March 17, 2003
Ahhh, how time flies in beautiful Uganda. So much has happened since I last wrote that I don’t even know where to begin. I suppose I can start with the...Great Primate Week of February Something.
Dana and I were in Kampala having a wicked time with some South Africans we had met at Red Chillis. They were great: they all work for Celtel, a mobile company and get an enormous per diem and therefore can afford to spend tons of money on me and everyone else. We all had a great time on the town, going to Just Kicking and Al’s Bar (for those who have been here). Kampala actually has an extraordinary nightlife. People really know how to have a good time in Uganda. Really. But the time finally came to move on. Well, I have to thank Dana for the motivation…as many of you know, I can get quite stuck in some places. Dana had already managed to get a move on the day before, so I finally boarded the Kalita Executive bus on the Saturday, late as usual. This is part one of Thia’s Adventures in Transport.
The ride started out fairly uneventful. I got a ride to the station from the safas, which made life pretty easy. I got a seat, in a two-seater aisle, which rocks. And the bus left relatively soon after I boarded. Usually they wait for hours to fill up, not as bad as the matatus but annoying, and hot. But off we went to Fort Portal and the Kibale National Forest.
The transportation system in Uganda rocks: you have so many choices and most of them are quite inexpensive, comparably. There are the buses, which are fast; the matatus, which are fast and dangerous and overwhelming; and the boda bodas/piki pikis, which are bikes/mopeds that take you around town quickly and efficiently, with the possibility of death but man, are they fun! I’ve actually tried to figure out if such a system as the mopeds would work in Toronto but I think you’d be sued faster than your 50 cc bike could move.
But one of my favorite things about taking the buses is the food. At home if you are going on a long journey you have to pack food. Here, you just wait for the people with meat on the stick. Basically the bus will stop for a moment and tons of people come running out of the woodwork, selling chicken on a stick, cow or goat on a stick, chapattis (a type of pancake/bread), cokes, water, boiled eggs, plantains, bananas…. all for cheap (if you don’t get the mzungu price) and you don’t even have to get out of your seat. You just buy it through the window. Rock on.
It was at such a place that my first travel mishap occurred. We were pulling into a gas station and all the food people were running for the bus to properly serve us when we hit something and the frikin tire blew! Great…changing a tire with African time, but at least we were already at the gas station. We moved on after about an hour, which I reckon is pretty fast. But by the time I got to Fort Portal, all the matatus into the forest were done (they finish at around 6:30) and I was forced to stay in town, missing out on an early trip to see the chimps or take a special hire taxi, a private taxi, which costs. I figured Dana was probably wondering where the hell I was since we were supposed to meet at the entrance to the National Park so I got a taxi. Problem was no one seemed to believe me that you could stay at the entrance. No, it must be one of the other camps. Understand, it was now getting dark and we had to drive into a tropical forest and search for a phantom camp. I was not being a very nice mzungu at this point. We finally got our shit together and it was decided that the driver and I would first visit one camp, CVK, and see if Dana was there…he really didn’t believe me when I told him bout the camp at the entrance to the chimp park. So he put a small amount of petrol into his car and off we went. Well, at least the forest was quite beautiful although kinda scary in the fading light. We drove for a while before reaching the camp, where I questioned the Ugandans if a blond American had been staying there. I received blank stares. Luckily, there were some English travelers chilling by a fire and I spoke to them about the phantom camp. They knew of it but my driver still did not believe it. And he said he needed more petrol and more money. Uh huh. Where the hell do get petrol in the middle of nowhere? Well, from your friendly neighbourhood wooden shed that sells milk. That’s right. You can buy jerry cans of gas with your milk, for just a slightly inflated price, which is probably due to the fact that your white skin glows in the dark.
We got the gas, and headed in the direction of phantom camp, driving really slow cause he wanted me to agree to a better price. All I kept telling him was only god would know if my wallet had more money and we will see on my safe arrival.
And we did make it to phantom camp, and Dana had been there (I learned again from travelers when I was greeted by blank stares from the locals). The only problem was there was no room for me, and here we were in the middle of a rain forest at 9:30 at night. What a great day! But the rangers finally gave me some sympathy. They couldn’t handle a mzungu looking so so pathetic. One option was to stay in the rangers’ quarters on a mattress on the ground. But I had to share it with the ranger and could tell no one as they could get in trouble. Dodgy! But my only option. Oh, and there was no room left for the morning walk to see the chimps, I had to go on the crappy afternoon see-no-chimps walk. Fine, just feed me.
Sat down and chatted with the Japanese couple and the Swiss dude who were staying there. Learned that the Swiss dude had an extra bed in his banda but had equipment on it. Common!!!!! This guy could sleep well at night knowing some Canadian chick is staying with dodgy rangers while his beloved photography equipment had a bed of its own?! It took Obi, the cook, to talk him into letting me stay. He quietly asked Thomas if he was afraid of women. I was allowed to stay.
We woke early on the off chance the Japanese and I could get on a walk. Sure enough, there just happened to be an extra guide. Off we went with Godfrey, who had been working as a chimp guide for 13 years. Cool, I wanted a good sighting. And, man, did we get one. We trekked through the forest for an hour or so when we heard this noise. We were in a small clearing, facing a wall of trees and chimp laughter rang through the air. It was huge and frightening sounding. Godfrey pushed through the wall and we were greeted by groups of chimps chilling all over the forest floor. They were huge! I had no idea they were like my height. There were a couple of other groups of tourists watching already but their time was soon up and the 4 of us were left alone with the chimps. That’s when the big show started. I don’t know who started it, but I was watching one fairly obscene male when they all started freaking out: racing up trees, tearing down huge branches, shrieking at the top of their lungs, showing just how manly the men were. Really quite scary; I stayed pretty close to Godfrey’s side till he told me that chimps were afraid of human eyes. See, chimps are quite mean (I think). They have no qualms in tearing a baby in half and beating their women. Interesting that they are human’s closest relatives. Anyway, in the eye of the storm was the alpha male, just chilling in the tree, having to prove nothing. The small and weak had, of course, disappeared to the sidelines, as did the women. These males got really aggressive…it’s almost indescribable. You had to watch where you were cause at any point a treetop could be ripped down over top of you or you may be charged by a chimp. I really can’t tell you how frightening the sound was. But I was lucky to have seen what I saw. Godfrey was astounded! He couldn’t believe our luck…most people see them high up in the trees, eating. Guess karma was making up for my previous bad day :)
Travel Adventure #2
The next day, the Japanese and I left the Forest for Fort Portal, where I was to finally meet up with Dana (if luck was on my side). Sunday: no public transport: no matatus. No worries, we’ll hitch, pay the driver. And it really was that easy. A pick up truck filled with maize drove by after just a few minutes of waiting and we jumped in the back. Much fun sitting atop piles of maize on a very bad road. I swear, he aimed for the potholes just to see if he could throw the mzungus overboard. It was a cool ride though. Baboons came down to the road to check out the commotion, colobus monkeys flew through the trees, trying to keep themselves safe from the evil chimps that eat them. Really picturesque too. Ah, but it can’t be that easy, can it? We began picking up various locals who needed to go to town and they really enjoyed the mzungus-specially me. The women had a great time chatting about me and pointing at various parts of me and pinching my skin, like it would be different from theirs. Then the sky turned black, but no rain came until after we lost and drove over the trucks battery. Yup, fully crushed it. Somehow, some way, they managed to fix it and we continued on. Then it down poured. I had a small lake in my underwear by the time we got to town and miraculously it stopped raining for our 10-meter walk to the Continental Hotel. Nice…but I guess we were in a rainforest.
I did find Dana, had a lovely meal and we went to bed early for our early rise the next day. We were told the bus to Kabale was at 6:30 am and we had full intention of being on it.
Life is Always an Adventure in Africa #3
We got to the bus at 6:02. It was already gone. Shit. That was the only bus, allegedly. Our only option was taking a matatu to the next town, Kasese, and possibly find our bus or get another matatu. The crap thing was this bus would have been direct. Now we had to catch a million different vehicles. We made it Kasese with fairly little incident other than claustiphobia and found a bus that would take us to Mbarara where we would find another bus to take us to Kibale. On one bus, Dana sadly got robbed when she tried to buy water. Not badly robbed but robbed nonetheless. Then, our bus to Kabale was so packed we had to stand and our bus hit a kid. Now, I don’t think it was the driver’s fault, but we were going really fast through a town and the kid stepped out in front of it. Astonishingly, he wasn’t hurt. We saw him just rubbing his arm and I didn’t even see tears, although I’m sure some were shed. But we finally made it to Kabale. Now all we had to do was make it down to Lake Bunyoni. An English woman who lived there thought she’d be helpful and walk us across town to find a vehicle that would be cheap for us. Thanks, but common! Lugging our packs after traveling for 5000 hours? Really. But, as luck would have it, we met an overland truck that gave us a lift to the camp…blessed souls.
Lake Bunyoni. Possibly one of the mot beautiful lakes in Africa. Having just gotten here, I can only tell you it really is nice. There’s even this lovely little island that has one tree where they used to put women to die, even if they were pregnant. It’s called Prisoner Island. Really nice.
Great place to chill though and we ran into a ton of people we knew from other places. Visited a school nearby, got bombarded by children, who are really cute until the Gimmes start. Gimme pen, gimme money, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee! Ahh, it’s the mzungus that do give that create these monsters. I’m telling you, if you want to give, give to the teachers who will make sure it’ll be used accordingly. We did get to see how the students perceived westerners: one thought we lived in tents, and were explorers.
Dana and I stayed for a few days there before heading to the highlight of my trip, the gorillas!!!!! We managed to get a special taxi with a Scottish doctor (Brian) for really cheap and set off for Kisoro and one of the most spectacular drives I’ve ever been on. This town is located in the extreme south west of Uganda, right beside Rwanda and the Congo. The view is of the Virunga Mountains and its chain of volcanoes. Wicked cool. This is also supposed to be a very dangerous place. Remember, back in ’99, the machetying of tourists in Bwindi. Now, we weren’t going to Bwindi, Mgahinga, but it was still scary! Ok, no it wasn’t at all. It was awesome. We stayed right at the gate of the park surrounded by the volcanoes, and very close to gorillas (and the Congo…I just have to keep pointing that out).
There was a real military presence there, and most of the soldiers worked under the old Amin reign but what can you do. You know corruption is alive and well but the Museveni government is significantly less corrupt. My problem with the whole gorilla trek is the dividing of money. At Mgahinga it costs $220 USD to spend one hour with the gorillas. You only get one hour cause gorillas are quite susceptible to human illness, and you don’t want to annoy them. I think the gorillas fully understand tourists will be visiting them every day for one hour. But I don’t like the fact that locals were kicked off their land to make room for the park. The pygmies were relocated…badly. And these people are supposed to get a cut of the entrance fee, which I don’t think happens. The rangers only get 1000 UGS/day, which is about $1 CAD so where does the money go?
My turn to go was the Sunday. Woke early and had a yummy chapatti and Spanish omlette. Grabbed some boiled eggs and headed to the gate. We were given a speech about what not to do ie. Cough without covering your mouth, shitting in the woods without burying it. Don’t touch the gorillas. Basic stuff. Then we headed off. We had, for the 6 of us, about 12 armed soldiers, one armed with a camera, with 2 trackers. We walked through the bamboo forest for about 1 hour 45, when they stopped us. Chilled for a bit, ate some cookies, took pictures of the scary (please) soldiers, they took pics of us, and then we moved on. They gorillas had been spotted. We crouched our way through the branches (like gorillas) and turned a bend where we were greeted by a juvenile. The most precious face….oh my god. The serene look in his eyes made you want to cry. Then I saw a silverback just behind him. I couldn’t believe how huge he was! His head was 10 times bigger than mine! The 2 moved on, disturbed by us and we had to wait a few minutes before chasing them. I was really geared up as our hour had started and I didn’t want to lose them. We pushed our way through the forest until we came to a slight clearing where a big old silverback was chilling. We got pretty close (a couple of meters) when he decided to walk right through us. I could have touched him if I had extended my finger. But it was Peter, an American fellow, he was after. He stopped right beside Peter, didn’t look at him but kicked him from the side. Not hard but a definite message. The soldiers pissed themselves laughing. Apparently that silverback was quite a character. It was awesome too how the soldiers really enjoyed the gorillas. Anyway, all of a sudden we heard a crashing sound and this juvenile came rolling through the trees until he landed smack down in front of us. Very comedic. Then 2 juveniles came out of the trees with a baby who kept trying to race up to us and touch us. One of the juvies was his keeper and just kept him on a short leash. So much was happening in so little time and so close! I couldn’t believe it! The juvies soon moved on after a couple of plays and we followed them to their nest, where a silverback was lolling about on the ground, a juvie was sleeping in a nest atop a small tree, and some other juvies were racing around that tree. Until the s.b. had had enough and put a stop to the horseplay. This started back up in a minute or 2. I swear, if you ever come to Africa, you must visit these gorillas! I honestly cannot describe how exhilarating the experience is. Especially since my hand is now cramping from typing.
The one downfall to this adventure was at the end. The whole gang of us were taking photos of each other, having a goof when the soldiers decided to get a photo of me. Shocking, the one single female. They had already come up with a nickname for me: the crested mzungu. Seems my chosen hairstyle of knot on top of the head resembles the crested crane. They placed me in a grassy area and all gathered round. Click. All good. Hmmm, what’s that biting me? Shit, I’m being attacked by safari ants! These little bastards clamp onto your skin so hard their heads stay on if you pull them off. And they try to get inside you via the genital region. We did manage to stave off the attack though. Luckily.
The American couple, Peter and Helen, gave me a ride back to Kampala the next day, with a night stopover in Kabale. It’s a long drive and a bad road and land rovers can get hot. Made it back in one piece, for once no adventures, and went for a lie down. Woke to feeling kinda hot in the head, but decided to drink it off with some of Brian’s scotch (the doctor who got to Kampala the previous day). Was sad cause I had lost Dana to her volunteer gig in Western Tanzania and had no one to mommy me. And I woke the next day to still having a fever, except now I was nausea and dizzy. Brian was gone, great doctor, and I was really worried I had malaria. All the signs pointed in that direction. Especially since I had just left a malarial region 2 weeks before, the incubation period. But I’m on doxy so it’s almost impossible (they use it as treatment) so I decided to sleep it off. I met a fellow sickie, a scot named Steve and we popped a couple of valium and crashed for the day. The next day I woke to feeling extremely better, just a little nausea left over and an invitation to visit Lake Nkuruba, where Steve is the manager. He figured if I was sick I would be well taken care of by the locals there. Well, I got healthier and remained at this beautiful crater lake (near Fort Portal and Kibale National Forest) for almost 2 weeks. How can you go wrong with a beautiful secluded Eden where you can lie on the grass alone but for the colobus monkeys jumping overhead. There wasn’t even electricity or a phone. Rock on.
#4
But the time finally came where I had to travel again. I boarded to bus to Kampala last Friday only to find it full, with standing room only. Great. 5 hours standing. Off we went, putting more and more people on the bus while we drove through Fort Portal. It was packed. I had found kinda a great spot to rest myself, lounging on the back of some seats. We were speeding along when I felt something. I lazily turned my head to the opposite window (it was hot) and saw a tire rolling along the road, away from us. Turned to look in the other direction and saw another tire flying through the air, away from the bus. We were probably doing 125km and somehow the driver managed to stop the bus with the back left half driving on the stemmy thing that holds the tires. No one got hurt. How the hell did we not fall over? I can’t believe we didn’t get hurt!
Needless to say, after much hanging around and enjoying myself with the locals, I hitched a ride back to Fort Portal. The funny part of the hitching is not one mzungu would stop to help me. They had to have seen me; I was wearing my white arms. The Ugandans thought this hysterical. They ended up getting me a lift. Although we were having so much fun together it would have been a nice ride…but I didn’t feel like getting into Kampala at midnight.
Made it to town, went to the Glue Pot Pub where I found Steve who seemed very surprised to see me. We decided that since I yet again escaped death, we should go on the piss in a big way. We went to all the fun pubs, went to Heartbeat, the local disco and danced the night away. In that time I met a cool yank who studies the Chimps (Kim) so I decided to hang out with her the next day and I finally made it back to Kampala Sunday, without incident. In fact, the conductors remembered me and made a show of checking the tires throughout the whole trip.
Steve actually thinks a rival company may have tampered with the tires.
Kim came and joined me and we’ve had a good week here. I’m now off to the Full Moon Party in Jinja for one last Ugandan blowout before heading to Tanzania and hopefully Dana.
And there ya go. Can you believe how long this is?
I’ll be amazed if any of you read this!
Love you all and miss you, but really loving Africa :)
thi
