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!!!
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| Sipi falls |
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)!
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| Sipi falls and a couple of posers |
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!
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| 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! 2nd 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.
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| Our 'guide' in Mpanga Forest |
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!
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| Vervet monkey and a babs |
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| Black and white colobus |
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.
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| Equator!!! |
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!
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| Men enjoying a gam of ludo |
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.
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| Anna the chimp |
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| Victor the cheeky smelly chimp |
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.
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.
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| A lovely group of kids performing a song and dance for us |
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!
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| Lake Bunyoni....they say there are no crocs or hippos! |
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).
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| 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.
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.
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| New haircut... what do you think? |
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.
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| Spot the silverback... |
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| 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).
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| 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!
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| 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!
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| Sir Grumpsalot |
So far, I have to say... Uganda is probably my favourite African country... so far!
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| Posimg! |
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