The 'Road' to Uganda

Hi Guys!

So Cairo was nice… I think I will definitely go back to Egypt on another trip and see more of the country, it seems a really interesting place. But that’s another trip. I didn’t do a lot, but saw the pyramids, the Egyptian Museum, the site of the bombing behind the museum that took place a couple days before I arrived, and took time to plan ahead a little. The pyramids were nice, although much different than I expected, at least in location. I had this vision of them in the middle of a barren desert, standing majestically, but the reality is much different. It’s very built up around them, and there’s even a KFC across the street from the Sphinx… interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed them, but, just… not in the way I had expected. I went very early, as I had heard much about how they only let 300 people per day into the large pyramid, 150 at 8am and 150 at 1pm. I went to try to make the sunrise at 6am, and found a cloudy sky, so waited until 8 to get a ticket to the pyramid… along with the 1 other woman that showed up. It turns out we had picked a really unique day to visit the pyramids, as Laura Bush was in town and would be visiting them that day. Knowing that it would mean a nightmare of hassle and traffic, due to the secret service and all the security, everybody avoided going that day altogether. Which was great for me and my crazy old English lady friend, who had the pyramids pretty much to ourselves. So we sat for about an hour inside of the largest pyramid, which although very plain, inside, was hard to leave for some reason and completely fascinating. At least considering all of the attention and fuss that has been made about it, and that it all comes down to a tiny cement box, inside of this tiny room… possibly one of the most famous spots on Earth.

I flew to Nairobi last week, expecting the worst, as it has quite a reputation, especially for violent robbery, but arrived and survived without any trouble. I didn’t particularly like Nairobi, and so having met yet another British girl decided to travel on with her 2 days later towards Uganda. I had wanted to see the coast of Kenya, which sounds interesting, especially Lamu, but it was pretty out of the way, the opposite direction in fact, so considering I’ll see much coastline further south, and a couple of islands, I skipped it, and headed east with Lettie to the Kakamega rainforest, in western Kenya. It’s the only rainforest in Kenya, and used to cover a very large amount of land stretching into Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, but has been destroyed, except for a relatively smallish area in Kenya, which is finally being protected.

To get there we took a bus from Nairobi to Kakamega, a matatu (a Nissan minivan that acts as a taxi and crams about 14 people inside, with a driver who only drives, and a doorman that directs him and collects the money) to Shinyalu, and then a boda-boda (a bicycle taxi, not the kind you imagine that pulls a 2-wheeled cart behind, literally just a pad on the back of the bike that you sit on) for 8km into the forest, with our bags on our back. And made all the more interesting by the very wet, and very very muddy roads, slipping and sliding all the way, which left us covered in mud and water.

We stayed at the Forest Rest House, which is a great little house built on stilts, sitting in the middle of the forest, and were as far as I saw, the only foreigners within miles, and certainly the only guests at the rest house. We were shown by a guide around the rainforest for a couple hours, and saw a lot of monkeys and butterflies, but most everything else hid from us. Supposedly 400 species of birds, a leopard, frogs, and lot’s more… you could hear a lot, but not see. You can also do night walks which we had planned to do, and is supposedly really magical, but it started pouring rain around 4pm, and didn’t let up all night. And shortly after our walk, back in our room, I hear Lettie say ‘Gee, I feel like I could faint… wait a minute, I AM going to faint!’. And as fast as I could get over to her, she fell over and was out for about 10 seconds or so, and was having trouble breathing. I got her to her bed, and she eventually started feeling better, but we couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and still don’t know.

I would loved to have stayed there for a few days, but Lettie really wanted to move on to Uganda and be more near a doctor if she continued to feel ill, and I both didn’t want to be alone that secluded in the forest, and didn’t want to leave her to travel back out by herself, as it wasn’t a very easy journey, and much easier with 2 people. So the next morning (yesterday) we started our multi-part journey to Uganda.

Since my ass was sore yet again, having just barely recovered from the camels in Morocco, and now in much pain again after the boda-boda to the forest, we decided to take a matatu back to Kakamega… and being that it was Sunday, there was only 1 per day, departing at 6:30am. So we were up at 5:30a, packed, and walked 15 minutes to the junction where it passed, and waited with 3 village women and their children. And waited, and waited. Boda-boda’s started showing up, and trying anything they could to get us on them, including trying to convince the village women to tell us there was no matatu coming today, and that we had no other option, and even trying to get them to get on them too and go down the road to convince us nothing was coming. I understand their desperation, as there are way too many of them, and they are probably lucky to get 1 or 2 passengers a day each, so probably make around 150ksh/day, about $2.00. Finally around 8:30a a taxi came down the road, which was a little station wagon filled with about 10 people. The driver told us that if we paid him 300 shillings he would come back for us after dropping off the other passengers. We offered him 200, and he agreed, so we waited, for another hour, while the village women gave up and got on the boda-boda’s.

To get to Uganda faster we decided to take matatu’s for all 4 parts of the journey, instead of trying to get on the much-less-frequent buses… by our estimation we should be in Jinja, Uganda by about 1pm. So in Kakamega, we got on one to Kisumu, where we could transfer to another one headed for the border, and were charged 150ksh each. On the way Lettie was watching how much the locals were being charged, and realizing it should only cost 100ksh, confronted the doorman on arrival in Kisumu, argued for a minute, and ended up having to grab 100ksh back out of his hand, before we walked away.

The next stage was getting to Busia on the border. We were getting a little tired by now, it was after lunch time, and as I had an upset stomach, wasn’t really eating. It was also starting to rain, so we were both a little irritable, but soldiering on. On this leg of the journey the doorman asked Lettie to pay for him to come to London to live, which of course started a little yelling on her part, as she doesn’t take much shit from people. We arrived in Busia, now around 4p, and happily walked towards the Ugandan border. “It looks beautiful and sunny over the border” says Lettie, as we crossed, noticing that there was almost a visible line in the weather right on the border. Happily we would be dry and in Jinja before long, maybe not at 1pm like we had hoped, but at least before dark…

Almost as soon as we were on the other side, the clouds quickly moved in, and it was pouring down rain. We took shelter in front of a bar, and chatted with the guys there and the kids sitting out front, waiting for the rain to pass. About 15 minutes later, Lettie’s impatient side took over and decided we should just walk in the rain… against my better judgement, I decided it wouldn’t be that bad, and we headed towards the matatu area. We were instantly wet, although luckily not the inside of my shoes… thank goodness I thought. And then the rain came harder, and harder, and rivers were everywhere, and, long story short, I was completely soaked, shoes drenched inside and out, and wading through filthy water nearly up to my knees.

Anyway, I know it’s not an interesting story, so I’ll stop going on and on about the rain, but just know that I was not very happy at this point, mostly because with a little patience we could have completely avoided getting that wet. So we were at last inside a matatu, which don’t leave until full (and ‘full’ is open to interpretation by the driver and doorman), so an hour later we set off towards Jinja.

“The roads are so nice here,” says Lettie, as we pull away… that lasted about 5 minutes. It was quite possibly one of the worst roads I’ve ever been on. They were hell-bent on making as much money as possible on this journey, and it was a popular route, so they were cramming more and more people in as we went along. They also are used for short distance by the villagers, so some were also coming and going. At one point, packed beyond belief, I counted 23 people inside the van, plus at least 2 babies, and possibly a couple more that I couldn’t see. Some were thin like me, and others were big Ugandan mama’s nursing their babies… one of which was in my lap for a while so that it could reach it’s mom’s breast at a comfortable angle… and so we continued, speeding down the “road”, dodging cows, baboons and villagers, and racing the other matatus to the next stop to try to get to the awaiting passengers first.

Did I mention the potholes? I call them that for lack of a better word… I’m not sure what you call something larger than a pothole, perhaps a pond? Yes, we were weaving in and out of ponds, large enough to swallow our minivan, slipping and sliding in the mud, swerving all over the place at about 50-60 miles per hour. It was, um, interesting. And getting dark… something to definitely avoid here. We passed 2 overturned semi trucks (completely unrelated accidents about an hour apart), and a matatu that looked like it had rolled about 4 times, crumpled on the side of the road, no doubt having been as full as ours was, which was really comforting to see. And by this time it was dark, most cars without headlights, others which would flash their highbeams right as we got in front of them, blinding and scaring the driver. Oh, and the windshield was covered in mud, and getting more difficult to see out of as we went on.

During all of this the doorman was pestering Lettie and asking her to buy him a soda, or give him the money to buy one, which of course set her off a little again. We had paid 5000 Ugandan shillings for this ride, which was the correct fare, posted on a sign before we left. As we neared the end, the doorman turned to Lettie and said that he needed 1000 more from each of us… which pretty much sent her right over the edge. She screamed at him about the sign she had seen, and the guidebook she had which confirmed the rate, and that she had also been watching everyone else in the van pay 5000, and so no, we were absolutely not going to give him more money. And that if he wanted a soda, to buy it his damn self, and that if she had extra money to spare she would give it to someone who needed it, not him. All of which had the entire van in hysterics, and the women cheering her on, and embarrassed the shit out of the doorman. When we arrived he looked at me and told me that he had been joking, which I thought was hilarious, considering he had been pondering a response for half an hour, and that was the best he came up with. But I let him save face, smiled and walked away… avoiding the temptation to demand at least 1000 back from him since our driver was a freakin’ maniac.

This may all sound negative, but it was actually really amusing, and for the most part I was handling it really well… or more to the point, Lettie was handling it all well, as I’ve had the pleasure of being passive for the last couple of days. I was expecting journeys like this and much more, but it still is fascinating when it’s happening. And comical, and scary. Our driver was completely insane, and it was far worse than any journey I took in India, which is saying something. I can see a couple of really really long train journeys ahead, so I’m sure this is just preparing me for what’s to come.

We arrived in Jinja last night, around 8pm, exhausted, filthy, soaking wet, 7 hours later than anticipated, and wonderfully happy to be in Uganda! And so now it’s just about planning what to do here. It’s a BEAUTIFUL country so far. Humid… warm… lush, green & tropical. Jinja is the source of the Nile, at the north end of Lake Victoria. Most people here go rafting down the Nile, which I thought I was going to do, until I was told that it’s some of the largest and roughest, category 5 rapids, which isn’t my idea of fun. And it’s expensive for what amounts to overpriced swimming, as I have no doubt you spend half the time in the water trying to get back into the raft. No thanks!

Anyway, on to Kampala in a couple of days… but for now, relaxing, drying my laundry, and getting my bearings in Uganda. And adjusting to a very difficult exchange rate… $1 = 1700ush. Try keeping that straight when you’re buying something and trying to make sure you get a good price. I’ll manage…

I’m also adjusting to my new Swahili name, Mzungu, which means white person. That started in Kenya, and has continued into Uganda, uttered by nearly every person I pass on the street. Some whisper it to their friend in a sentence and I pick that up… it’s remarkable how much they talk about you. If I didn’t know that word I wouldn’t know what they were talking about, but it’s amazing that it comes off the lips of every single person that sees me. English is the main language in Uganda, so sometimes they even just say it in English… “Hey, white man!!”

Anyway, thank you all for the emails, and I hope you are all well!

Wes / Mzungu