chimps in sight. Oh dear, looks like they don’t want to be found.

After some debating in the morning as to our chances of finding the chimps (not helped by the rain) we both begrudgingly packed our bags and headed back to the forest, with the intention of travelling on after we did the trek.

We had a different guide this time, Rachel, who seemed lovely and upbeat. The habituator had set out an hour earlier to help find the chimps, but by the time we got there, they hadn’t found them yet.

We looked, and looked, and looked. This time, we did hear them calling which was promising, but then nothing…

We bumped into the habituators. Rachel had thought they were with the chimps but they were asking Rachel where the chimps were. They were about to head off in a completely different direction to the calls! We started back on the path we had just come down. We were about two and a half hours in, and after bumping into the habituators, Luke turned round to me and I mouthed ‘we’re not going to find them.’

But all of a sudden, the chimps were making noises that ran through the whole forest and we were off! Rachel started cutting through the forest with her machete, we were going off track! She quickened her pace and we struggled to jumps over vines and branches to keep up.




Anna the chimp

We were right behind them as they were moving along the ground, five of them apparently. She kept shopping to point them out, but we could just see their back legs and an arse before they disappeared. We finally caught up with a couple who decided to climb the trees. Victor was the youngest of this group, a little camera shy, but not enough to hold back a massive fart when we first got there! We eventually got some photos of him looking over a massive branch every now and then, and Anna, as well, but only very briefly.

We watched for so long that our necks started to really hurt! Then two other groups of tourists arrived (Rachel having phoned them to let them know we found them).





Victor the cheeky smelly chimp

Victor let out some massive cries and then ran off. The others came to find him, and they eventually found a spot where they were all hanging out in the low branches relaxing. One of them was sprawled out on his back, the other picking its nose, one carefully examining their foot and others sleeping.

I think we were with them an hour, but it went so fast! We were ecstatic that we found them… third time lucky! Hopefully we’ll find the gorillas the first time!

We jumped on a mini bus to Mbarara for 2 hours, then on another to Kabale. Great, the second mini bus was already full, with only two seats left. We hopped on, ready for the four hour journey. But after two minutes, we picked up someone else, then another minute, another two people, and before you knew it, there were 20 people crammed onto this 14 person mini bus. There was someone wedged between me and Luke, with them cramming four people into the small enough already for three people seats. At one point we had 22 people, with 6 in the first row (made for three). And the conductor without a seat, leaning over Luke. Nice and safe!

Kabale

We eventually made it to Kabale, with numb bums. We found a little backpackers and settled in for the night. It was already 7pm, and we didn’t want to go another half an hour to set up camp in Lake Bunyoni in the dark. There wasn’t much to this town, not even electricity in our room.

With the bog standard, ‘yes we have hot water, but our boiler’s not working,’ and ‘yes we have internet, but we have a problem with the network’ and ‘yes we have electricity, just not now,’ we decided to snap up the deal!

Lake Bunyoni

We jumped in a taxi to get to the lake once we had stocked up on mangos, passion fruit and bananas, having had our fill of chapatti for breakfast. We could barely get in the taxi as we were surrounded by several boda boda drivers who pretty much drove up to our feet and cornered us in.

We passed quarries on route which had children as young as five working on them breaking stones. Our driver told us that most of them were orphans and worked for a tiny amount of money and a bit of bread thrown their way. Really sad to see, especially when he said that the government know about the child labour going on, but don’t do anything about it, even when mud slides claim their lives around the quarries.

Having arrived at the lake, only some 10kms away from Kabale, we pitched our old faithful tent up hoping it would withstand the first test of rainy season in the few days we were here. We went for a walk and got inundated with offers for canoes, taxis, guides for hiking and motor boats. We spent the afternoon lounging by the lake in the little cabaña by the water’s edge.




A lovely group of kids performing a song and dance for us

That evening we found a dusty French version of monopoly, well I say French but it was French property, English writing and payment in US dollars, with chince and community chist written a board that was very much split down the seams. Well, it just so happened I was on good form and won! I can’t remember the last time I won monopoly… that’s despite Luke stealing from the bank.

The next day we hired a dug out canoe, essentially just half a log hollowed out. It was soooo difficult to control! We went round in circles more times than I’d care to admit. I have to say, I was having an off day- homesick, grumpy and not really appreciative of the amazing lake that we were rowing across, filled with 29 beautiful islands. And Luke’s high pitched singing did nothing but make my ear drums cry for mercy. We rowed to three different islands with punishment island being the most interesting. It wasn’t more than 10 metres long and it had one solitary tree on it. The island was previously used to drop off unmarried pregnant woman (usually mistresses) and leave them there to die! And if some guy realised he couldn’t find a wife, he might go and select one to marry him and raise another man’s child so he didn’t feel the scorn of being single (a very secret trip to the island though)!

After four hours in this canoe my arms were killing, and my arse and the wooden bench I was sitting on seemed to be moulding into one. The weather wasn’t helping, with storms rolling over and rain slapping you in the face (again, not helped by Luke singing ‘come on Eileen’ at the top of his voice). We headed back to shore, working against the current and being taken with the wind a few times. Never have I ever deserved a chapatti more! 


Lake Bunyoni....they say there are no crocs or hippos!

The following day, we went for a walk around the mainland and ended up being invited into a Nursery to watch them singing and dancing. As we walked over to their spot, they were grabbing at our hands to walk with us hand in hand, arguing with each other as they went. The dance was so cute and one little girl in the middle took the lead in singing as they all joined in. They eventually got us to dance with them which was highly embarrassing, but as there weren’t many adults to laugh at us, we got away with it.

We made it to the top of the hill after that, which revealed the most amazing view of not just the islands we had canoed around yesterday but several others, it was beautiful!

We spent the next day just hanging out at the campsite. Two cyclists called Shosho and Neil rocked up, friends of Brendan and Lauren, with word that they were also on their way. They were both from Taiwan, but Neil originally from Cape Town. They had both set off from Taiwan at separate times and only met in Cairo, and had decided to continue the route together. Their trip sounded amazing (apart from the rock throwing kids in Ethiopia).




Islands in Lake Bunyoni

 

Lauren and Brendan showed up later and we all had a massive catch up, accompanied by many beers and some questionable gin! Stories were flying and experiences being shared, which was quite interesting to hear from each other, as we were all travelling by different modes- car, bicycle and public transport. Especially Shosho and Neil’s story of the border crossing they took between Ethiopia and Kenya which had them accidentally stepping into South Sudan and a battlefield on top where people shoot each other for cow stealing! All pretty shocked that we managed to last till 2am, the tents were calling.

We all had plans to get up early and take a motorboat to visit the pygmys, however it seems our hangovers were not on board with this, but were delighted to experience warm chapattis with banana, honey and cinnamon followed by a long chat and lunch. Extremely productive!

There were also two Swedish girls who were driving as well (one of them just on a short trip), but the other woman, Amelie was travelling with her dog Jack, a loveable old dog who had a face that always got him a cuddle. They happened to be booked for the same date and place in Bwindi for gorilla trekking as us.

Lauren and Brendan headed off in the afternoon for their gorilla trek the next day. All of a sudden, a massive storm rolled in and really put our tent to the test. It was soaked, but nothing a table cloth at the back couldn’t sort out!

Ruhija

The day before our gorilla trek, we hitched a ride with Amelia and Yohanna, and Jack of course, who kindly obliged to share his seat with us. It wasn’t really a seat but a small mattress that had us both cross legged and Jack sprawled out over Luke. We’ve had worse in minibuses, and Jack smelt a lot better than some of the armpits we’ve had to nestle under on a bus!

The scenery on the way was beautiful, with long winding roads that trailed the edge of Bwindi forest. We arrived mid-afternoon and a storm came in which surrounded us in mist and soaked our trousers. Our tent still up right and only half soaked, we got an early night, ready for the trek the next day.




New haircut... what do you think?

Our group was made of eight people- 2 Americans, 2 Belgian, the 2 Swedish girls and ourselves. We set off just gone 8am, and headed down a path off the main road. It wasn’t really a path, but more of a route carved out that day by our guide. We eventually came to a swampy clearing where we hopped across the muddy puddles with no grace at all. The climbs were steep, slippery and muddy, and pretty demanding as you were catching on vines, slipping on stones and trying to dodge elephant made puddles.  




Spot the silverback...

It took just less than 2 hours to find them and our first encounter was a gorilla hanging in a tree. Shortly after we found one just lying down taking a nap, and then very quickly, a silverback! This enormous gorilla was only two metres away from us and so relaxed, not even phased by our presence.





Sleepy time

We moved on to watch several gorillas in the trees, with most of them working their way down, shimmying down the tree trunk, and a couple playing up in the trees overhead whilst interlinking arms and legs as they swayed.

 

It was incredible to watch them move among such small trees and shrubs with such a casual pace like they weren’t being watched by some eager eyed ‘muzungus.’

And before we knew it, our hour was nearly up. We spent the last 10 minutes watching another silverback and a 3 year old behind him lying on the grass. I was just in shock that we were right next to this great ape, that even a wasp sting on my arm didn’t stop me from enjoying the moment (even if it did sting like a million fire ants).


Sliding down from the skies

 

At some points we were only 2-3 metres away from them, and it was just the most amazing experience- so worth the money! 


just hanging around

We hiked back for just over an hour, and the Belgian couple offered us a lift back to Kabale. We gratefully accepted and packed up our tent and belongings in the space of 10 minutes- a record for us.

We spent the night in the same hotel in Kabale as we did just less than a week ago, and we were both going through our photos in awe of the day we had just had.

The next morning we set out to get to Kigali. We were expecting to find a mini bus to the border but instead found a very comfortable shared taxi that would take us all the way to Kigali for £3, AMD you wouldn’t have to share your seat – yes please!




Sir Grumpsalot

We spent the next half an hour taking in the sites of Uganda – banana and tea plantations, chapatti sellers with their stalls, fruit markets, speeding minibuses, bright green fields surrounded by bright red dirt tracks, and kids shouting ‘how are you.’

So far, I have to say... Uganda is probably my favourite African country... so far! 


Posimg!