The southern part of Uganda is covered with forest and is scattered with big and smaller lakes. I wasn’t expecting it, in my image of it there wasn’t such a flourishing and watery side of Africa. I was expecting rather Savannahs and great arid plains, but what I found is some sort of “equatorial Finland”.
It's around the Queen Elizabeth National Park where this region starts. In fact it lies within the Albertine side of the Great Rift Valley, cradle of humanity and builder of extraordinary vulcanoes and mountain systems. Already 30 km south of Fort Portal, a multitude of small lakes can be found: it’s the Crater Lakes linked to the activity of the Katwe volcano. Yasmin and I reach them on board of a crappy car, driven by the usual unauthorized driver. The morphology of the area doesn’t make the whole transport simple , where it’s the motorcycles who rule. Some villages are perched on narrow stripes of land in between mountain lakes, while the roads aren’t paved and sometimes muddy.
The Crater Lakes are many (about 30), but we head towards the Nkuruba Lake, which is the most beautiful of all according to some. It’s located within a natural reserve, which surrounds it completely. We requested to put down our tent a few steps away from the water, where some young westerners were swimming. As the evening descends, while I fight to cook some rice on a bun-fire, I start feeling “sucked-in” by the jungle.The sounds surrounding me are something incredible…And what I feel, as soon as I get over the frustration for my ineptitude with scout skills, is pure admiration for this primordial habitat. It’s the same feeling I have the next morning in the water, while the forest is waking up and the black and white monkeys start to jump from one branch to another.
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| Me waiting at a pump in the middle of a market of the mountain area |
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| A crater lake and (below) the Nkuruba Lake |
It’s afternoon when we reach the Queen Elizabeth National Park, one of the most famous protected areas of the country. We camp right outside the entry gate, near the big Kazinga Channel. We are told there are hippos and crocodiles in the water, but we shouldn’t worry as “they never adventure themselves up here”. Of course, a few hours later we are woken up by a family of hippos passing next to our tent, but luckily we don’t realize what was happening til the next morning.
It’s during the same night, we learn, that 13 lions get poisoned by some cattle farmers, tired of the attacks on their animals. Told to us by a British biologist, who has been tracing lions for weeks . Suddenly I’m hit by the opposite feeling compared to the day before at the shore of the Nkuruba lake: a strong anger and a filthy shame for who did this terrible act, towards maybe the most representative creature of this primordial site.
Unfortunately, that day we can´t do anything about it , so we get up and get ready to start another day around the “equatorial Finland”. There’s a funny guide waiting for us, she’s slick and robust. From her I learn that pineapples are to be cut from the long side similar to water melons, because the sugary parts are found in the middle. Of course, I offer her the first slice -cut in the wrong way and therefore tasteless- only to receive back a dry refusal and some offenses for my insolence and my “wimpiness”.
Unfortunately, that day we can´t do anything about it , so we get up and get ready to start another day around the “equatorial Finland”. There’s a funny guide waiting for us, she’s slick and robust. From her I learn that pineapples are to be cut from the long side similar to water melons, because the sugary parts are found in the middle. Of course, I offer her the first slice -cut in the wrong way and therefore tasteless- only to receive back a dry refusal and some offenses for my insolence and my “wimpiness”.
The Park is huge. Compared to the Murchison Falls National Park there’s a lower density of animals but we get to see a bit of everything and then we head for lunch. It's a place facing a beach where such a big gathering of mammals happens daily that the Jova Beach Parties seem like nothing in comparison. On the way out from the Park we pick up the son of the guide, a big guy feverish from malaria. They explain to us that there’s not much to do about the malaria issue: by now they are used to live with it and nobody -except for the Westerners- makes use of the prophylaxis for malaria. It’s not practical and it’s expensive. This might be why we are seeing so many sleepy people around Uganda.
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| Shots from Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park |
Moving west, to the forests on the borders with Congo and Rwanda, the habitat for the Eastern gorilla starts (a species at risk of extinction until one year ago). We travel along it on board of a matatu and we reach Mbarare by evening, where we eat a good (!) pizza (the first one I try in Uganda) and we sleep. The next morning, we leave again proceeding in the direction of Rwanda, til we reach Kabale. Kabale is small. Fundamentally a street with houses and shops on the sides. We notice there are quite a few Western tourists around. While a home-less sleeps on the side of the main street, on the concrete: I surprise him by lending him some bread for breakfast.
Then we start figuring out how to get to our destination: Lake Bunyonyi. We’ve read of a camp site on one of the islands in the center of the lake and we would like to stay there for the following night. As it turns out, reaching the lake is not such a simple thing as a badass mountain separates it from the town. Once again we rely on the boda-bodas, the motor-bike taxi drivers. With our backpacks and the weight of an extra person, the poor two-stroke engines have to go through some rough times on the uphill…but in the end they make it! We unload everything next to the lake, where some unauthorized water taxi drivers are waiting, with their blue and yellow boats.
When we tell them “Thanks but we don’t need a ride, we’re aiming to reach the island by canoe”, they laugh and strongly advise us against it. In the end one of them accompanies us, with his motor-boat. (I have to admit that the island was indeed far and luckily we were lucky to not get stuck on our idea). The camping takes up the whole island, which is not very big. Strangely, there’s a Western atmosphere there: different areas of the camping are indicated with signs, everything is built and designed with care, wood is the prevalent material (from the main building with kitchen, reception and lake-view veranda to the compost toilets all around the camping and bungalows built above and below the trees) and, generally, everything is very quiet and clean. The mistery behind this Ugandan island is shortly solved: it’s an American architect who has invested in this project.
However, in the next days we realize that the whole area around Lake Bunyonyi -characterized by jagged coastlines and meticulous terracing, not inferior to the famous Asian tea plantations- tends to be different from the Uganda we’ve seen so far. It could be the influence of the neighbouring Rwanda, one of the most democratic and developed countries in the whole continent (we hear from the people we meet). The lake itself is an exception, being the only or one of the few swimmable lakes in the country (it’s "biharzia free" but also free from hippos and crocodiles). Around the islands and on the shores of the coast you can find luxurious resorts, which we avoid as a bad disease.
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| Lake Bunyonyi with the sun [source: https://www.bunyonyi.org] and before a storm |
In the afternoon we have the terrible idea of renting a “tree dugout canoe”: basically an emptied tree-trunk. Extra-heavy. Let’s add that nor Yasmin nor I are great canoeing experts, but have different ideas for driving that thing and that we’re both as stubborn as mules. The result is immediately served: bloody hands from the effort, destination far from being reached and a spatial reciprocal frustration. Paradoxically, it’s a sudden tropical rain that saves us (by forcing us to take shelter and keep ourselves warm inside some cabin and calm our spirits).
The rest of the day goes surely better. We take a walk around the island where we’ve stranded and spot there the first zebra, and most importantly the first crane (national symbol), of our trip. We also get the ok to use the camping kitchen to cook our own food while the chef and the women of the island are creating their own dishes. Then one employee invites us to make use of the library and rent a movie for the evening…It might seem strange, but it feels like a great privilege to watch “The last king of Scotland” after 2 weeks without tv. Unfortunately we have almost reached the end of our journey. Yasmin and I have already gone a long way, even though we’re not even that tired. But it is almost time to get back to the capital city. She would like to have time to say bye to some people who have helped her during the weeks of interviews and research fieldwork.
So, on the next day we get back to Mbarare, with one last terrible idea in mind: to get a night bus until Kampala. Useless to say that the vehicle doesn’t move until the last available spot is not filled; if the concept is not clear read the episode “An old bus to the West” on this blog and you will get it. I notice immediately a guy sitting next to us, quite old and in precarious conditions. During the night course his condition seems to be getting worse, to the point I feel the need to lend him some of our remaining medications. He gladly accepts and then falls asleep, only to then stand up, thank me and get off in some undefined part of Uganda. In front of us we have the typical Ugandan guy in the bus who doesn’t own (or doesn’t wanna use) headphones while listening to music. The problem is that he’s just got one song in his library, “Buffalo soldier” from Bob Marley, and he doesn’t get tired of it. After all the driver himself is not intentioned to give up on the music, which is being spit out together with the music videos from the screen in the front.
So, on the next day we get back to Mbarare, with one last terrible idea in mind: to get a night bus until Kampala. Useless to say that the vehicle doesn’t move until the last available spot is not filled; if the concept is not clear read the episode “An old bus to the West” on this blog and you will get it. I notice immediately a guy sitting next to us, quite old and in precarious conditions. During the night course his condition seems to be getting worse, to the point I feel the need to lend him some of our remaining medications. He gladly accepts and then falls asleep, only to then stand up, thank me and get off in some undefined part of Uganda. In front of us we have the typical Ugandan guy in the bus who doesn’t own (or doesn’t wanna use) headphones while listening to music. The problem is that he’s just got one song in his library, “Buffalo soldier” from Bob Marley, and he doesn’t get tired of it. After all the driver himself is not intentioned to give up on the music, which is being spit out together with the music videos from the screen in the front.
And so, together with the Jamaican interferences over Eddy Kenzo’s African sonorities, partially interrupted by the deliriums of the dying man, we head towards the capital while the bus keeps on stopping. And despite it’s night, there’s still people trying to sell things at the bus stops. But finally, around 5 a.m., we arrive. We’re quite sleepy and it’s raining heavily. I’m confused because no one is moving, most people actually sleep. But we have arrived…So I get out to check if we’re actually in Kampala and if there’s some way to the center. We are. A guy who’s sheltering from the rain tells me: “Musungu, the boda-bodas won’t work with the rain: everyone waits for the rain to stop, otherwise it’s too expensive”. I thank him and go back to the bus, where it’s hot and oxygen is missing. So I convince Yasmin to get a taxi (Uber to be precise), while everyone keeps sleeping and I feel once again like a spoiled Westerner.
A couple of days later we’re almost back in Entebbe, where our journey had started (check Uganda Part 1 – “Entebbe and my suitcase”). A night in Nairobi airport is waiting for us, in Kenya, and a change in Amsterdam as well. Then the cold winter of Sweden and the everyday life of being a student dealing with thesis will welcome us. But first, a few steps away from Lake Victoria, the taxi driver pulls over and proposes us to get out for a minute. “A last good-bye to this land”! he says. So we get out and we reach the shore of the lake. A group of men and guys from there are around a fire. One of them, noticing us while looking far away, comes closer. He especially addresses me and he’s obviously under the effect of something. He then tells me, out of the blue: “You know how it is to become a father? Like a resurrection”.
With this image in mind I leave Uganda. A country with an opposite demographic situation compared to mine (50% of the population is less than 15 years old). A country where people are poor and can’t enjoy most of beauties in their own land, because they’re often only accessible to the Western wallets. A welcoming country, where many are desperate but can still enjoy life and will look at you with curiosity. A country where mass tourism hasn’t arrived yet. A country with 40 languages and an unnumbered amount of religions and beliefs. A country which has seen the civil war, and now lives in the shadow of a masked dictatorship, but didn’t die at all. A small country full of big things: the mountains, the Nile, the Lakes, the Rift Valley and the tropical forest. A country in Africa, which is already a good reason for a trip if you’re willing to get your nose out of your own reassuring garden and get a feeling of the word “diversity”.
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| Us two and some free giraffes |
