Monday September 7, 2010 – running errands and meeting friends
We’re all up early this morning – keeping our camping hours in the city. The Apartments do a pretty good breakfast on a terrace by the pool so we start what turns out to be a substantial eating day with a substantial breakfast with all the trimmings. Then its time for a bit more unpacking and organizing, and then a trip down the road to the Garden City mall, a major shopping centre, to change money and buy the last odds and ends we need or want in the grocery - including some Warangi – the local spirits to toast Uganda with when we get home. Alcohol is incredibly inexpensive here, except for imported wine which is a bout the same price as at home. Banana Boat curios next for a few final things, a quick trip to the book store, and then down town. IT starts to rain, torrentially, which sends everyone scuttling to protection under the eaves of buildings waiting for a break. We put the car in a small parking lot – parking is ridiculously impossible in Kampala. A quick pop into an antique shop, with some neat things from various countries, and then up the road to meet Roger Kirkby for lunch. Elizabeth is suffering big time with a headcold as well as her guts still sorting themselves out, but she soldiers on and we have a nice lunch –Sarah working her way through an enormous Greek salad complete with feta and olives!.
Back to the apartments to unload, and then Sarah and I make a trip over to the Predict office, 5 minutes away, to pick up my extra suitcase, sell the tent (yea!), return the stove, and say hi to my various colleagues there who are in the office. We don’t quite catch everyone, but make an arrangement to stop by a 6 and have drinks before we meet Herbert for dinner this evening. Our timing on swimming pools is definitely off – it’s a damp rainy day and no one wants to swim so we park inside doing some washing and sorting things to go home, things to throw out, things to donate to the maid or to Betty, who is now out of a job since the vet school hostel closed. With TV and internet it’s not hard to pass the few hours before we load up into the increasingly empty car and run up to PREDICT to meet up with friends and then head down the road to the Kisemente shops where we drink gin and tonics (or fanta) and catch up with each other. Lawrence, who organized our Ngambe trip is in town – he was supposed to have flown to Germany this morning to finish his PhD but they wouldn’t let him on as apparently he needed a transit visa to switch planes in Heathrow. Go figure. So he’s here for another day or so til he can get a flight. Felicia who used to work for MGVP, James who was in Congo managing a gorilla sanctuary, and my friend Dominic from the US here working for RESPOND. An interesting bunch.
A little after 7 we head out to meet Herbert at up the road, then follow him home to his flat for dinner. He lives up beyond the northern bypass, not too far away, up probably the worst road I’ve seen yet in Kampala. It looks like some of the really bad stretches we’ve been on out in the country. The sedan cars, taxis, and even a full size bus lurch back and forth trying to avoid the massive ruts and huge potholes. Old hat to us. Herbert lives in a small bachelor flat in a complex with a walled central courtyard for parking. His apartment is decorated with photos of his son, and a Kitchener Rangers calendar from Canada. We eat dinner in the lounge, which appears mysteriously from the kitchen where there is obviously someone else orchestrating the food. Turns out a friend of Herbert’s, Rachel, is the cook and she eventually joins us while we finish up. We had quite an array of local foods, and much better tasting than we’ve generally been served. Posho, rice, potatoes, matoke, peas, beans, vegetables, and meat in sauce accompanied by local passion fruit and orange juice. Followed up by fresh pineapple. We’re stuffed and Herbert will have leftovers to last him for a while. A suitable dinner for our last night in Uganda. Sarah is falling asleep on the couch curled up on Rachel’s lap and Elizabeth is struggling to keep upright so we make it a relatively early night, passing up on the tea, coffee, or Ugandan red wine offered after the meal. Goodbyes said we wobble our way back down the road into Kampala and home to bed.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Sunday September 5, 2010 – Back to Kampala and the Golf Course Inn
Sunday September 5, 2010 – Back to Kampala and the Golf Course Inn
After a leisurely breakfast and Sarah painting Brenda’s toenails bright red (hope she can find some nailpolish remover at some point) we pack up the campsite and start working our way back to Kampala for the last 2 nights of our trip. We start with a bit of curio shopping for our trip – a few gifts for Elizabeth’s friends and for Yoram and Ayala’s baby girl, which we just found out about. Jinja is an interesting town – it was a much busier place in eras passed and the downtown streets are laid out in grids and lined by shop facades with the names of probably long-gone Indian families and dates ranging from the early 1900’s through to the 1950’s. Many are curio shops now, just opening up late morning as the operators come out from church. We pick up the things we want quite quickly – most of the stuff carried in one shop is the same as in the next, but there are always small differences and one finds something a bit novel, or at a better price. But we can only handle so many shops – we are definitely curio’d out. Next stop the “Source of the Nile” monument on the west bank – a pretty park on a grassy slope leading down to the river. A monument to Speke, who claimed Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile and got into a big argument with fellow explorer Burton over it. Right now there is a view of the curio marts and bar on the opposite bank but one can also look further off to the lake and the fishing boats, which are mostly taking tourists for rides. But it is pretty.
Back in the car and back to the stables for the sandals we left there yesterday, and then continuing on the back way to Kampala. Longer but almost no traffic, anc certainly no big trucks and petroleum lorries. The road is actually really good back right into the outskirts of Kampala, and it is all country with small habitations along the way, including a large papyrus swamp. I stop at one point for street food – Sarah isn’t going to make it all the way back to town – and buy a charcoal roasted goat kabob and four roasted bananas. For some reason neither girl will have anything to do with them so I get the whole meal, Sarah is onto her favourite Mr. Noodles, and Elizabeth just opts to give her stomach a break.
Kampala is a shock to the system. Our road deteriorates rapidly as we hit the outskirts of town as there are roadworks going on and that just makes a mess of it in the mean time. So we’re back into traffic and city potholes and weaving in amongst the other vehicles and the traffic. I’m actually quite getting to like the rather laissez-faire driving style – moving out of your lane isn’t a major faux pas, and all the bad driving things one does when not sure of the route, such as slowing unexpectedly or turning abruptly or not turning after signaling are all taken completely in stride. In fact I’ve almost completely stopped using turn signals as I’m petrified I will be giving some poor soul a message that it is safe to pass when in fact I’m just thinking of changing lanes. Between my memory of the map and the gps we manage to make our way into town through the diversions, passing through a market area where they are carving enormous ditches – enough to drive a car through about 10 feet down, as part of some sort of renewal. I wonder how many people of cars end up in there. But we hit my familiar territory and withing a few minutes we are at the Golf Course Apartments, our base for the next two days. Mike was supposed to be staying here as well, but his passport is stuck in Kinshasa where it was getting a multiple entry visa for Congo, so he is tied to quarters in Rwanda until it comes through. The Vet Guest house has been turned into offices in our absence, so we have had to go up market. So we have a nice two bedroom furnished apartment in a rather sprawling complex with a pool, a restaurant which serves all sorts of cooked breakfasts, a tennis court, and a bunch of pretty gardens. TV and internet and hot water and real screens so for the first time in a month (two months for me) we don’t sleep under mosquito nets.
We drag a load of stuff upstairs to our place, spread it all over, and then head to the pool for a quick swim before starting the sorting process and cleaning ourselves up to go out for a dance performance. The Ndere Centre is the home of the Ndere Dance troupe, a professional group that performs regional traditional dances and puts on regular Sunday night shows. I’d booked us for tonight in advance, and even gone to the place so we’d be able to find it at night. The centre is quite beautiful with an outdoor amphitheatre and a lot of stone walls and structures, that aren’t quite so apparent in the evening. Tables are set round the stage in tiers, and there are two buffets – traditional African and Mongolian (of all things – various meats and veggies they stir fry on a hot wok). We get food and drinks and by 6:30 the show starts, and goes pretty solidly until about 9:30. The MC is character named Stephen, who does the introductions, the comic relief, and the fill in bits while dancers change costumes and reorganize between sets. Some of his stuff is really runny (a good series about Idi Amin), some pretty corny, but he certainly holds the centre stage. There are dances from Rwanda and from various parts of Uganda all with different musical instruments and different music, and different costumes. In the finale women balance up to 8 pots on their heads and still manage to dance and wiggle and sway without any of the pots falling down. Quite amazing. There is a bit of an intermission, or rather a break for the dancers, and the MC gets all the kids in the audience down to dance around and have fun, and then he starts to thank the audience for coming, especially those who pre-booked. And he calls them by name to come down to the stage. Guess who is about the third person called. So down I go, say where I’m from (he makes fun of the way I say Toronto), and then Sarah comes screeching down the steps to join me. Elizabeth holds the fort and all our valuables. In the end about ¾ of the audience is down on the stage, introduced by country, and then all the Ugandans are asked to shake hands with all the visitors and welcome them, and then there is music and everyone dances around a bit – Sarah loves that part – it is well past her bedtime and she’s getting manic, and then we are all thanked and sent back up to our seats for the rest of the show. Certainly a novel way to break up the evening and to prevent “plastic chair disease” as he calls it. sSo as the last dance ends and the final thank-yous are underway we duck out and head back to the apartment – loading ourselves into bed at the almost unbearably late hour of 11:00.
After a leisurely breakfast and Sarah painting Brenda’s toenails bright red (hope she can find some nailpolish remover at some point) we pack up the campsite and start working our way back to Kampala for the last 2 nights of our trip. We start with a bit of curio shopping for our trip – a few gifts for Elizabeth’s friends and for Yoram and Ayala’s baby girl, which we just found out about. Jinja is an interesting town – it was a much busier place in eras passed and the downtown streets are laid out in grids and lined by shop facades with the names of probably long-gone Indian families and dates ranging from the early 1900’s through to the 1950’s. Many are curio shops now, just opening up late morning as the operators come out from church. We pick up the things we want quite quickly – most of the stuff carried in one shop is the same as in the next, but there are always small differences and one finds something a bit novel, or at a better price. But we can only handle so many shops – we are definitely curio’d out. Next stop the “Source of the Nile” monument on the west bank – a pretty park on a grassy slope leading down to the river. A monument to Speke, who claimed Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile and got into a big argument with fellow explorer Burton over it. Right now there is a view of the curio marts and bar on the opposite bank but one can also look further off to the lake and the fishing boats, which are mostly taking tourists for rides. But it is pretty.
Back in the car and back to the stables for the sandals we left there yesterday, and then continuing on the back way to Kampala. Longer but almost no traffic, anc certainly no big trucks and petroleum lorries. The road is actually really good back right into the outskirts of Kampala, and it is all country with small habitations along the way, including a large papyrus swamp. I stop at one point for street food – Sarah isn’t going to make it all the way back to town – and buy a charcoal roasted goat kabob and four roasted bananas. For some reason neither girl will have anything to do with them so I get the whole meal, Sarah is onto her favourite Mr. Noodles, and Elizabeth just opts to give her stomach a break.
Kampala is a shock to the system. Our road deteriorates rapidly as we hit the outskirts of town as there are roadworks going on and that just makes a mess of it in the mean time. So we’re back into traffic and city potholes and weaving in amongst the other vehicles and the traffic. I’m actually quite getting to like the rather laissez-faire driving style – moving out of your lane isn’t a major faux pas, and all the bad driving things one does when not sure of the route, such as slowing unexpectedly or turning abruptly or not turning after signaling are all taken completely in stride. In fact I’ve almost completely stopped using turn signals as I’m petrified I will be giving some poor soul a message that it is safe to pass when in fact I’m just thinking of changing lanes. Between my memory of the map and the gps we manage to make our way into town through the diversions, passing through a market area where they are carving enormous ditches – enough to drive a car through about 10 feet down, as part of some sort of renewal. I wonder how many people of cars end up in there. But we hit my familiar territory and withing a few minutes we are at the Golf Course Apartments, our base for the next two days. Mike was supposed to be staying here as well, but his passport is stuck in Kinshasa where it was getting a multiple entry visa for Congo, so he is tied to quarters in Rwanda until it comes through. The Vet Guest house has been turned into offices in our absence, so we have had to go up market. So we have a nice two bedroom furnished apartment in a rather sprawling complex with a pool, a restaurant which serves all sorts of cooked breakfasts, a tennis court, and a bunch of pretty gardens. TV and internet and hot water and real screens so for the first time in a month (two months for me) we don’t sleep under mosquito nets.
We drag a load of stuff upstairs to our place, spread it all over, and then head to the pool for a quick swim before starting the sorting process and cleaning ourselves up to go out for a dance performance. The Ndere Centre is the home of the Ndere Dance troupe, a professional group that performs regional traditional dances and puts on regular Sunday night shows. I’d booked us for tonight in advance, and even gone to the place so we’d be able to find it at night. The centre is quite beautiful with an outdoor amphitheatre and a lot of stone walls and structures, that aren’t quite so apparent in the evening. Tables are set round the stage in tiers, and there are two buffets – traditional African and Mongolian (of all things – various meats and veggies they stir fry on a hot wok). We get food and drinks and by 6:30 the show starts, and goes pretty solidly until about 9:30. The MC is character named Stephen, who does the introductions, the comic relief, and the fill in bits while dancers change costumes and reorganize between sets. Some of his stuff is really runny (a good series about Idi Amin), some pretty corny, but he certainly holds the centre stage. There are dances from Rwanda and from various parts of Uganda all with different musical instruments and different music, and different costumes. In the finale women balance up to 8 pots on their heads and still manage to dance and wiggle and sway without any of the pots falling down. Quite amazing. There is a bit of an intermission, or rather a break for the dancers, and the MC gets all the kids in the audience down to dance around and have fun, and then he starts to thank the audience for coming, especially those who pre-booked. And he calls them by name to come down to the stage. Guess who is about the third person called. So down I go, say where I’m from (he makes fun of the way I say Toronto), and then Sarah comes screeching down the steps to join me. Elizabeth holds the fort and all our valuables. In the end about ¾ of the audience is down on the stage, introduced by country, and then all the Ugandans are asked to shake hands with all the visitors and welcome them, and then there is music and everyone dances around a bit – Sarah loves that part – it is well past her bedtime and she’s getting manic, and then we are all thanked and sent back up to our seats for the rest of the show. Certainly a novel way to break up the evening and to prevent “plastic chair disease” as he calls it. sSo as the last dance ends and the final thank-yous are underway we duck out and head back to the apartment – loading ourselves into bed at the almost unbearably late hour of 11:00.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Saturday September 4, 2010 – Rafting and horseback riding
Saturday September 4, 2010 – Rafting and horseback riding
It rained last night. We lay in the tent too early this morning listening to it pitter patter on the fly. I guess it doesn’t matter much for rafting as everyone is soaking wet anyway. The Dragoman crew were taking down their tents at 6:30, so we were up as well – unfortunately no breakfast til 8. The bonus was we were the only ones in the restaurant-bar –except the red-tailed monkeys who were hopping about in the rafters and in and out of the adjacent trees. Soo cute, and making the funniest little squeaky noises. But the day cleared, we got breakfast, and Elizabeth is marginally better, enough to give the rafting a go. But it’s classic hurry up and wait – after a number of false starts and me fussing about (I admit it) by about 10:00 the buses from Kampala had finally arrived and there were a pile of people milling about, drinking coffee, and anointing themselves with sun lotion in preparation for a day on the river. Those combining with a bungee jump did their jumps, and we all cheered from the deck (one of those things I never have a desire to do – can’t believe Elizabeth jumped in New Zealand). But eventually all became order, lifejackets, helmets and paddles were handed out, bananas were issued for last minute calories, and off they went. Sarah and I watched from the deck as the rafts went down the first mini rapids below us, trying to figure out which raft was Elizabeth’s, the rafts surrounded by a flock of kayakers to pick up those that end up in the river and generally perform rescue tasks.
Sarah and I settled in for an exciting morning of moving the tent, laundry, and playing with the cats until I caught up on a few things and it was time for riding. Riding was back over the bridge to the other side of the river and down the opposite side almost opposite where were staying. They have a lot of horses, which generally looked very well cared for. New Zealand woman who is the keen horse person and competes in three-day events in Kenya, and her Australian husband run the place, catering primarily to tourists who do rides along the Nile. So Sarah and I were helmeted and mounted up on a couple of very placid steeds for a sedate walk along the bank of the Nile, which was very high up and also very photogenic, and then back through the villages. Sarah went first, led the whole way by an African groom, I followed, and then I was followed by a second groom on foot to make sure none of the kids in the villages got too close. Sarah thought it was hilarious that I was behind her and kept telling me I was the slowpoke and I needed to hurry up. Not quite sure what she expected I was going to do, but she thought the whole thing was pretty funny. The ride back through the village was actually quite interesting as the guides told me the names of the plants growing in peoples gardens –s me like beans and bananas were pretty obvious, but things like their sweet potato and yams weren’t. There were lots of coffee trees in flower, and a scent almost like orange in the air which might have been coming from them. So we had a nice ride, Sarah was totally thrilled, and then we watched the horses being rubbed down and everyone being put into their stalls for an afternoon feed. Definitely a big hit of an activity.
And then back to camp, with a stop in jinja to change money (oops, banks close at 1:00 on Sat) and to pick up a chicken pie, chocolate brownie, and ginger squares at a local bakery. Treats for after dinner. Sarah has developed a regular round of visiting in the time we’ve been here. Brenda, who turns out to have had a developmentally delayed sister, has all the time in the world for her and Sarah offers to pain her nails for her. Sarah is also a big favourite with the cooks for the overland trucks – she wanders over while I am doing stuff in the car and the next thing I know she is busy chopping vegetables and stirring things and getting fed cookies and crackers, and according to her beers although I don’t quite believe that part. The guys are really really patient with her and keep insisting she is no problem –a far cry from home where people are always so busy she in mostly in the way.
IT’s past 6 when Elizabeth and the rafting group get back – tired and soggy and variably sunburnt. They had a good day – Elizabeth was with a pretty good crew. Their raft overturned once and dumped them all out, she got turfed out on another set of rapids, and they all had a good time swimming in the smooth spots in between when it got to hot. Although their guide apparently made them paddle a lot more than some of the others so they will all be stiff as well as bruised tomorrow. The Jinja rapids are serious white water rafting and really exhilarating, but a new dam being constructed down the river will wipe out most of them next year – hard to argue with Uganda’s need for electricity, especially since the current dam and powerplant is apparently approaching its “best before” date. I guess both of us now have bragging rights for “I rafted the rapids before they were flooded”. Have to get t-shirts made.
Dinner in the bar, some more upside down kayak tricks – Brenda gives it a go and then so do I, getting bright red sambuca all over myself – which Sarah takes rather exception to as it stains fingers pretty well and she keeps thinking it is blood and telling us to wash our hands. Elizabeth fades early, a major accomplishment to make it this far considering how she has been feeling. Sarah and I watch the rugby with a bunch of locals, mostly from South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand, and then head off pretty early ourselves. Must have been that exhausting hour of trail riding!
It rained last night. We lay in the tent too early this morning listening to it pitter patter on the fly. I guess it doesn’t matter much for rafting as everyone is soaking wet anyway. The Dragoman crew were taking down their tents at 6:30, so we were up as well – unfortunately no breakfast til 8. The bonus was we were the only ones in the restaurant-bar –except the red-tailed monkeys who were hopping about in the rafters and in and out of the adjacent trees. Soo cute, and making the funniest little squeaky noises. But the day cleared, we got breakfast, and Elizabeth is marginally better, enough to give the rafting a go. But it’s classic hurry up and wait – after a number of false starts and me fussing about (I admit it) by about 10:00 the buses from Kampala had finally arrived and there were a pile of people milling about, drinking coffee, and anointing themselves with sun lotion in preparation for a day on the river. Those combining with a bungee jump did their jumps, and we all cheered from the deck (one of those things I never have a desire to do – can’t believe Elizabeth jumped in New Zealand). But eventually all became order, lifejackets, helmets and paddles were handed out, bananas were issued for last minute calories, and off they went. Sarah and I watched from the deck as the rafts went down the first mini rapids below us, trying to figure out which raft was Elizabeth’s, the rafts surrounded by a flock of kayakers to pick up those that end up in the river and generally perform rescue tasks.
Sarah and I settled in for an exciting morning of moving the tent, laundry, and playing with the cats until I caught up on a few things and it was time for riding. Riding was back over the bridge to the other side of the river and down the opposite side almost opposite where were staying. They have a lot of horses, which generally looked very well cared for. New Zealand woman who is the keen horse person and competes in three-day events in Kenya, and her Australian husband run the place, catering primarily to tourists who do rides along the Nile. So Sarah and I were helmeted and mounted up on a couple of very placid steeds for a sedate walk along the bank of the Nile, which was very high up and also very photogenic, and then back through the villages. Sarah went first, led the whole way by an African groom, I followed, and then I was followed by a second groom on foot to make sure none of the kids in the villages got too close. Sarah thought it was hilarious that I was behind her and kept telling me I was the slowpoke and I needed to hurry up. Not quite sure what she expected I was going to do, but she thought the whole thing was pretty funny. The ride back through the village was actually quite interesting as the guides told me the names of the plants growing in peoples gardens –s me like beans and bananas were pretty obvious, but things like their sweet potato and yams weren’t. There were lots of coffee trees in flower, and a scent almost like orange in the air which might have been coming from them. So we had a nice ride, Sarah was totally thrilled, and then we watched the horses being rubbed down and everyone being put into their stalls for an afternoon feed. Definitely a big hit of an activity.
And then back to camp, with a stop in jinja to change money (oops, banks close at 1:00 on Sat) and to pick up a chicken pie, chocolate brownie, and ginger squares at a local bakery. Treats for after dinner. Sarah has developed a regular round of visiting in the time we’ve been here. Brenda, who turns out to have had a developmentally delayed sister, has all the time in the world for her and Sarah offers to pain her nails for her. Sarah is also a big favourite with the cooks for the overland trucks – she wanders over while I am doing stuff in the car and the next thing I know she is busy chopping vegetables and stirring things and getting fed cookies and crackers, and according to her beers although I don’t quite believe that part. The guys are really really patient with her and keep insisting she is no problem –a far cry from home where people are always so busy she in mostly in the way.
IT’s past 6 when Elizabeth and the rafting group get back – tired and soggy and variably sunburnt. They had a good day – Elizabeth was with a pretty good crew. Their raft overturned once and dumped them all out, she got turfed out on another set of rapids, and they all had a good time swimming in the smooth spots in between when it got to hot. Although their guide apparently made them paddle a lot more than some of the others so they will all be stiff as well as bruised tomorrow. The Jinja rapids are serious white water rafting and really exhilarating, but a new dam being constructed down the river will wipe out most of them next year – hard to argue with Uganda’s need for electricity, especially since the current dam and powerplant is apparently approaching its “best before” date. I guess both of us now have bragging rights for “I rafted the rapids before they were flooded”. Have to get t-shirts made.
Dinner in the bar, some more upside down kayak tricks – Brenda gives it a go and then so do I, getting bright red sambuca all over myself – which Sarah takes rather exception to as it stains fingers pretty well and she keeps thinking it is blood and telling us to wash our hands. Elizabeth fades early, a major accomplishment to make it this far considering how she has been feeling. Sarah and I watch the rugby with a bunch of locals, mostly from South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand, and then head off pretty early ourselves. Must have been that exhausting hour of trail riding!
Friday, September 3, 2010
Friday September 3, 2010 – The long long road to Jinja, and a busy night at Adrift
Friday September 3, 2010 – The long long road to Jinja, and a busy night at Adrift
Up early. Too early. I made the mistake of trying to sneak out of the tent on wake-up to watch the sunrise. “Hi mommy – you awake”. Then there was an impala buck standing beside our tent looking lost and snorting repeatedly – Sarah thought that was absolutely hilarious. Between that and the ensuing singing it did not make for a slow, or quiet morning. Poor Elizabeth is not feeling well again, sore throat as well this time, and an early morning dose of sister was not what she needed. But we breakfasted on chocolate porridge (Nutella and oatmeal) and tea, watched a family of wart hogs with 4 tiny piggies rummage through the garbage and check out the campground, and loaded ourselves and our gear into the truck and headed off on a big day drive. Not helped by the fact that I insisted that the game drive out of the park was in fact a game drive, but we saw some lovely impala in the sunshine, and a big big herd of buffalo, which couldn’t decide whether to cross the road after I stopped and stood there and looked at us for the longest time before deciding they should turn tail and retreat. As we got to the edge of the park the numbers of game decreased, and cattle increased, and then we were through the gate and into cattle land for about 10 slow dusty km before hitting the tar road and heading east for Masaka, Kampala, and eventually Jinja. A 6 hour drive predicted. 300 km approx.
Roadworks. Did I mention roadworks. Well we had a good time for a while, beautiful new tar, but alas all good things come to an end, and the stages in creating beautiful new tar are not nearly so fun. Construction, dust, graders, gravel, more dust, ruts and bumps. They have the most incredible speed bumps. The standard when entering a town is a series of small hump that just rattles the car if you are going to fast – like hitting a cattle grid too fast. But the momma speed bumps lurk in wait- not marked or painted like they do in Rwanda. Killer mountain speedbumps that one drives up and over, cresting for a moment at the top. The low slung cars take them at an angle so as not to lose their undercarriage. The type we need on Dufferin St in Guelph. Fortunately we didn’t lose anything significant on them, but there was the odd one that almost caught us.
It gets greener and greener as we head east, with large plots of banana, and gets much more tropical in appearance. The road after Masaka, almost all the way to Kampala, goes through a lowland area, and in and out of large papyrus swamps where people apparently grow a lot of potatoes based on the number of piles of them in small markets by the side of the road. And every drainage ditch is now a speed bump. At some points I had my headlights on and the dust was so thick I couldn’t tell if there was a car ahead of me. Which there sometimes was, on the wrong side of the road even. The whole stay in your own lane until it is safe ot pass thing doesn’t really apply here the same way it does at home. But the horn is used just as a notification or warning, and no one seems to get mad. Although the guy whose truck got sideswiped by a bigger truck when they both tried to squeeze through a 1.5 lane wide area didn’t look too happy. As the drive goes on I have to catch myself and make sure I use the safer North American passing techniques, rather than just assuming that somehow it will all work out.
The roads are intermittently lined with markets – some are for food – a line of wooden stands with tidy piles of tomatoes, avocado, melons, bananas, onions, etc. In several towns there are thriving businesses to provide snacks to travelers – vendors in numbered labcoats wave fruit, meat on sticks, roasted bananas and flock to the open windows of the long distance buses to provide for their passengers. When we are presumably near to a lake there are people selling fish by the road as well – what look like large tilapia and the occasional big catfish. We’ve seen people driving with the fish attached to their front bumper – pretty dusty but a t least the car doesn’t smell like fish! For lunch we stop at the Equator – where they have another set of white concrete hoops (I don’t make the girls pose in them), a bunch of craft shops, and the AidChild Café and art market – upscale crafts and upscale lunches – on a lovely verandah with cushy chairs with unfortunately overlooks road construction at the moment. Famous for their flush toilets – a necessity for the travelling muzungu. Closer to Kampala the roads are lined by stalls selling basketwork, or wicker stools, or wicker bookcases in all colours. There is a town where the royal drum-makers lived, and where traditional cowhide drums are made, mostly for tourists and hotels though I assume these days.
Closer to Kampala the traffic intensifies, and we are back into a mix of semi-industrial shops and houses lining the roads. And the hordes of minibus taxis. We cleverly bypass Kampala itself with a ring road that works brilliantly, as long as one misses the cows grazing in the centres of the traffic circles, but get caught back into it for a while exiting on the east side towards Jinja. But eventually it clears and we are driving through countryside with sugar plantations and tea estates lining the road. We pass through a large forest reserve, and then eventually reach Jinja – passing over the Nile at the Owen’s dam bridge, and over an overflow run, with a myriad of water birds, turn off the tar and about 4 km later we’re at the Adrift Camp. And glad to be here as well. 4:30, after a 9:00 start.
The Adrift Camp is the centre for their white-water rafting, kayaking, bungee jumping, and jet boat activities. An open bar/restaurant, a series of tented camps and lodges, and several lawns for self campers. And lots of hot water for us all. We check out the dorm for Elizabeth – totally scary – 4 story bunkbeds withough enough space to sit up. She opts for the tent with Sarah and I. So we set up camp, and settle into the restaurant for the evening. The main guy who runs the rafting is named Josh and comes from Pembroke. Go figure. A young woman who grew up in Rhodesia seems to be the camp manager. Calling it Rhodesia tells a bit of her family background – they now run lodges up in the north in Kidepo park near Sudan. This is a main tourist spot – the overland truck from Mburu is here – and we all recognize each other, another truck pulls in just as we are settling for dinner, and then another pulls in at 9:00. It’s a hopping place. And our tent is way too close to the hoppin! Elizabeth skips dinner and bails early, I start her on antibiotics as she is really feeling punk and the big rafting day is tomorrow. She and Sarah head off to bed and I stay up to watch some of the festivities – the tradition appears to be that those who have rafted have to climb into a kayak hanging upside down from the rafters and then drink a shot while hanging upside down themselves. The choice of the shot appears to be colour based – as in I will have a pink shot, I will have a blue shot. It seems like the local liqueurs are all the same except for in colour. Eventually I cave as well and go back to the tent to listen to the music and hilarity – I think there is some additional game going on but I can’t be bothered to check it out. Sarah wakes up and sits there in the tent for a while grooving to the music before falling back to sleep. At 12:00 the bar closes and within a short time all is dark and silent other than the occasional sound of a tent zipper closing or opening.
Up early. Too early. I made the mistake of trying to sneak out of the tent on wake-up to watch the sunrise. “Hi mommy – you awake”. Then there was an impala buck standing beside our tent looking lost and snorting repeatedly – Sarah thought that was absolutely hilarious. Between that and the ensuing singing it did not make for a slow, or quiet morning. Poor Elizabeth is not feeling well again, sore throat as well this time, and an early morning dose of sister was not what she needed. But we breakfasted on chocolate porridge (Nutella and oatmeal) and tea, watched a family of wart hogs with 4 tiny piggies rummage through the garbage and check out the campground, and loaded ourselves and our gear into the truck and headed off on a big day drive. Not helped by the fact that I insisted that the game drive out of the park was in fact a game drive, but we saw some lovely impala in the sunshine, and a big big herd of buffalo, which couldn’t decide whether to cross the road after I stopped and stood there and looked at us for the longest time before deciding they should turn tail and retreat. As we got to the edge of the park the numbers of game decreased, and cattle increased, and then we were through the gate and into cattle land for about 10 slow dusty km before hitting the tar road and heading east for Masaka, Kampala, and eventually Jinja. A 6 hour drive predicted. 300 km approx.
Roadworks. Did I mention roadworks. Well we had a good time for a while, beautiful new tar, but alas all good things come to an end, and the stages in creating beautiful new tar are not nearly so fun. Construction, dust, graders, gravel, more dust, ruts and bumps. They have the most incredible speed bumps. The standard when entering a town is a series of small hump that just rattles the car if you are going to fast – like hitting a cattle grid too fast. But the momma speed bumps lurk in wait- not marked or painted like they do in Rwanda. Killer mountain speedbumps that one drives up and over, cresting for a moment at the top. The low slung cars take them at an angle so as not to lose their undercarriage. The type we need on Dufferin St in Guelph. Fortunately we didn’t lose anything significant on them, but there was the odd one that almost caught us.
It gets greener and greener as we head east, with large plots of banana, and gets much more tropical in appearance. The road after Masaka, almost all the way to Kampala, goes through a lowland area, and in and out of large papyrus swamps where people apparently grow a lot of potatoes based on the number of piles of them in small markets by the side of the road. And every drainage ditch is now a speed bump. At some points I had my headlights on and the dust was so thick I couldn’t tell if there was a car ahead of me. Which there sometimes was, on the wrong side of the road even. The whole stay in your own lane until it is safe ot pass thing doesn’t really apply here the same way it does at home. But the horn is used just as a notification or warning, and no one seems to get mad. Although the guy whose truck got sideswiped by a bigger truck when they both tried to squeeze through a 1.5 lane wide area didn’t look too happy. As the drive goes on I have to catch myself and make sure I use the safer North American passing techniques, rather than just assuming that somehow it will all work out.
The roads are intermittently lined with markets – some are for food – a line of wooden stands with tidy piles of tomatoes, avocado, melons, bananas, onions, etc. In several towns there are thriving businesses to provide snacks to travelers – vendors in numbered labcoats wave fruit, meat on sticks, roasted bananas and flock to the open windows of the long distance buses to provide for their passengers. When we are presumably near to a lake there are people selling fish by the road as well – what look like large tilapia and the occasional big catfish. We’ve seen people driving with the fish attached to their front bumper – pretty dusty but a t least the car doesn’t smell like fish! For lunch we stop at the Equator – where they have another set of white concrete hoops (I don’t make the girls pose in them), a bunch of craft shops, and the AidChild Café and art market – upscale crafts and upscale lunches – on a lovely verandah with cushy chairs with unfortunately overlooks road construction at the moment. Famous for their flush toilets – a necessity for the travelling muzungu. Closer to Kampala the roads are lined by stalls selling basketwork, or wicker stools, or wicker bookcases in all colours. There is a town where the royal drum-makers lived, and where traditional cowhide drums are made, mostly for tourists and hotels though I assume these days.
Closer to Kampala the traffic intensifies, and we are back into a mix of semi-industrial shops and houses lining the roads. And the hordes of minibus taxis. We cleverly bypass Kampala itself with a ring road that works brilliantly, as long as one misses the cows grazing in the centres of the traffic circles, but get caught back into it for a while exiting on the east side towards Jinja. But eventually it clears and we are driving through countryside with sugar plantations and tea estates lining the road. We pass through a large forest reserve, and then eventually reach Jinja – passing over the Nile at the Owen’s dam bridge, and over an overflow run, with a myriad of water birds, turn off the tar and about 4 km later we’re at the Adrift Camp. And glad to be here as well. 4:30, after a 9:00 start.
The Adrift Camp is the centre for their white-water rafting, kayaking, bungee jumping, and jet boat activities. An open bar/restaurant, a series of tented camps and lodges, and several lawns for self campers. And lots of hot water for us all. We check out the dorm for Elizabeth – totally scary – 4 story bunkbeds withough enough space to sit up. She opts for the tent with Sarah and I. So we set up camp, and settle into the restaurant for the evening. The main guy who runs the rafting is named Josh and comes from Pembroke. Go figure. A young woman who grew up in Rhodesia seems to be the camp manager. Calling it Rhodesia tells a bit of her family background – they now run lodges up in the north in Kidepo park near Sudan. This is a main tourist spot – the overland truck from Mburu is here – and we all recognize each other, another truck pulls in just as we are settling for dinner, and then another pulls in at 9:00. It’s a hopping place. And our tent is way too close to the hoppin! Elizabeth skips dinner and bails early, I start her on antibiotics as she is really feeling punk and the big rafting day is tomorrow. She and Sarah head off to bed and I stay up to watch some of the festivities – the tradition appears to be that those who have rafted have to climb into a kayak hanging upside down from the rafters and then drink a shot while hanging upside down themselves. The choice of the shot appears to be colour based – as in I will have a pink shot, I will have a blue shot. It seems like the local liqueurs are all the same except for in colour. Eventually I cave as well and go back to the tent to listen to the music and hilarity – I think there is some additional game going on but I can’t be bothered to check it out. Sarah wakes up and sits there in the tent for a while grooving to the music before falling back to sleep. At 12:00 the bar closes and within a short time all is dark and silent other than the occasional sound of a tent zipper closing or opening.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Thursday September 2, 2010 – Eland on the eland loop, lunch at Mihingo
Thursday September 2, 2010 – Eland on the eland loop, lunch at Mihingo
We had the solitary male baboon for company at breakfast again – he seems to be a regular at the campground. We did some experimenting at breakfast today – oatmeal with peanut butter and oatmeal with nutella. The Nutella one was a success – chocolate porridge. Not quite the chocolate doughnuts that Sarah keeps on about, but definitely a keeper of a recipe. This morning’s drive was up along the Eland loop, on the north edge of the park. We saw a good range of game going up away from the main camp area, especially in the areas that look like they have had some rain and the black burnt ground has sprouted new grass and is an amazing almost fluorescent green. The north area has a long swampy section and on a hot dry day like today it’s obviously an attractive area for game – we saw good sized herds of what seem to be the common hoofstock – grazing in the taller green grass in the wet area, or moving towards or away from it. And we saw a number of eland, as appropriate for the name of the drive. Although I don’t know that one necessarily has much to do with the other. But also lots of cattle – we are close to the park boundary and for the cattle and their herdsmen it isn’t what you would call a barrier to grazing. It’s hard to know whether permission is given for grazing and for water rights, especially in the dry season, or whether there is a prohibition on cattle grazing that is simply ignored and not enforced. I do know this park is a difficult one as it is relatively small and issues relating to wildlife domestic human interactions are difficult and very political. So we saw lots of Ankole cattle with their enormous long horns. The natural colour seems to be reddish brown, but there is obviously more than a smattering of Hostein in there and there are black and white Ankole and spotted Ankole and quite a mix of colours and patterns. Some herds seem to be wandering about on their own, whereas others have herders with them. Like a mixed exhibit at a zoo – one can see a field of zebra and topi and kob and cattle all wandering about near each other.
We game drove ourselves up to Mihingo Lodge, actually outside the park but on a piece of privately run wildlife land along its eastern border. The description of it’s glorious sitting wasn’t far wrong – up high on a rocky hillside overlooking a water pan and a salt lick – reminiscent more of the lodges I’ve seen in other parts of Africa. Open dining area and bar, pool overlooking the valley, little rocky paths leading up and down and around to the private and expensive bandas. We and a British couple seemed to be the only guests for lunch –apparently tourism is really down after the Kampala bombs and a lot of the lodges are having a hard time of it. But we had a very nice three course lunch watching a group of eland bulls at the water, as well as some other game coming and going. After lunch I got into a long discussion with Chris, the manager, about the politics of the park and the issues relating to park use, especially the cattle. Really interesting. They haven’t had elephants here in a long time (decades at least I think) so the acacia is growing up and the grasslands are filling in so they actually have a program to remove trees and wood to keep parts of the park open. Not much likelihood or reintroducing elephants I guess in a small area with neighbours all around.
Back to the park for late afternoon at the river – the guides are very disappointed that we don’t want to go on the boat ride to see hippos and crocs, but the team has been there – done that and is not to be convinced otherwise. But we’re pretty content to watch the warthogs and the monkeys in camp, listen to the fish eagles, and watch the occasional hippo popping out of the water in front of the deck and campsite. There are a few other people here, but this is a really underused park as far as we can see, and there is certainly much more game than we at least saw in Queen Elizabeth, although a lack of elephant and lion apparently reduces the draw substantially.
Back to the tents to cook dinner at the campsite, spotting two groups of dwarf mongoose which actually stayed near the road for quite a while giving us a really good look at them. Small, furry, and very quick. We ate as the sun went down, finishing by the light of our kerosene lanterns listening to the rustle of the impala moving about the bandas and watching the bats swoop overhead. Quick showers in piping hot water (the attendant lit the fire in the boiler for us before dinner) by lamplight, and then off to bed tucked into our tents.
We had the solitary male baboon for company at breakfast again – he seems to be a regular at the campground. We did some experimenting at breakfast today – oatmeal with peanut butter and oatmeal with nutella. The Nutella one was a success – chocolate porridge. Not quite the chocolate doughnuts that Sarah keeps on about, but definitely a keeper of a recipe. This morning’s drive was up along the Eland loop, on the north edge of the park. We saw a good range of game going up away from the main camp area, especially in the areas that look like they have had some rain and the black burnt ground has sprouted new grass and is an amazing almost fluorescent green. The north area has a long swampy section and on a hot dry day like today it’s obviously an attractive area for game – we saw good sized herds of what seem to be the common hoofstock – grazing in the taller green grass in the wet area, or moving towards or away from it. And we saw a number of eland, as appropriate for the name of the drive. Although I don’t know that one necessarily has much to do with the other. But also lots of cattle – we are close to the park boundary and for the cattle and their herdsmen it isn’t what you would call a barrier to grazing. It’s hard to know whether permission is given for grazing and for water rights, especially in the dry season, or whether there is a prohibition on cattle grazing that is simply ignored and not enforced. I do know this park is a difficult one as it is relatively small and issues relating to wildlife domestic human interactions are difficult and very political. So we saw lots of Ankole cattle with their enormous long horns. The natural colour seems to be reddish brown, but there is obviously more than a smattering of Hostein in there and there are black and white Ankole and spotted Ankole and quite a mix of colours and patterns. Some herds seem to be wandering about on their own, whereas others have herders with them. Like a mixed exhibit at a zoo – one can see a field of zebra and topi and kob and cattle all wandering about near each other.
We game drove ourselves up to Mihingo Lodge, actually outside the park but on a piece of privately run wildlife land along its eastern border. The description of it’s glorious sitting wasn’t far wrong – up high on a rocky hillside overlooking a water pan and a salt lick – reminiscent more of the lodges I’ve seen in other parts of Africa. Open dining area and bar, pool overlooking the valley, little rocky paths leading up and down and around to the private and expensive bandas. We and a British couple seemed to be the only guests for lunch –apparently tourism is really down after the Kampala bombs and a lot of the lodges are having a hard time of it. But we had a very nice three course lunch watching a group of eland bulls at the water, as well as some other game coming and going. After lunch I got into a long discussion with Chris, the manager, about the politics of the park and the issues relating to park use, especially the cattle. Really interesting. They haven’t had elephants here in a long time (decades at least I think) so the acacia is growing up and the grasslands are filling in so they actually have a program to remove trees and wood to keep parts of the park open. Not much likelihood or reintroducing elephants I guess in a small area with neighbours all around.
Back to the park for late afternoon at the river – the guides are very disappointed that we don’t want to go on the boat ride to see hippos and crocs, but the team has been there – done that and is not to be convinced otherwise. But we’re pretty content to watch the warthogs and the monkeys in camp, listen to the fish eagles, and watch the occasional hippo popping out of the water in front of the deck and campsite. There are a few other people here, but this is a really underused park as far as we can see, and there is certainly much more game than we at least saw in Queen Elizabeth, although a lack of elephant and lion apparently reduces the draw substantially.
Back to the tents to cook dinner at the campsite, spotting two groups of dwarf mongoose which actually stayed near the road for quite a while giving us a really good look at them. Small, furry, and very quick. We ate as the sun went down, finishing by the light of our kerosene lanterns listening to the rustle of the impala moving about the bandas and watching the bats swoop overhead. Quick showers in piping hot water (the attendant lit the fire in the boiler for us before dinner) by lamplight, and then off to bed tucked into our tents.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Wednesday Sept 1, 2010 – monkeys in the morning, adding up the species on our game drive.
Wednesday Sept 1, 2010 – monkeys in the morning, adding up the species on our game drive.
First stop at the park office to pick up an illustrated guide to the park’s mammals so Sarah can tick them off, second stop to check out another restaurant as a possible alternate to last night’s horrid meal, and then on to the Ruroko track to the Kazuma lookout. The first part of the track was pretty heaviy wooded, with acacia and bushes up close to the road, and then we moved into the more open grassland and up to the lookout, which is on top of a hill with views almost 360 degrees of several lakes in the park, as well as the extensive wetlands surrounding them. A magnificent view. We actually drove up past the parking lot to a picnic area – the benefits of 4-wheel drive and stopped for an early lunch. In Kabale we had bought “butter bread” which I was hopefully thinking meant it had an increased amount of fat in the recipe and might stay fresh a bit longer. But, it turns out butter bread means two loaves of bread with one side buttered and pressed together, like a huge butter sandwich. Whoops. But it turned into nutella and peanut butter sandwiches just fine. From the lookout we continued in a large loop back to ** camp. And we saw lots of game – impala, topi, a group of three bull eland, a bush duiker spending an awful lot of time eating and rubbing its nose on a particular spot of ground, lots and lots of wart hogs, including some tiny babies and a group we startled out of a mud bath where they were having a wallow. For a minute it looked like they were going to come back and wallow right next to the car, but caution won out and they trotted off in the opposite direction, tails held straight up in the air like warning flags. Elizabeth spotted a dwarf mongoose, she seems to have Brian’s ability to spot game, and even Sarah was picking up animals in the distance, although she seems to be mostly focused on the vervets and the baboons, which she is convinced are going to come and bite her. There are quite a few young antelope, quite tiny topi and impala, although there is little evidence of new grass growth as yet. The zebra seem to like to stand on the road and we come across several groups of them, which move off in no particular haste. We see several lone male buffalo grazing by the road, one of them quite bald and scruffy. And birds, including several eagles, bee-eaters, rollers, kingfishers, and a host of smaller passerines.
Resting is the name of the game next – we plant in the restaurant by the lake drinking fanta and African tea, and listening to the constant calling of the fish eagles, the intermittent snorts of the hippos, and the munching of the warthogs and they mow the lawn of the campground. The sky has been threatening rain all morning and has settled into a solid grey. The ground can certainly do with some rain, although I’m not sure it would improve our lives too much. Sarah has been reading the tourist magazine and has decided that she wants to go horseback riding after seeing all the ads for horseback safaris. There is a place close to here, in one of the fancy $300 a night lodges, and another in Jinja which might be a good distraction while Elizabeth is rafting.
An overland truck has moved in and set up camp so Sarah and I go to chat with the cook – the rest of them are out on a walking safari. The vervets are in full attendance – watching to see if their kitchen and its contents are left alone for a minute. One of the monkey has only half a tail – apparently amputated by a panga while raiding food from a campsite. There are about 20 people doing a loop from Nairobi through Uganda to Rwanda, and then back again. Not sure how many weeks but the group coming from South Africa up here takes 9 weeks. A long time to spend in a truck with 20 other people if you don’t all get along.
We watch the sun go down and then try the restaurant at Arcadia Cottages next door – there are a cluster of serious twitchers (aka birders) sitting with their guide and their bird lists and their beers – sounds like bird bingo – “does everyone have number 21?”. The scary thing is I would be right in there if I was on a birding trip. Supper is served by candlelight, with kerosene lanterns to get us to the bathrooms, and is far superior to last night’s disaster. The hostess walks us out to our car with a lantern and we drive the few km back to the tents – tonight spotting a herd of buffalo on the road along the way. Our lanterns are burning on our porches and we have a nightcap before tucking into our beds to listen to the clip clopping of the impala around us and the hippos off grazing further in the distance.
First stop at the park office to pick up an illustrated guide to the park’s mammals so Sarah can tick them off, second stop to check out another restaurant as a possible alternate to last night’s horrid meal, and then on to the Ruroko track to the Kazuma lookout. The first part of the track was pretty heaviy wooded, with acacia and bushes up close to the road, and then we moved into the more open grassland and up to the lookout, which is on top of a hill with views almost 360 degrees of several lakes in the park, as well as the extensive wetlands surrounding them. A magnificent view. We actually drove up past the parking lot to a picnic area – the benefits of 4-wheel drive and stopped for an early lunch. In Kabale we had bought “butter bread” which I was hopefully thinking meant it had an increased amount of fat in the recipe and might stay fresh a bit longer. But, it turns out butter bread means two loaves of bread with one side buttered and pressed together, like a huge butter sandwich. Whoops. But it turned into nutella and peanut butter sandwiches just fine. From the lookout we continued in a large loop back to ** camp. And we saw lots of game – impala, topi, a group of three bull eland, a bush duiker spending an awful lot of time eating and rubbing its nose on a particular spot of ground, lots and lots of wart hogs, including some tiny babies and a group we startled out of a mud bath where they were having a wallow. For a minute it looked like they were going to come back and wallow right next to the car, but caution won out and they trotted off in the opposite direction, tails held straight up in the air like warning flags. Elizabeth spotted a dwarf mongoose, she seems to have Brian’s ability to spot game, and even Sarah was picking up animals in the distance, although she seems to be mostly focused on the vervets and the baboons, which she is convinced are going to come and bite her. There are quite a few young antelope, quite tiny topi and impala, although there is little evidence of new grass growth as yet. The zebra seem to like to stand on the road and we come across several groups of them, which move off in no particular haste. We see several lone male buffalo grazing by the road, one of them quite bald and scruffy. And birds, including several eagles, bee-eaters, rollers, kingfishers, and a host of smaller passerines.
Resting is the name of the game next – we plant in the restaurant by the lake drinking fanta and African tea, and listening to the constant calling of the fish eagles, the intermittent snorts of the hippos, and the munching of the warthogs and they mow the lawn of the campground. The sky has been threatening rain all morning and has settled into a solid grey. The ground can certainly do with some rain, although I’m not sure it would improve our lives too much. Sarah has been reading the tourist magazine and has decided that she wants to go horseback riding after seeing all the ads for horseback safaris. There is a place close to here, in one of the fancy $300 a night lodges, and another in Jinja which might be a good distraction while Elizabeth is rafting.
An overland truck has moved in and set up camp so Sarah and I go to chat with the cook – the rest of them are out on a walking safari. The vervets are in full attendance – watching to see if their kitchen and its contents are left alone for a minute. One of the monkey has only half a tail – apparently amputated by a panga while raiding food from a campsite. There are about 20 people doing a loop from Nairobi through Uganda to Rwanda, and then back again. Not sure how many weeks but the group coming from South Africa up here takes 9 weeks. A long time to spend in a truck with 20 other people if you don’t all get along.
We watch the sun go down and then try the restaurant at Arcadia Cottages next door – there are a cluster of serious twitchers (aka birders) sitting with their guide and their bird lists and their beers – sounds like bird bingo – “does everyone have number 21?”. The scary thing is I would be right in there if I was on a birding trip. Supper is served by candlelight, with kerosene lanterns to get us to the bathrooms, and is far superior to last night’s disaster. The hostess walks us out to our car with a lantern and we drive the few km back to the tents – tonight spotting a herd of buffalo on the road along the way. Our lanterns are burning on our porches and we have a nightcap before tucking into our beds to listen to the clip clopping of the impala around us and the hippos off grazing further in the distance.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tuesday August 31, 2010 – Rwanda to Uganda again
Tuesday August 31, 2010 – Rwanda to Uganda again
We’re up and organized early. Julius’ housekeeper arrives shortly after 8 and we hand over the keys and load our stuff back into the car for a long driving day back into Uganda to Lake Mburu. We’re becoming pros at finding our way around Kigali, thanks in no end to the gps which keeps us on the straight and narrow. We wind our way out pretty directly and get on the road to the border, a short one hour drive. The road is up and down and back and forth, and Sarah keeps talking about motion sickness but never changes colour so we make it without any barfing. We follow a valley all the way, initially it is marsh and rice paddies, then there are sugar cane fields, then extensive tea plantation, and then grasslands for cattle, many of which are Holsteins or Holstein crosses. And always people on the sides of the road – walking, bicycling, and always carrying something. It’s amazing what people can put on their heads and then carry. Elizabeth actually spots a woman who drops her basket, perhaps blown off by the gusting wind. A pretty unusual occurrence.
The border goes well. There are no buses of people, and although the road is lined with lorries, they don’t seem to have any impact on my visit to customs. The Rwandan exit is straightforward, with a very nice lady giving me a wad of toilet paper to deal with Sarah’s perpetually running nose. There is quite a line up of important documents posted up on the inside of the immigration window – identity papers left behind. We exit Rwanda, cross to the other side of the road to start driving on the left again, and then I visit the customs entry. The man asks if I have papers, I tell him I have many papers but he needs to show me the one he wants. That is apparently quite funny, and her picks what he needs out of the pile and we’re off. Then the immigration, where we pay our 50$ each and hand in our cards and passports. There is a brief moment of panic when the man at the counter tells Elizabeth she has only given him 1 passport, she tells him she gave him two, and he starts looking rather frantically under his newspaper and between the pieces of paper on the desk. The woman next to him points out that the passport is in the passport reading machine, and everyone relaxes and laughs.
And so we are in Uganda, an hour out of Kabale where we make a stop for lunch and groceries. We decide to try another restaurant listed in the guide book, which doesn’t have quite the ambience of the café we ate in previously , but the potato chapattis are fine, and we fill ourselves up on carbs and means for the trip to come. A visit to the Hot Loaf bakery, where we buy a double loaf of “butter bread”, some cookies euphemistically named “Vienna pastries” and a couple of the double decker jam cookies I’ve bought before. Solid and filling and quite edible. A trip to an Indian grocery for some fresh stuff to serve as snacks, and then on our way. I rather like Kabale. The dusty roads are filled with bicycles – I feel like I am in the wild west with herd of bicycles instead of cattle moving down the roads. The main road is lined by colourful shops, and many of the buildings are from the 1950’s and have the names of Indian proprietors over their lintels.
And east we head, about three hours of driving to go. But the road for the next few hours is tar so it passes quickly. We gradually move into more agricultural land, acres and acres of plantain and pineapples for a while until we move back into dry cattle territory. The hills gradually smooth out, and all of a sudden the good road ends just around Mbarara, where they are working on it. So we have a few km of dust and dirt and bypasses where the construction is going on, and then we are onto a brand brand new incredibly smooth road that just calls to me to go more than 60 km per hour. We sneak it up to 70 and sometimes a bit more, but there are traffic police in white uniforms, and regular police in blue camouflage, and other police or army scattered along so staying within the speed limit is probably a good idea.
Just before Katuma we leave the main road and re-enter murram road territory – passing through a number of small villages where most of the local populace is gathered around a central building – turns out it is local elections today. And eventually we come to the park gates and Lake Mburu National Park. Just beyond the gate we see a family of vervet monkeys, which sends Sarah scuttling back into the car. Formalities all go well – the girls’ student cards and my letter from UWA giving us reduced entry rate, and all of a sudden we are game viewing. Zebra, impala, birds, warthogs – grazing along the road or standing in the middle of the road. And the game seems really used to people as they just saunter off when we get close, unless I back up for a different view which activates the “backup beeper” and that seems to get them excited. Rwonyo camp is the headquarters and the site of a few very sad looking bandas. We head down to the lake to check out the campground, which is a large expanse of grass sloping down to the lake, and there is a restaurant with a large open thatched dining area. Hippos, warthogs, and birds abound. We decide that the pretty site does not make up for the lack of amenities, and head back up to the office to check into the platform tents that we have booked.
The office is closed but the appropriate person is found and we drive a km or so into the bush, past the parks employee homes, to a rather dilapidated group of large canvas tents raised up on wooden platforms. Each has two single beds with mosquito nets (actually Elizabeth gets the couple’s tent – two single beds pushed together with one mosquito net) and there are bathroom with running water and sit-on-toilets – much better than the very smelly pit latrines at the campsite, and showers. Patrick starts the fire for hot water so we can shower after dinner, and it all seems good. We unpack a bit, do the daily reorganization, and then just as the sun is setting head to the restaurant for beers and dinner. Beers are good, the ambience is good, but dinner, which we ordered up from a limited menu an hour and a half ago for 7:30, still doesn’t come til 8 and the chips aren’t really cooked and everything tastes a bit odd. Not exactly gourmet dining. It becomes full dark while we are eating, the stars come in a clear sky, and as we drive back to the tents, a few km away, we manage to see a white-tailed mongoose and several groups of hippo walking along the road. The showers are a bit of a disappointment – the water system is a bit odd with me turning on a tap in one shower and soaking Elizabeth who was in the next shower/toilet room, and the water coming out the hand tap seems to be about the colour of the average puddle on the dirt roads after a rain. So we pass on the showers and retire to our tents, thoughtfully provided with a burning kerosene lantern so we can see our way in the dark. Under our mosquito nets, and asleep in a flash.
We’re up and organized early. Julius’ housekeeper arrives shortly after 8 and we hand over the keys and load our stuff back into the car for a long driving day back into Uganda to Lake Mburu. We’re becoming pros at finding our way around Kigali, thanks in no end to the gps which keeps us on the straight and narrow. We wind our way out pretty directly and get on the road to the border, a short one hour drive. The road is up and down and back and forth, and Sarah keeps talking about motion sickness but never changes colour so we make it without any barfing. We follow a valley all the way, initially it is marsh and rice paddies, then there are sugar cane fields, then extensive tea plantation, and then grasslands for cattle, many of which are Holsteins or Holstein crosses. And always people on the sides of the road – walking, bicycling, and always carrying something. It’s amazing what people can put on their heads and then carry. Elizabeth actually spots a woman who drops her basket, perhaps blown off by the gusting wind. A pretty unusual occurrence.
The border goes well. There are no buses of people, and although the road is lined with lorries, they don’t seem to have any impact on my visit to customs. The Rwandan exit is straightforward, with a very nice lady giving me a wad of toilet paper to deal with Sarah’s perpetually running nose. There is quite a line up of important documents posted up on the inside of the immigration window – identity papers left behind. We exit Rwanda, cross to the other side of the road to start driving on the left again, and then I visit the customs entry. The man asks if I have papers, I tell him I have many papers but he needs to show me the one he wants. That is apparently quite funny, and her picks what he needs out of the pile and we’re off. Then the immigration, where we pay our 50$ each and hand in our cards and passports. There is a brief moment of panic when the man at the counter tells Elizabeth she has only given him 1 passport, she tells him she gave him two, and he starts looking rather frantically under his newspaper and between the pieces of paper on the desk. The woman next to him points out that the passport is in the passport reading machine, and everyone relaxes and laughs.
And so we are in Uganda, an hour out of Kabale where we make a stop for lunch and groceries. We decide to try another restaurant listed in the guide book, which doesn’t have quite the ambience of the café we ate in previously , but the potato chapattis are fine, and we fill ourselves up on carbs and means for the trip to come. A visit to the Hot Loaf bakery, where we buy a double loaf of “butter bread”, some cookies euphemistically named “Vienna pastries” and a couple of the double decker jam cookies I’ve bought before. Solid and filling and quite edible. A trip to an Indian grocery for some fresh stuff to serve as snacks, and then on our way. I rather like Kabale. The dusty roads are filled with bicycles – I feel like I am in the wild west with herd of bicycles instead of cattle moving down the roads. The main road is lined by colourful shops, and many of the buildings are from the 1950’s and have the names of Indian proprietors over their lintels.
And east we head, about three hours of driving to go. But the road for the next few hours is tar so it passes quickly. We gradually move into more agricultural land, acres and acres of plantain and pineapples for a while until we move back into dry cattle territory. The hills gradually smooth out, and all of a sudden the good road ends just around Mbarara, where they are working on it. So we have a few km of dust and dirt and bypasses where the construction is going on, and then we are onto a brand brand new incredibly smooth road that just calls to me to go more than 60 km per hour. We sneak it up to 70 and sometimes a bit more, but there are traffic police in white uniforms, and regular police in blue camouflage, and other police or army scattered along so staying within the speed limit is probably a good idea.
Just before Katuma we leave the main road and re-enter murram road territory – passing through a number of small villages where most of the local populace is gathered around a central building – turns out it is local elections today. And eventually we come to the park gates and Lake Mburu National Park. Just beyond the gate we see a family of vervet monkeys, which sends Sarah scuttling back into the car. Formalities all go well – the girls’ student cards and my letter from UWA giving us reduced entry rate, and all of a sudden we are game viewing. Zebra, impala, birds, warthogs – grazing along the road or standing in the middle of the road. And the game seems really used to people as they just saunter off when we get close, unless I back up for a different view which activates the “backup beeper” and that seems to get them excited. Rwonyo camp is the headquarters and the site of a few very sad looking bandas. We head down to the lake to check out the campground, which is a large expanse of grass sloping down to the lake, and there is a restaurant with a large open thatched dining area. Hippos, warthogs, and birds abound. We decide that the pretty site does not make up for the lack of amenities, and head back up to the office to check into the platform tents that we have booked.
The office is closed but the appropriate person is found and we drive a km or so into the bush, past the parks employee homes, to a rather dilapidated group of large canvas tents raised up on wooden platforms. Each has two single beds with mosquito nets (actually Elizabeth gets the couple’s tent – two single beds pushed together with one mosquito net) and there are bathroom with running water and sit-on-toilets – much better than the very smelly pit latrines at the campsite, and showers. Patrick starts the fire for hot water so we can shower after dinner, and it all seems good. We unpack a bit, do the daily reorganization, and then just as the sun is setting head to the restaurant for beers and dinner. Beers are good, the ambience is good, but dinner, which we ordered up from a limited menu an hour and a half ago for 7:30, still doesn’t come til 8 and the chips aren’t really cooked and everything tastes a bit odd. Not exactly gourmet dining. It becomes full dark while we are eating, the stars come in a clear sky, and as we drive back to the tents, a few km away, we manage to see a white-tailed mongoose and several groups of hippo walking along the road. The showers are a bit of a disappointment – the water system is a bit odd with me turning on a tap in one shower and soaking Elizabeth who was in the next shower/toilet room, and the water coming out the hand tap seems to be about the colour of the average puddle on the dirt roads after a rain. So we pass on the showers and retire to our tents, thoughtfully provided with a burning kerosene lantern so we can see our way in the dark. Under our mosquito nets, and asleep in a flash.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Monday August 30, 2010 – Driving to Kigali, driving in circles in Kigali, and the Genocide Memorial
Monday August 30, 2010 – Driving to Kigali, driving in circles in Kigali, and the Genocide Memorial
Time to leave MGVP, with regrets all round. As Elizabeth put it, it’s started to feel like home here – comfort, friends, and dogs. Mid-morning we pack up, unsuccessfully try and find all our bits of laundry in stages of being cleaned, dried and pressed, and head through Musenzi on the roughly two hour drive to Kigali. It’s windy and up and down and scenic – a typical Rwandan road as far as I can tell. The rain last night cleared the air somewhat and we get better vistas across the fields and hills than we’ve had so far. They are working on the roads, it seems a constant process, and there are great stretches and really really slow stretched. There is often a person at the beginning of a narrow or one way section with green and red flags, but I have to admit half the time I can’t figure out which one is being waved at me. Sometimes the person just seems to be waving at flies with them, which confuses me no end. Elizabeth seems to figure it out better, in fact she has been giving me advice on a lot of things related to driving and navigation – I think I’m at the stage where as a parent I’m becoming stupid and incapable. I gather I will get smarter again in a few years. It’s hard to describe driving in Africa, especially Rwanda and I know I’ve tried to do it before – it’s simply the number of people and all sorts of wheeled contraptions that one shares the road with, combined with the state of the roads that makes it quite unique. Combined with the dust and the smells and the sounds. We are driving at school turnover time – there aren’t enough schools for everyone to go at one so there are morning and afternoon sessions – and in mid-day both groups are out on the road in their uniforms – tons and tons of kids walking and running and playing with balls made of banana leaves and twirling tires and hoops with sticks. Big kids walking with little kids and little kids walking with little kids and little tiny kids walking on their own. We would have fits in North America about kids out on their own when they can hardly walk, but here it seems pretty normal. At one point we hit a stretch of really nice tar that isn’t too windy and I crank it up to 75 km per hour – living big – and then promptly get flagged down by traffic police who tell me to slow down because of the farms (and people presumably). Got away with that one, and its back to max speed of 6o again. Sarah manages to make it all the way to Kigali without getting sick, which is amazing, and just about lunchtime we wind down the last big hill and enter the noise and bustle and traffic of Kigali.
We are staying at the office/apartment that belongs to the PREDICT group, and have to meet Julius to figure out where it is and get the key. That involves a lot of texts, but eventually he tells us to meet him at the Nakumat - a South African supermarket mall, and with some assistance from locals we manage to find it, find parking, and find an open café on the second floor to settle in and eat lunch while we wait for Julius. Prices here are upscale – and the place is full of expats with various accents and affluent well dressed Rwandans. We are pretty sloppy and scruffy in comparison I have to say! Eventually we meet up with Julius and Eddy, the MGVP vet from Congo who is here to get visas for a trip to the US – and we follow them out of town towards the airport where the flat is located in an odd building which seems to hold a combination of offices and living quarters. The PREDICT flat is no different – obviously originally an apartment, it has a small office tucked in one corner. The main door to the hall is large and glass, with a metal grill welded across it. There is a large living room with a lounge set, an empty dining room, a small kitchen, a huge bedroom with ensuite with a fluorescent pink flower comforter, and a second bedroom and bathroom. Plus about 4 small balconies. We are rattling around in it, and it seems very empty compared to MGVP central and all the comforts of home.
Once located we head off to the genocide memorial for Elizabeth, I have been there previously. It is a well done museum that tells the story of pro-colonial and colonial life in Rwanda and how the seeds of the Hutu Tutsi conflict (s) were sown, and then goes through the actual time line of the genocide. There is also an exhibit on other genocides throughout the world – the holocaust of course but a number of other really significant and horrible happenings, some of which never reached public awareness in a big way. Graphic enough but not in your face, unlike a memorial further north where they have placed preserved bodies as they were found when a church of people were massacred. That is apparently very startling. Here there is a memorial garden, and a series of large concrete slabs under which the remains, intact bodies or pieces of people, of 30,000 people were placed. They continue to add more as new graves or mass graves are still found. Impossible to understand, and even more impossible to believe that most of the people one sees on the street lived through it. I have never had a Hutu talk to me, perhaps harder to have been on that side, but the few Tutsi stories I have heard are just unbelievable nightmares.
Next stop is a major craft market. We’re actually pretty much trinketted out, but decide we need another stop before heading back for the night. Kigali is a nightmare to drive in because it is all hills and valleys, roads travel along them, and one finds oneself going in the opposite direction to where you think you should be, doing a u-bend, and then arriving on the opposite side of a valley from where you started after a half hour. The gps was invaluable – trying to follow our not very detailed maps was horrendous. However, we did get into rather a bind when a road we needed was closed, and Elizabeth programmed the gpd to drive us in circles – which we did for a while – saying “weren’t we here before” until she realized what she had done and we all got a good laugh about it. Eventually we did find the craft market – where we felt a bit like the fresh meat thrown into a tank of piranhas, but we looked at a fee things, I actually bought a Rwandan “poo-painting “ (wooden African designs on wood made with cattle dung for texture and then painted ) and Sarah got promises of having her hair and nails done if we came back the next day. We escaped otherwise unscathed, made our way back to the apartment, and settled in to very dull macaroni and sauce for dinner. At least Sarah and I did. Elizabeth has been caught by some kind of a tummy bug – possibly the same one I had for a few days. I’m calling it the “I shouldn’t have eaten three helpings of Thanksgiving dinner and then dessert” bug because that’s what your stomach feels like – stretched to bursting even with no food in it. Poor girl.
Time to leave MGVP, with regrets all round. As Elizabeth put it, it’s started to feel like home here – comfort, friends, and dogs. Mid-morning we pack up, unsuccessfully try and find all our bits of laundry in stages of being cleaned, dried and pressed, and head through Musenzi on the roughly two hour drive to Kigali. It’s windy and up and down and scenic – a typical Rwandan road as far as I can tell. The rain last night cleared the air somewhat and we get better vistas across the fields and hills than we’ve had so far. They are working on the roads, it seems a constant process, and there are great stretches and really really slow stretched. There is often a person at the beginning of a narrow or one way section with green and red flags, but I have to admit half the time I can’t figure out which one is being waved at me. Sometimes the person just seems to be waving at flies with them, which confuses me no end. Elizabeth seems to figure it out better, in fact she has been giving me advice on a lot of things related to driving and navigation – I think I’m at the stage where as a parent I’m becoming stupid and incapable. I gather I will get smarter again in a few years. It’s hard to describe driving in Africa, especially Rwanda and I know I’ve tried to do it before – it’s simply the number of people and all sorts of wheeled contraptions that one shares the road with, combined with the state of the roads that makes it quite unique. Combined with the dust and the smells and the sounds. We are driving at school turnover time – there aren’t enough schools for everyone to go at one so there are morning and afternoon sessions – and in mid-day both groups are out on the road in their uniforms – tons and tons of kids walking and running and playing with balls made of banana leaves and twirling tires and hoops with sticks. Big kids walking with little kids and little kids walking with little kids and little tiny kids walking on their own. We would have fits in North America about kids out on their own when they can hardly walk, but here it seems pretty normal. At one point we hit a stretch of really nice tar that isn’t too windy and I crank it up to 75 km per hour – living big – and then promptly get flagged down by traffic police who tell me to slow down because of the farms (and people presumably). Got away with that one, and its back to max speed of 6o again. Sarah manages to make it all the way to Kigali without getting sick, which is amazing, and just about lunchtime we wind down the last big hill and enter the noise and bustle and traffic of Kigali.
We are staying at the office/apartment that belongs to the PREDICT group, and have to meet Julius to figure out where it is and get the key. That involves a lot of texts, but eventually he tells us to meet him at the Nakumat - a South African supermarket mall, and with some assistance from locals we manage to find it, find parking, and find an open café on the second floor to settle in and eat lunch while we wait for Julius. Prices here are upscale – and the place is full of expats with various accents and affluent well dressed Rwandans. We are pretty sloppy and scruffy in comparison I have to say! Eventually we meet up with Julius and Eddy, the MGVP vet from Congo who is here to get visas for a trip to the US – and we follow them out of town towards the airport where the flat is located in an odd building which seems to hold a combination of offices and living quarters. The PREDICT flat is no different – obviously originally an apartment, it has a small office tucked in one corner. The main door to the hall is large and glass, with a metal grill welded across it. There is a large living room with a lounge set, an empty dining room, a small kitchen, a huge bedroom with ensuite with a fluorescent pink flower comforter, and a second bedroom and bathroom. Plus about 4 small balconies. We are rattling around in it, and it seems very empty compared to MGVP central and all the comforts of home.
Once located we head off to the genocide memorial for Elizabeth, I have been there previously. It is a well done museum that tells the story of pro-colonial and colonial life in Rwanda and how the seeds of the Hutu Tutsi conflict (s) were sown, and then goes through the actual time line of the genocide. There is also an exhibit on other genocides throughout the world – the holocaust of course but a number of other really significant and horrible happenings, some of which never reached public awareness in a big way. Graphic enough but not in your face, unlike a memorial further north where they have placed preserved bodies as they were found when a church of people were massacred. That is apparently very startling. Here there is a memorial garden, and a series of large concrete slabs under which the remains, intact bodies or pieces of people, of 30,000 people were placed. They continue to add more as new graves or mass graves are still found. Impossible to understand, and even more impossible to believe that most of the people one sees on the street lived through it. I have never had a Hutu talk to me, perhaps harder to have been on that side, but the few Tutsi stories I have heard are just unbelievable nightmares.
Next stop is a major craft market. We’re actually pretty much trinketted out, but decide we need another stop before heading back for the night. Kigali is a nightmare to drive in because it is all hills and valleys, roads travel along them, and one finds oneself going in the opposite direction to where you think you should be, doing a u-bend, and then arriving on the opposite side of a valley from where you started after a half hour. The gps was invaluable – trying to follow our not very detailed maps was horrendous. However, we did get into rather a bind when a road we needed was closed, and Elizabeth programmed the gpd to drive us in circles – which we did for a while – saying “weren’t we here before” until she realized what she had done and we all got a good laugh about it. Eventually we did find the craft market – where we felt a bit like the fresh meat thrown into a tank of piranhas, but we looked at a fee things, I actually bought a Rwandan “poo-painting “ (wooden African designs on wood made with cattle dung for texture and then painted ) and Sarah got promises of having her hair and nails done if we came back the next day. We escaped otherwise unscathed, made our way back to the apartment, and settled in to very dull macaroni and sauce for dinner. At least Sarah and I did. Elizabeth has been caught by some kind of a tummy bug – possibly the same one I had for a few days. I’m calling it the “I shouldn’t have eaten three helpings of Thanksgiving dinner and then dessert” bug because that’s what your stomach feels like – stretched to bursting even with no food in it. Poor girl.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday August 29, 2010 – Around the house, drinks at the Gorilla Lodge, and the rains have come
Sunday August 29, 2010 – Around the house, drinks at the Gorilla Lodge, and the rains have come
A sleep in day and another catchup day. We do a load of laundry on our own, and I have to say it doesn’t come out nearly as clean as when Leon does it. I finish my histology reports, Sarah gets her nails done again, Elizabeth works her way through another session of Oz. Another two vet students arrive – from Ohio, to be here for two weeks helping with whatever projects they can be involved with. Jan is going to have her hands full keeping everyone in order as well as getting her own stuff done. Late afternoon Mike and James head off on another bike ride and the plan is for us to pick them up after about an hour – and we will all go to Gorilla Lodge for drinks and to admire the sunset. The only problem is the rains, overdue and needed, start and it absolutely pours down on them! So we pick up two very soggy bikes and riders and continue our way to the Lodge – which is a fair bit along a dirt track that skirts the top of a ridge between two deep valleys – with lakes off in two directions. The lodge is spectacular, and it is freezing and cold with the rain pouring down. So much for the views of sunset! But they set a fire for us and we enjoy the wonderful ambience of the place until after darkness falls. The drive back to Musanze in the rain and the dark is not a treat – the roads are filled with people and bicycles and bodas and no one keeps to the side or the correct side. I would definitely not want to do any more night driving here! For our final dinner we go back to the pizza place – where they have no power. But apparently pizzas can still be made, in the wood oven, so we have a candlelit dinner and then head home in the pouring rain, accompanied by thunder and lightening. MGVP has a generator so we can get ready for bed in the comfort of electricity.
A sleep in day and another catchup day. We do a load of laundry on our own, and I have to say it doesn’t come out nearly as clean as when Leon does it. I finish my histology reports, Sarah gets her nails done again, Elizabeth works her way through another session of Oz. Another two vet students arrive – from Ohio, to be here for two weeks helping with whatever projects they can be involved with. Jan is going to have her hands full keeping everyone in order as well as getting her own stuff done. Late afternoon Mike and James head off on another bike ride and the plan is for us to pick them up after about an hour – and we will all go to Gorilla Lodge for drinks and to admire the sunset. The only problem is the rains, overdue and needed, start and it absolutely pours down on them! So we pick up two very soggy bikes and riders and continue our way to the Lodge – which is a fair bit along a dirt track that skirts the top of a ridge between two deep valleys – with lakes off in two directions. The lodge is spectacular, and it is freezing and cold with the rain pouring down. So much for the views of sunset! But they set a fire for us and we enjoy the wonderful ambience of the place until after darkness falls. The drive back to Musanze in the rain and the dark is not a treat – the roads are filled with people and bicycles and bodas and no one keeps to the side or the correct side. I would definitely not want to do any more night driving here! For our final dinner we go back to the pizza place – where they have no power. But apparently pizzas can still be made, in the wood oven, so we have a candlelit dinner and then head home in the pouring rain, accompanied by thunder and lightening. MGVP has a generator so we can get ready for bed in the comfort of electricity.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Saturday August 28, 2010 – The Imbabazi orphanage and a trip to Gisenye
Saturday August 28, 2010 – The Imbabazi orphanage and a trip to Gisenye
Today we decided to take an excursion. After breakfast the girls and I loaded up in the car with James and Jen for a day trip to the Imbabazi orphanage and Gisenye, on Lake Kivu. Imbabazi is about 45 minutes away on the tar, and then 7 slow km on a bumpy murram road. The Rwandan countryside is very much like the in south west Uganda – hilly and solidly cultivated with houses and small village centres along the road. Also lots of police apparently so we stick to the 60 km per hour speed limit, a waste on the good tar road. We drive past our landmarks – a big rock cliff-face that looks like an elephants head, or the map of Africa, an abandoned refugee camp from the genocide – ragged disintegrating tents and broken down sheds, and turn onto the side road by going under one of the arbours that cross over many of the roads here. The land up to the orphanage looks really productive – people are setting out beds for potatoes and spraying onions and cutting eucalyptus – even the small kids are busy carrying water jugs and huge piles of eucalyptus leaves – they look like walking bushes. We are as always surrounded by cries of “muzungu” and “give me money”, as well as “ama chupa” meaning give me your empty water bottle. But more of the adults smile as we go by – it continues to be amazing what an entertainment we are.
Imbabazi is the continuation of an orphanage started by Ros Carr, a larger than life American woman who loved in Rwanda for over 50 years after marrying and British adventurer and moving out here. Once divorced she set up a pyrethrin farm, then when artificial pyrethrins came on the market she re-invented herself as a commercial flower farmer and the orphanage still continues in that business. Ros was a good friend of Dian Fossey and an absolute legend, she appears in many books about Rwanda during this century. She left Rwanda for a few short months in 2005 and when she came back her house had been stripped of everything of value. At age 80+ she started again, and started to collect the traumatized orphans that were wandering the roads aimlessly. Up to 400 children passed through her care, some reunited with families but others settling into the dormitories she built on her property. The Imbabazi trust continues to care for and educate Ros’ orphans as they grow older.
A young American woman named Devon has just started working here as an assistant manager, and gives us and another group of tourists that shows up the tour. The gardens are impressive, especially given the fact there has been no rain for 3 months. In season they would be spectacular. Green lawns, beds of flowers, rocky paths, and trees and plants brought to Ros from all over the world by her friends. The original house is still there (and was used in the movie Gorillas in the Mist), and Ros was buried on the property. We also tour the orphanage – part of which was once the pyrethrin drying sheds and has in fact been re-constructed to it’s original purpose. There are only about 25 orphans here now, most are boarding at secondary schools, but during term holidays there are almost 100 who are based here. They are trying to create income opportunities on the farm, such as the flower sales, and are looking at developing a dairy and bee keeping. Keeping 100 children fed and clothed and in school fees is not cheap!
Then back up the bumpy road, and another 20 minutes or so, mostly downhill to Gisenye. Sarah has been talking about getting car sick on the windy roads, but so far it seems to be simply discussions about the possibility rather than actual nausea. Jen and James are warned to look out for green-ness, but all continues to be well. We turn left and travel along the eastern shore of Lake Kivu where there is the very large Bralira brewery, source of Primus and Mutzig and maybe several other of the local beers. They draw methane from under the lake and use it to power at least part of the factory. According to the guidebook the grain waste is fed to the local fishes, not sure it they could be classified as a local “beer-fed” specialty. Large wooden canoes with what look like outriggers are pulled up on the shoreline, and they are hordes of splashing and screaming kids playing in the water. Our destination is a hotel/restaurant called Paradis, which turns out to be a lovely place with tables out near the lake on a small rocky peninsula. We have lots and lots of time to admire the view and to watch the myriad of herons, kingfishers, sunbirds, and mousebirds that abound. There is a small island offshore, and various boats that proceed out into the lake, either by oar or by power. Unfortunately it is so hazy there isn’t much of a view across the lake, apparently from Gisenyi the glow of the active Nyiramgamo volcano can be seen at night. Lunch is served on wooden trenchers and is excellent – James and I order local Tilapia, which is grilled over charcoal and served as the whole (gutted of course) fish.
Once fed we backtrack to the main road and turn into Gisenye to see the fruit bats that roost in trees along the beachfront. There is a long stretch of sandy beach and pubic waterfront – there is a wedding taking place with awnings and tents and lots of white linen, a party of some sort with a big sound system which has accumulated a large crowd of local people lining the fence and enjoying the music, and lots of kids swimming and enjoying the water. We admire the squeaking bats up in their trees, get swarmed by the craftsellers, who also kindly tell us that I have not left my car in a good place and there are thieves about who might take our baggages, and dip our toes into the water before loading up for the trip back to Musanze. We can now all say we have walked and sat by one of Africa’s limnic, or exploding lakes and survived. The drive back included a stop at a crafts shop, where James is the big buyer purchasing a stick similar to the ones children use to herd cattle (a cattle bopper we name it) and a carved wooden antelope, black in colour with white striping. We decide it must be meant to be an okapi, although some of the statues, especially the ones with young, look rather like hyenas in the company of small pigs. James gets a major ribbing for his purchase on our return.
Elizabeth’s sewing is ready – her purse and pants look great and the fabric choices work well. And they have even made a similar small purse for Sarah, which sends her into second heaven – she is so excited. Now she has a purse to put her purses into. Whatever! Back to MGVP where Jan and Mike have had a quiet and well appreciated day to themselves, and Jan has even baked a superb banana bread for us all.
Dinner tonight at the Muhubura – a local hangout where Dian Fossey apparently ate and stayed. They have a long verandah overlooking the road, and this is a common spot for the gorilla expats to get together, drink beer, and catch up with each other. We’re joined by max and Jacques, who run the Rwnadan cycling team and have the enormous Boerbull dog, and Katie and Glenn from Karisoke Research station. A long wait, a good meal, and lots of interesting conversation. I chat for a while with a Rwandan who is working as a judge in Musanze – he tells us there is discussion about a law that would specify a maximum of three children – he thinks it might eventually happen. Family is important here, but there is no doubt the country is severely stretched by its massive population. Sarah is having a whale of a time with these social evenings – drinking her pop and sneaking other people’s beer, and telling various people they are either funny or she loves them. Mike is in the funny category, and Jan is her best buddy, especially after giving her a gorilla badge (which she carefully tapes onto her shirt every morning) and nail polish this morning. I like the walk home in the dark after dinner – the outline of the monkey puzzle trees against the sky is truly unusual, and there were even stars out tonight. It looks like the rains are not quite ready to come.
Today we decided to take an excursion. After breakfast the girls and I loaded up in the car with James and Jen for a day trip to the Imbabazi orphanage and Gisenye, on Lake Kivu. Imbabazi is about 45 minutes away on the tar, and then 7 slow km on a bumpy murram road. The Rwandan countryside is very much like the in south west Uganda – hilly and solidly cultivated with houses and small village centres along the road. Also lots of police apparently so we stick to the 60 km per hour speed limit, a waste on the good tar road. We drive past our landmarks – a big rock cliff-face that looks like an elephants head, or the map of Africa, an abandoned refugee camp from the genocide – ragged disintegrating tents and broken down sheds, and turn onto the side road by going under one of the arbours that cross over many of the roads here. The land up to the orphanage looks really productive – people are setting out beds for potatoes and spraying onions and cutting eucalyptus – even the small kids are busy carrying water jugs and huge piles of eucalyptus leaves – they look like walking bushes. We are as always surrounded by cries of “muzungu” and “give me money”, as well as “ama chupa” meaning give me your empty water bottle. But more of the adults smile as we go by – it continues to be amazing what an entertainment we are.
Imbabazi is the continuation of an orphanage started by Ros Carr, a larger than life American woman who loved in Rwanda for over 50 years after marrying and British adventurer and moving out here. Once divorced she set up a pyrethrin farm, then when artificial pyrethrins came on the market she re-invented herself as a commercial flower farmer and the orphanage still continues in that business. Ros was a good friend of Dian Fossey and an absolute legend, she appears in many books about Rwanda during this century. She left Rwanda for a few short months in 2005 and when she came back her house had been stripped of everything of value. At age 80+ she started again, and started to collect the traumatized orphans that were wandering the roads aimlessly. Up to 400 children passed through her care, some reunited with families but others settling into the dormitories she built on her property. The Imbabazi trust continues to care for and educate Ros’ orphans as they grow older.
A young American woman named Devon has just started working here as an assistant manager, and gives us and another group of tourists that shows up the tour. The gardens are impressive, especially given the fact there has been no rain for 3 months. In season they would be spectacular. Green lawns, beds of flowers, rocky paths, and trees and plants brought to Ros from all over the world by her friends. The original house is still there (and was used in the movie Gorillas in the Mist), and Ros was buried on the property. We also tour the orphanage – part of which was once the pyrethrin drying sheds and has in fact been re-constructed to it’s original purpose. There are only about 25 orphans here now, most are boarding at secondary schools, but during term holidays there are almost 100 who are based here. They are trying to create income opportunities on the farm, such as the flower sales, and are looking at developing a dairy and bee keeping. Keeping 100 children fed and clothed and in school fees is not cheap!
Then back up the bumpy road, and another 20 minutes or so, mostly downhill to Gisenye. Sarah has been talking about getting car sick on the windy roads, but so far it seems to be simply discussions about the possibility rather than actual nausea. Jen and James are warned to look out for green-ness, but all continues to be well. We turn left and travel along the eastern shore of Lake Kivu where there is the very large Bralira brewery, source of Primus and Mutzig and maybe several other of the local beers. They draw methane from under the lake and use it to power at least part of the factory. According to the guidebook the grain waste is fed to the local fishes, not sure it they could be classified as a local “beer-fed” specialty. Large wooden canoes with what look like outriggers are pulled up on the shoreline, and they are hordes of splashing and screaming kids playing in the water. Our destination is a hotel/restaurant called Paradis, which turns out to be a lovely place with tables out near the lake on a small rocky peninsula. We have lots and lots of time to admire the view and to watch the myriad of herons, kingfishers, sunbirds, and mousebirds that abound. There is a small island offshore, and various boats that proceed out into the lake, either by oar or by power. Unfortunately it is so hazy there isn’t much of a view across the lake, apparently from Gisenyi the glow of the active Nyiramgamo volcano can be seen at night. Lunch is served on wooden trenchers and is excellent – James and I order local Tilapia, which is grilled over charcoal and served as the whole (gutted of course) fish.
Once fed we backtrack to the main road and turn into Gisenye to see the fruit bats that roost in trees along the beachfront. There is a long stretch of sandy beach and pubic waterfront – there is a wedding taking place with awnings and tents and lots of white linen, a party of some sort with a big sound system which has accumulated a large crowd of local people lining the fence and enjoying the music, and lots of kids swimming and enjoying the water. We admire the squeaking bats up in their trees, get swarmed by the craftsellers, who also kindly tell us that I have not left my car in a good place and there are thieves about who might take our baggages, and dip our toes into the water before loading up for the trip back to Musanze. We can now all say we have walked and sat by one of Africa’s limnic, or exploding lakes and survived. The drive back included a stop at a crafts shop, where James is the big buyer purchasing a stick similar to the ones children use to herd cattle (a cattle bopper we name it) and a carved wooden antelope, black in colour with white striping. We decide it must be meant to be an okapi, although some of the statues, especially the ones with young, look rather like hyenas in the company of small pigs. James gets a major ribbing for his purchase on our return.
Elizabeth’s sewing is ready – her purse and pants look great and the fabric choices work well. And they have even made a similar small purse for Sarah, which sends her into second heaven – she is so excited. Now she has a purse to put her purses into. Whatever! Back to MGVP where Jan and Mike have had a quiet and well appreciated day to themselves, and Jan has even baked a superb banana bread for us all.
Dinner tonight at the Muhubura – a local hangout where Dian Fossey apparently ate and stayed. They have a long verandah overlooking the road, and this is a common spot for the gorilla expats to get together, drink beer, and catch up with each other. We’re joined by max and Jacques, who run the Rwnadan cycling team and have the enormous Boerbull dog, and Katie and Glenn from Karisoke Research station. A long wait, a good meal, and lots of interesting conversation. I chat for a while with a Rwandan who is working as a judge in Musanze – he tells us there is discussion about a law that would specify a maximum of three children – he thinks it might eventually happen. Family is important here, but there is no doubt the country is severely stretched by its massive population. Sarah is having a whale of a time with these social evenings – drinking her pop and sneaking other people’s beer, and telling various people they are either funny or she loves them. Mike is in the funny category, and Jan is her best buddy, especially after giving her a gorilla badge (which she carefully tapes onto her shirt every morning) and nail polish this morning. I like the walk home in the dark after dinner – the outline of the monkey puzzle trees against the sky is truly unusual, and there were even stars out tonight. It looks like the rains are not quite ready to come.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Monday August 23, 2010 – Lounging about at Lake Bunyonyi
Monday August 23, 2010 – Lounging about at Lake Bunyonyi
We woke up to the sound of birds all around us – and not until almost 8:00. From the comfort of our beds we can see out through the open front of the geodome to the lake and the opposite shore. Crowned cranes fly past, there is a range of sunbirds, weavers, and a pair of Heuglin’s robins singing their hearts out from our deck. This is an incredibly relaxing place. Breakfast was a dream – cheese omelets in chapatti, fruit crepes, French toast with honey and an open flask of tea all day. There is a young Finnish fellow here that was at the Crater Lake with us, as well as a range of backpacker types of various affluence levels. One young woman from Toronto, who looks like she just went through chemo, brought collapsible hula hoops and a Tibetan prayer bowl with her as talking points with people she meets along the way. Jan and I are making everyone crazy with our bird books and binoculars, but we’re having fun. After breakfast Elizabeth and I put on our bathing suits and went for a swim of the dock. The water is quite still and very pleasant temperature, that is once you are in. There are so few places in Africa where one can go for a swim in a lake, just like at home. Between crocodiles, hippos, and bilharzias there just aren’t too many options, but this is one of them. There are apparently otters here but I wouldn’t expect to see one from where we are splashing about at the swimming dock. The deck on our geodome is also a great place to sit and catch up this diary as well as keep an eye out for new species. The day passes remarkably quickly in major relaxation mode – reading and sunning, interspersed with a fabulous lunch, tea, more swimming, a stroll around the island (about 15 minutes in total circumference) and even a nap for Sarah. Dinner has to be pre-ordered from the fairly extensive menu – 7:00 as the sun goes down we are again eating by candle lantern and chatting with the others. There is a big group of British university students here who have been building schools, so after dessert we retire to the quieter location on our deck to finish our beers and enjoy the moon and the sounds of the frogs, and the African drums in the distance, before turning in for the night. On the subject of dessert, we had rum balls and I have to say they were the best rum balls I have ever had in my life – a totally unexpected treat.
We woke up to the sound of birds all around us – and not until almost 8:00. From the comfort of our beds we can see out through the open front of the geodome to the lake and the opposite shore. Crowned cranes fly past, there is a range of sunbirds, weavers, and a pair of Heuglin’s robins singing their hearts out from our deck. This is an incredibly relaxing place. Breakfast was a dream – cheese omelets in chapatti, fruit crepes, French toast with honey and an open flask of tea all day. There is a young Finnish fellow here that was at the Crater Lake with us, as well as a range of backpacker types of various affluence levels. One young woman from Toronto, who looks like she just went through chemo, brought collapsible hula hoops and a Tibetan prayer bowl with her as talking points with people she meets along the way. Jan and I are making everyone crazy with our bird books and binoculars, but we’re having fun. After breakfast Elizabeth and I put on our bathing suits and went for a swim of the dock. The water is quite still and very pleasant temperature, that is once you are in. There are so few places in Africa where one can go for a swim in a lake, just like at home. Between crocodiles, hippos, and bilharzias there just aren’t too many options, but this is one of them. There are apparently otters here but I wouldn’t expect to see one from where we are splashing about at the swimming dock. The deck on our geodome is also a great place to sit and catch up this diary as well as keep an eye out for new species. The day passes remarkably quickly in major relaxation mode – reading and sunning, interspersed with a fabulous lunch, tea, more swimming, a stroll around the island (about 15 minutes in total circumference) and even a nap for Sarah. Dinner has to be pre-ordered from the fairly extensive menu – 7:00 as the sun goes down we are again eating by candle lantern and chatting with the others. There is a big group of British university students here who have been building schools, so after dessert we retire to the quieter location on our deck to finish our beers and enjoy the moon and the sounds of the frogs, and the African drums in the distance, before turning in for the night. On the subject of dessert, we had rum balls and I have to say they were the best rum balls I have ever had in my life – a totally unexpected treat.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday August 26, 2010 – a slower day at MGVP
Thursday August 26, 2010 – a slower day at MGVP
Today is a slow, working day. I read slides, Sarah hangs out with doggies and chats to everyone, and Elizabeth reads, does some work on the computer, and starts on some HBO series they have here on a series of discs. Oz, a prison saga. Jen, from Davis California and here to work on her PhD project with James arrives and moves into the girls “bunkhouse” with Elizabeth. Mike and James go for a major bike ride – James wearing a motorcycle helmet because none of the nike helmets fit him. Apparently they attracted a huge following on their travels – local racing them and kids trying to hop on the back of the cargo bikes and grab rides. For dinner we ate at another restaurant close by – Sarah’s has a canker bothering her so she’s on a pasta kick, but her soda makes her cheer up. And home to bed early again.
Today is a slow, working day. I read slides, Sarah hangs out with doggies and chats to everyone, and Elizabeth reads, does some work on the computer, and starts on some HBO series they have here on a series of discs. Oz, a prison saga. Jen, from Davis California and here to work on her PhD project with James arrives and moves into the girls “bunkhouse” with Elizabeth. Mike and James go for a major bike ride – James wearing a motorcycle helmet because none of the nike helmets fit him. Apparently they attracted a huge following on their travels – local racing them and kids trying to hop on the back of the cargo bikes and grab rides. For dinner we ate at another restaurant close by – Sarah’s has a canker bothering her so she’s on a pasta kick, but her soda makes her cheer up. And home to bed early again.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Wednesday August 25, 2010 – baby gorillas, a trip to the fabric market, and pizza for dinner
Wednesday August 25, 2010 – baby gorillas, a trip to the fabric market, and pizza for dinner
After Leon’s breakfast – toast, eggs, coffee and tea, we met up with Magda, the regional field veterinarian, and went off to Kinigi to look at the orphans. Sarah’s big chance to see gorillas. Kinigi is about 30 minutes drive up towards the base of the volcanoes and is the trailhead/base for gorilla trekking as well as the site of the orphanage – a walled compound within which live 6 young gorillas, not really babies any more, with their caretakers. The views of the volcanoes are usually spectacular from here, but with the current dust haze they are barely visible across the horizon. There are 2 mountain gorillas, Maisha and Koboko, and 6 eastern lowland gorillas. All originated from Congo but there were no facilities to care for them there so they ended up here under MGVP. For about 6 years now, but the plans are underway for them to go back. But they are here now and one has diarrhea, so Magda dons mask and coveralls and gum-boots and goes off to look at them, and the girls and I climb up onto the roof of Magda’s truck to look over the wall and view the gorillas. They are mostly interested in what she is doing and line up along to far side of the compound, but once she finished her business and comes back to the truck to join us they all come back and start climbing on their play structure and beating their little chests and wrestling with either other. One of the care givers climbs up onto the structure as well and the smallest one climbs into his lap and settles in for a rest. They are cute and fuzzy and turning into big strong gorillas – no one actually goes in with them now except their caregivers as if they decided to go for you it would be nasty. But we enjoy watching them for another half hour or so, and then climb back down to the ground, which is rather a trick for Sarah, and head back to MGVP for a delicious Leon lunch. Mike is awake and is introduced to the girls.
In the afternoon we go to change money and buy fabric. The best rate for Rwandan francs is at the pharmacists, an Indian man who has been in Rwandan for many many years. And apparently its perfectly legal. He makes his money by giving a horrible rate when selling dollars to Rwandans. I have never seen him smile, and he didn’t smile much while we did our transaction. But as Sarah starts to melt down and refuse to leave and say she’s hungry, he gets a big smile on his face, tells me I must be patient and she reminds him of his daughter, and proceeds to get here a plate of cookies and crackers, brings her behind the counter to sit at his desk, and take her time over her snack. He then gives me a little lecture about how I must be patient, and how her problem is caused by a lack of oxygen and she must practice breathing in the morning and the evening. He gives Sarah a little pep talk about breathing as well, and is very sweet to her. You just never know.
Across the road from the pharmacy is the market – a large cement walled compound filled with aisles and isles of little stalls. Those in the front have mostly clothing and shoes, but in the back there are rows and rows of bright patterned African waxed fabrics. We go up and down the rows for a while, and finally choose a morseau for some pants to be made, and another for an over the shoulder purse. We get a bit swarmed by everyone trying to sell us their stuff, in a combination of English and French, but they are all good humoured about it. There are many small children with their mothers and Sarah has a good time talking to them, tickling them, and patting their heads. But one little boy hides his head under his mothers skirt, and then cries when Sarah tries to play peek a boo with him. Apparently some mothers tell their kids the muzungu will get them if they don’t behave. So some of the little ones think we might just be boogey-men. We take the fabric across the road to a tailor shop – a dozen men and women sewing away on treadle machines, and Elizabeth shows the pants she wants copied, gets measured for them by the senior tailor – a novel experience having a strange man measure her hips and inseam, and we tell him to make a purse like Jan has had made, and if there is fabric left over then a little one for Sarah.
Back again to MGVP to sort out odds and ends, look at some slides, and sort some of the beautifully clean and ironed laundry that Leon and Felicien have been working through. The water, which was off this morning and might have been off for several days, has come back on so we are all happy at the prospect of hot showers.
For dinner we walk down the road a bit to the Volcanos - a bar/restaurant with a wood-fired pizza oven and a nice open verandah on the second floor. The pizzas of course take some time, and are delivered two by two as I guess that’ what the oven takes, but it’s a nice evening.
After Leon’s breakfast – toast, eggs, coffee and tea, we met up with Magda, the regional field veterinarian, and went off to Kinigi to look at the orphans. Sarah’s big chance to see gorillas. Kinigi is about 30 minutes drive up towards the base of the volcanoes and is the trailhead/base for gorilla trekking as well as the site of the orphanage – a walled compound within which live 6 young gorillas, not really babies any more, with their caretakers. The views of the volcanoes are usually spectacular from here, but with the current dust haze they are barely visible across the horizon. There are 2 mountain gorillas, Maisha and Koboko, and 6 eastern lowland gorillas. All originated from Congo but there were no facilities to care for them there so they ended up here under MGVP. For about 6 years now, but the plans are underway for them to go back. But they are here now and one has diarrhea, so Magda dons mask and coveralls and gum-boots and goes off to look at them, and the girls and I climb up onto the roof of Magda’s truck to look over the wall and view the gorillas. They are mostly interested in what she is doing and line up along to far side of the compound, but once she finished her business and comes back to the truck to join us they all come back and start climbing on their play structure and beating their little chests and wrestling with either other. One of the care givers climbs up onto the structure as well and the smallest one climbs into his lap and settles in for a rest. They are cute and fuzzy and turning into big strong gorillas – no one actually goes in with them now except their caregivers as if they decided to go for you it would be nasty. But we enjoy watching them for another half hour or so, and then climb back down to the ground, which is rather a trick for Sarah, and head back to MGVP for a delicious Leon lunch. Mike is awake and is introduced to the girls.
In the afternoon we go to change money and buy fabric. The best rate for Rwandan francs is at the pharmacists, an Indian man who has been in Rwandan for many many years. And apparently its perfectly legal. He makes his money by giving a horrible rate when selling dollars to Rwandans. I have never seen him smile, and he didn’t smile much while we did our transaction. But as Sarah starts to melt down and refuse to leave and say she’s hungry, he gets a big smile on his face, tells me I must be patient and she reminds him of his daughter, and proceeds to get here a plate of cookies and crackers, brings her behind the counter to sit at his desk, and take her time over her snack. He then gives me a little lecture about how I must be patient, and how her problem is caused by a lack of oxygen and she must practice breathing in the morning and the evening. He gives Sarah a little pep talk about breathing as well, and is very sweet to her. You just never know.
Across the road from the pharmacy is the market – a large cement walled compound filled with aisles and isles of little stalls. Those in the front have mostly clothing and shoes, but in the back there are rows and rows of bright patterned African waxed fabrics. We go up and down the rows for a while, and finally choose a morseau for some pants to be made, and another for an over the shoulder purse. We get a bit swarmed by everyone trying to sell us their stuff, in a combination of English and French, but they are all good humoured about it. There are many small children with their mothers and Sarah has a good time talking to them, tickling them, and patting their heads. But one little boy hides his head under his mothers skirt, and then cries when Sarah tries to play peek a boo with him. Apparently some mothers tell their kids the muzungu will get them if they don’t behave. So some of the little ones think we might just be boogey-men. We take the fabric across the road to a tailor shop – a dozen men and women sewing away on treadle machines, and Elizabeth shows the pants she wants copied, gets measured for them by the senior tailor – a novel experience having a strange man measure her hips and inseam, and we tell him to make a purse like Jan has had made, and if there is fabric left over then a little one for Sarah.
Back again to MGVP to sort out odds and ends, look at some slides, and sort some of the beautifully clean and ironed laundry that Leon and Felicien have been working through. The water, which was off this morning and might have been off for several days, has come back on so we are all happy at the prospect of hot showers.
For dinner we walk down the road a bit to the Volcanos - a bar/restaurant with a wood-fired pizza oven and a nice open verandah on the second floor. The pizzas of course take some time, and are delivered two by two as I guess that’ what the oven takes, but it’s a nice evening.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Tuesday August 24, 2010 – Crossing to Rwanda and settling into MGVP
Tuesday August 24, 2010 – Crossing to Rwanda and settling into MGVP
Another beautiful morning with the birds singing as the sun comes up. Breakfast is fruit crepes – I can’t believe we are eating better here in deepest darkest African than we do at home, and then we gradually pack up our stuff for the return back to the mainland. Timo is getting a ride with us to Kisoro, and he’s pretty pleased about it. The local buses and taxis are not exactly as comfortable as the back of a private 4x4. Near enough to 11 the boat comes to pick us up and we have a pleasant 15 minute ride back to the dock – admiring the scenery and the birds along the way, and watching the locals paddle their heavy wooden dugout canoes carrying people and goods around the lake. Our vehicle is there safe and sound as we left it, so in we get for the short drive into Kabale where TImo has to check in with a friend, I need a bank, and we decide to do lunch at the local backpackers. They have a dining area up on the rooftop – with a shelter overhead and sofas with cushions in bright colours. It looks like Moroccan or North African. It also has what looks like a boat ladder to get top, so Sarah takes a bit of shoving and encouragement for the climb. We order and then I set off in search of the best exchange rate –I arrive back just in time for the food, and we lunch before starting the next stage of the journey to Kisoro and then the Rwandan border.
We backtrack on the road from Buhoma and most of it is lovely new tar – what a pleasure to drive on. The only trick is to notice the clusters of speed bumps entering and leaving more built up areas as they are brutal at high speed. The area just west of Kabale has flat fields with Holstein cattle and looks a bit like home, except for the crowned cranes sharing the pastures with them. There is a road project from Kabale to Kisoro and for most of the ride we are on brand new tar – winding up and down the increasingly hilly terrain. There are volcanic “pimples” – little conical hills that never grew up to be real volcanoes, and everything is terraced and planted although the dryness is readily apparent and the air is hazy with dust. Just before the Echuya Forest, as reserve of trees and high bamboo, we run out of tar and its back to the bumps and the incredible dust. It’s really evident in the forest, which should be moist and green. The vegetation for a while was totally coated in red dust, making it look like the Canadian forest in autumn. Only in the distance is the green colour visible. We eventually come to Kisoro, the road passing over the landing strip as we enter town. They have gates on either side that they lower if a plane is taking off or landing. Not the busiest airport I would expect. Kisoro has a single long strip of shops, restaurants, bars, craft shops, and small hotels. We stop at one to drop Timo off and rehydrate ourselves before filling up with diesel and the final stretch to the border. We pass Traveller’s Rest Hotel – here for decades and featured in the book about Dian Fossey Elizabeth and I both just read. Pieces of history, and set off down the last bit of bumpy dusty road to the border at Cyanika. It is obvious that we are in volcanic territory here as there are rough, irregular black rocks of lava everywhere. They are used to make formal mortared walls, informal stone piles as dividers, and the foundations of most of the houses. It’s funny to think that they would probably be worth money at home as unique building stone for fireplaces and such. But the fields are strewn with them – digging rocks is likely a daily pastime for anyone trying to build or farm here.
The last stretch of Uganda is a dusty road with shops on either side, and then we are at the border itself. Step 1 – go into a small round hut and show our passports, a man fills in lines in a large ledger book for each of us, and then I do the same for the vehicle at a second desk. We are given small torn pieces of white paper with initials on them that are our passes, and a slightly larger one as the gate pass for the car. Then we go to the immigration office and hand in our exit cards and our pieces of paper to get our passports stamped. Then to the gate, but the soldier there tells me I need to go to another building for police clearance. Off I go, into a fair sized almost empty building where the man watching TV turns out to be the police clearance officer. He checks my papers for the car, fills in more lines in a ledger book, and stamps a bunch of paperwork for me. I make some exclamation about the headlines on his newspaper, that the teachers and the students at Makerere are on strike – the teachers for more pay and the students for lower fees. The term has just started, or should have started. The policeman and I chat a bit, I tell him I am a professor in Canada, and he tells me I don’t look at all like a professor and that is a good thing as they are all – and he makes a scrunched up squinty face. Certainly glad I don’t fit into that category!
And finally through the gate, where I switch from the left to the right side of the road. We visit the immigration office for our stamps, I visit the customs office where some of the details of the car are written in a book, and then off we go.
And so we are in Rwanda. Back on paved roads, with people everywhere – walking along the road edges, walking on the road, bicycles, boda bodas (the drivers wear green numbered vests and have to wear helmets, and trucks and lorries. I use my horn regularly to clear a path wide enough to comfortably drive through (Sarah is in stitches over this as the horn goes Beep, beep beep beep beep in a descending tone every time I hit it – do it again mommy, do it again mommy). After about 20 minutes we pull into Ruhengeri, or Musenzi as is it now know, and then we are back at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Program compound, home to Jan and beginning to feel like home away from home to me.
The compound is quite large with nice gardens, as small house out back where Jan lives, and a Ushaped building with a central covered verandah area and a garden in the middle. There is a lab, several offices, a library/boardroom, and the main living quarters with kitchen, dining area, lounge, bedrooms, and bathroom. Plus dogs – Jan’s Amah and Molly’s Boots (both puppies), Dan who is crippled and has a wheelchair to get around in, Chewie a somewhat unreliable Rottweiler type cross who is known to bite and guards to front of the compound, and Foxie who will fight to the death with Chewie and hence guards the back area of the compound, with a fence in between. We greet the guards, Leon the house manager, and the lab staff and veterinarians who are here. James, a British veterinary student is staying here working on cryptosporidia, a protozoal intestinal parasite of people, cattle, and gorillas. We unload, shower and bathe, fill the laundry basket with an obscene amount of incredibly dusty and filthy laundry, and relax and chat until dinner time – grilled cheese sandwiches, gin and tonic, and early to bed for everyone tonight. Mike Cranfield flies in from the US but arrives late – we’ll see him tomorrow.
Another beautiful morning with the birds singing as the sun comes up. Breakfast is fruit crepes – I can’t believe we are eating better here in deepest darkest African than we do at home, and then we gradually pack up our stuff for the return back to the mainland. Timo is getting a ride with us to Kisoro, and he’s pretty pleased about it. The local buses and taxis are not exactly as comfortable as the back of a private 4x4. Near enough to 11 the boat comes to pick us up and we have a pleasant 15 minute ride back to the dock – admiring the scenery and the birds along the way, and watching the locals paddle their heavy wooden dugout canoes carrying people and goods around the lake. Our vehicle is there safe and sound as we left it, so in we get for the short drive into Kabale where TImo has to check in with a friend, I need a bank, and we decide to do lunch at the local backpackers. They have a dining area up on the rooftop – with a shelter overhead and sofas with cushions in bright colours. It looks like Moroccan or North African. It also has what looks like a boat ladder to get top, so Sarah takes a bit of shoving and encouragement for the climb. We order and then I set off in search of the best exchange rate –I arrive back just in time for the food, and we lunch before starting the next stage of the journey to Kisoro and then the Rwandan border.
We backtrack on the road from Buhoma and most of it is lovely new tar – what a pleasure to drive on. The only trick is to notice the clusters of speed bumps entering and leaving more built up areas as they are brutal at high speed. The area just west of Kabale has flat fields with Holstein cattle and looks a bit like home, except for the crowned cranes sharing the pastures with them. There is a road project from Kabale to Kisoro and for most of the ride we are on brand new tar – winding up and down the increasingly hilly terrain. There are volcanic “pimples” – little conical hills that never grew up to be real volcanoes, and everything is terraced and planted although the dryness is readily apparent and the air is hazy with dust. Just before the Echuya Forest, as reserve of trees and high bamboo, we run out of tar and its back to the bumps and the incredible dust. It’s really evident in the forest, which should be moist and green. The vegetation for a while was totally coated in red dust, making it look like the Canadian forest in autumn. Only in the distance is the green colour visible. We eventually come to Kisoro, the road passing over the landing strip as we enter town. They have gates on either side that they lower if a plane is taking off or landing. Not the busiest airport I would expect. Kisoro has a single long strip of shops, restaurants, bars, craft shops, and small hotels. We stop at one to drop Timo off and rehydrate ourselves before filling up with diesel and the final stretch to the border. We pass Traveller’s Rest Hotel – here for decades and featured in the book about Dian Fossey Elizabeth and I both just read. Pieces of history, and set off down the last bit of bumpy dusty road to the border at Cyanika. It is obvious that we are in volcanic territory here as there are rough, irregular black rocks of lava everywhere. They are used to make formal mortared walls, informal stone piles as dividers, and the foundations of most of the houses. It’s funny to think that they would probably be worth money at home as unique building stone for fireplaces and such. But the fields are strewn with them – digging rocks is likely a daily pastime for anyone trying to build or farm here.
The last stretch of Uganda is a dusty road with shops on either side, and then we are at the border itself. Step 1 – go into a small round hut and show our passports, a man fills in lines in a large ledger book for each of us, and then I do the same for the vehicle at a second desk. We are given small torn pieces of white paper with initials on them that are our passes, and a slightly larger one as the gate pass for the car. Then we go to the immigration office and hand in our exit cards and our pieces of paper to get our passports stamped. Then to the gate, but the soldier there tells me I need to go to another building for police clearance. Off I go, into a fair sized almost empty building where the man watching TV turns out to be the police clearance officer. He checks my papers for the car, fills in more lines in a ledger book, and stamps a bunch of paperwork for me. I make some exclamation about the headlines on his newspaper, that the teachers and the students at Makerere are on strike – the teachers for more pay and the students for lower fees. The term has just started, or should have started. The policeman and I chat a bit, I tell him I am a professor in Canada, and he tells me I don’t look at all like a professor and that is a good thing as they are all – and he makes a scrunched up squinty face. Certainly glad I don’t fit into that category!
And finally through the gate, where I switch from the left to the right side of the road. We visit the immigration office for our stamps, I visit the customs office where some of the details of the car are written in a book, and then off we go.
And so we are in Rwanda. Back on paved roads, with people everywhere – walking along the road edges, walking on the road, bicycles, boda bodas (the drivers wear green numbered vests and have to wear helmets, and trucks and lorries. I use my horn regularly to clear a path wide enough to comfortably drive through (Sarah is in stitches over this as the horn goes Beep, beep beep beep beep in a descending tone every time I hit it – do it again mommy, do it again mommy). After about 20 minutes we pull into Ruhengeri, or Musenzi as is it now know, and then we are back at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Program compound, home to Jan and beginning to feel like home away from home to me.
The compound is quite large with nice gardens, as small house out back where Jan lives, and a Ushaped building with a central covered verandah area and a garden in the middle. There is a lab, several offices, a library/boardroom, and the main living quarters with kitchen, dining area, lounge, bedrooms, and bathroom. Plus dogs – Jan’s Amah and Molly’s Boots (both puppies), Dan who is crippled and has a wheelchair to get around in, Chewie a somewhat unreliable Rottweiler type cross who is known to bite and guards to front of the compound, and Foxie who will fight to the death with Chewie and hence guards the back area of the compound, with a fence in between. We greet the guards, Leon the house manager, and the lab staff and veterinarians who are here. James, a British veterinary student is staying here working on cryptosporidia, a protozoal intestinal parasite of people, cattle, and gorillas. We unload, shower and bathe, fill the laundry basket with an obscene amount of incredibly dusty and filthy laundry, and relax and chat until dinner time – grilled cheese sandwiches, gin and tonic, and early to bed for everyone tonight. Mike Cranfield flies in from the US but arrives late – we’ll see him tomorrow.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday August 23, 2010 – Lounging about at Lake Bunyonyi
Monday August 23, 2010 – Lounging about at Lake Bunyonyi
We woke up to the sound of birds all around us – and not until almost 8:00. From the comfort of our beds we can see out through the open front of the geodome to the lake and the opposite shore. Crowned cranes fly past, there is a range of sunbirds, weavers, and a pair of Heuglin’s robins singing their hearts out from our deck. This is an incredibly relaxing place. Breakfast was a dream – cheese omelets in chapatti, fruit crepes, French toast with honey and an open flask of tea all day. There is a young Finnish fellow here that was at the Crater Lake with us, as well as a range of backpacker types of various affluence levels. One young woman from Toronto, who looks like she just went through chemo, brought collapsible hula hoops and a Tibetan prayer bowl with her as talking points with people she meets along the way. Jan and I are making everyone crazy with our bird books and binoculars, but we’re having fun. After breakfast Elizabeth and I put on our bathing suits and went for a swim of the dock. The water is quite still and very pleasant temperature, that is once you are in. There are so few places in Africa where one can go for a swim in a lake, just like at home. Between crocodiles, hippos, and bilharzias there just aren’t too many options, but this is one of them. There are apparently otters here but I wouldn’t expect to see one from where we are splashing about at the swimming dock. The deck on our geodome is also a great place to sit and catch up this diary as well as keep an eye out for new species. The day passes remarkably quickly in major relaxation mode – reading and sunning, interspersed with a fabulous lunch, tea, more swimming, a stroll around the island (about 15 minutes in total circumference) and even a nap for Sarah. Dinner has to be pre-ordered from the fairly extensive menu – 7:00 as the sun goes down we are again eating by candle lantern and chatting with the others. There is a big group of British university students here who have been building schools, so after dessert we retire to the quieter location on our deck to finish our beers and enjoy the moon and the sounds of the frogs, and the African drums in the distance, before turning in for the night. On the subject of dessert, we had rum balls and I have to say they were the best rum balls I have ever had in my life – a totally unexpected treat.
We woke up to the sound of birds all around us – and not until almost 8:00. From the comfort of our beds we can see out through the open front of the geodome to the lake and the opposite shore. Crowned cranes fly past, there is a range of sunbirds, weavers, and a pair of Heuglin’s robins singing their hearts out from our deck. This is an incredibly relaxing place. Breakfast was a dream – cheese omelets in chapatti, fruit crepes, French toast with honey and an open flask of tea all day. There is a young Finnish fellow here that was at the Crater Lake with us, as well as a range of backpacker types of various affluence levels. One young woman from Toronto, who looks like she just went through chemo, brought collapsible hula hoops and a Tibetan prayer bowl with her as talking points with people she meets along the way. Jan and I are making everyone crazy with our bird books and binoculars, but we’re having fun. After breakfast Elizabeth and I put on our bathing suits and went for a swim of the dock. The water is quite still and very pleasant temperature, that is once you are in. There are so few places in Africa where one can go for a swim in a lake, just like at home. Between crocodiles, hippos, and bilharzias there just aren’t too many options, but this is one of them. There are apparently otters here but I wouldn’t expect to see one from where we are splashing about at the swimming dock. The deck on our geodome is also a great place to sit and catch up this diary as well as keep an eye out for new species. The day passes remarkably quickly in major relaxation mode – reading and sunning, interspersed with a fabulous lunch, tea, more swimming, a stroll around the island (about 15 minutes in total circumference) and even a nap for Sarah. Dinner has to be pre-ordered from the fairly extensive menu – 7:00 as the sun goes down we are again eating by candle lantern and chatting with the others. There is a big group of British university students here who have been building schools, so after dessert we retire to the quieter location on our deck to finish our beers and enjoy the moon and the sounds of the frogs, and the African drums in the distance, before turning in for the night. On the subject of dessert, we had rum balls and I have to say they were the best rum balls I have ever had in my life – a totally unexpected treat.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday August 22, 2010 – Goodbye to Bwindi, lunch up high in the Mountains, and a boat ride to Byoona Amagara
Sunday August 22, 2010 – Goodbye to Bwindi, lunch up high in the Mountains, and a boat ride to Byoona Amagara
Fred’s instructions to Isaac seemed to work and there was thankfully no “hodi” at the door first thing in the morning. Once organized we all traipsed across the road and had breakfast at the Community Bandas, where we are now accepted regulars. The flush toilets and the food make an irresistible combination. John, Dorothy and Saul were just heading off on the next leg of their birding odyssey – John has a totally serious excel spread sheet of birds that might be found – with colour coding as well. Jan and I are most impressed, this is serious birding. After breakfast the girls load up the vehicle with our stuff and Jan’s bags – Isaac has washed the outside of it and it looks great – hardly recognizable as the same dust and mud-covered 4x4 we drove in on. Jan, Fred and I pay our respects to the Park Warden, who chats for a bit about changes in head office and how they may affect the working of the park. Business as usual for now but there are certainly concerns for the future. Isaac seems convinced I am going to help support his children’s school education, at least according to what he told Elizabeth. Fred would be horrified if he knew Issac had been asking his guests for money. It’s a classic story – Isaac recognizes the public school system is not giving his child the heads up a private school would, is having trouble paying the regular school costs and has no money for private schools, but still intends to have at least 5 children. None of whom will probably receive the education he would like them to get.
And off we go to final destination Lake Bunyonyi – but the road is by no means direct, and again is pretty bumpy and tortuous. Fred is driving into Kisoro for errands (only 5 hours of so) so we follow him for the first part, he was very intent on making sure we didn’t miss any of the tricky points although the road is pretty well marked. We exit the park, wave to the strip of souvenir shops, and then it’s a combination of community land and travelling in and along the the edge of Bwindi. It’s all steep hills and switchbacks, with terraced fields in the community sections and incredible forest in the park. Superficially it looks like tropical rain forest in Central America, but on closer inspection the trees and the animals would be all wrong. At one point we stop as there is a troop of colobus in the trees above the road, only to see a second group of blue monkeys off to the side as well. There is something in the soil here that changes to an incredibly fine powder so as we travel along the road there is an incredible dist plume behind us, which occasionally catches up and envelops us if we have to slow for a particularly awkward bit of road. Fortunately the smell of rat has pretty much leached out of the ventilation system so we can put up the windows and turn on the A/C when the dust gets too much for us. About 3 hours later, and maybe 40 km, we stop in Ruhija for lunch at the Volcanos Lodge – way up on a hill overlooking a broad valley. The view is quite spectacular. Lunch is served in style, and quite promptly, giving us a nice break from the bumping and the dust.
The final stage is about 40 odd km again – the last 23 of which are on tar. But it takes us a good few hours to get there, passing through the park again for a stretch before dropping out of the hills and into the flatter lowlands. Being on tar is great – but 60 km and hour seems like excessive speed after all the hours (days) driving on the unpaved or murram roads. We’re happy to get there – Sarah has been having her first really bad day of the trip so far – upset tummy, sleep deprived, and kind of upset over the fact that we have an extra person in the car and that Elizabeth is sharing her backseat domain. I guess we are lucky that she has been so good for so long.
At the lakeside there is a sign for Byoona Amagara parking where we unload our stuff, place the car in the shade, and then load into a small open motorboat for the 15 min trip to the island where the resort is located. We could have travelled for 50 minutes in a dugout canoe instead, and saved a grand total of 15,000 shillings ($7.50) but no one is in the mood for that. Crayfish are a local delicacy, although the guy on the dock totally puts us off by demonstrating what a live crayfish looks like, and then twisting its tail off and peeling it to show the meat while the rest of the crayfish lies twitching on the dock. Not appreciated by this audience! The boat trip is smooth and easy, along the very convoluted shoreline where there are scattered resorts and villages. Kingfishers and cormorants abound, and there are crowned cranes grazing on the sloping shorelines.
The resort is interesting – a series of flagstone paths leads up from the dock and the shoreline to the open air reception and restaurant, and then up and around to the dorms, bathrooms, and the geodomes. We are booked in a regular and a “deluxe” geodome according to availability. Jan has the regular geodome, with two single beds, and we have the deluxe which actually comes with a double and a single bed and its own little compound with a large deck looking over the water, and our own bathroom and shower area, complete with solar heated water. The geodomes are made of reed and have open fronts facing the lake – they are quite clever in design and very attractive and spacious. The toilets here are of the composting ones, modified long-drops but with a proper seat which makes it so much easier for Sarah to handle. All surrounded by trees and filled with chirping and singing birds. Pretty lovely.
We decide it’s half-beer o’clock and wet our whistles while perusing the menu – which has an amazing variety of really good looking food. There is a small craft sale area, and a variety of activities that one can take part in – including canoe rides, community tours, and trips around the lake. We are happy to plant and relax for the two night we will be here. Sarah has a pain in her thigh, for which we can see no actual lesion, and has decided that surgery will probably be necessary. She asks if Elizabeth can help give her the injections. We have a great dinner by candlelit lanterns, and then put Sarah to bed and retire to our deck with glasses of amarula to admire the full moon and listen to the drums from an adjacent village. A perfect end to a long and not quite so perfect day.
Fred’s instructions to Isaac seemed to work and there was thankfully no “hodi” at the door first thing in the morning. Once organized we all traipsed across the road and had breakfast at the Community Bandas, where we are now accepted regulars. The flush toilets and the food make an irresistible combination. John, Dorothy and Saul were just heading off on the next leg of their birding odyssey – John has a totally serious excel spread sheet of birds that might be found – with colour coding as well. Jan and I are most impressed, this is serious birding. After breakfast the girls load up the vehicle with our stuff and Jan’s bags – Isaac has washed the outside of it and it looks great – hardly recognizable as the same dust and mud-covered 4x4 we drove in on. Jan, Fred and I pay our respects to the Park Warden, who chats for a bit about changes in head office and how they may affect the working of the park. Business as usual for now but there are certainly concerns for the future. Isaac seems convinced I am going to help support his children’s school education, at least according to what he told Elizabeth. Fred would be horrified if he knew Issac had been asking his guests for money. It’s a classic story – Isaac recognizes the public school system is not giving his child the heads up a private school would, is having trouble paying the regular school costs and has no money for private schools, but still intends to have at least 5 children. None of whom will probably receive the education he would like them to get.
And off we go to final destination Lake Bunyonyi – but the road is by no means direct, and again is pretty bumpy and tortuous. Fred is driving into Kisoro for errands (only 5 hours of so) so we follow him for the first part, he was very intent on making sure we didn’t miss any of the tricky points although the road is pretty well marked. We exit the park, wave to the strip of souvenir shops, and then it’s a combination of community land and travelling in and along the the edge of Bwindi. It’s all steep hills and switchbacks, with terraced fields in the community sections and incredible forest in the park. Superficially it looks like tropical rain forest in Central America, but on closer inspection the trees and the animals would be all wrong. At one point we stop as there is a troop of colobus in the trees above the road, only to see a second group of blue monkeys off to the side as well. There is something in the soil here that changes to an incredibly fine powder so as we travel along the road there is an incredible dist plume behind us, which occasionally catches up and envelops us if we have to slow for a particularly awkward bit of road. Fortunately the smell of rat has pretty much leached out of the ventilation system so we can put up the windows and turn on the A/C when the dust gets too much for us. About 3 hours later, and maybe 40 km, we stop in Ruhija for lunch at the Volcanos Lodge – way up on a hill overlooking a broad valley. The view is quite spectacular. Lunch is served in style, and quite promptly, giving us a nice break from the bumping and the dust.
The final stage is about 40 odd km again – the last 23 of which are on tar. But it takes us a good few hours to get there, passing through the park again for a stretch before dropping out of the hills and into the flatter lowlands. Being on tar is great – but 60 km and hour seems like excessive speed after all the hours (days) driving on the unpaved or murram roads. We’re happy to get there – Sarah has been having her first really bad day of the trip so far – upset tummy, sleep deprived, and kind of upset over the fact that we have an extra person in the car and that Elizabeth is sharing her backseat domain. I guess we are lucky that she has been so good for so long.
At the lakeside there is a sign for Byoona Amagara parking where we unload our stuff, place the car in the shade, and then load into a small open motorboat for the 15 min trip to the island where the resort is located. We could have travelled for 50 minutes in a dugout canoe instead, and saved a grand total of 15,000 shillings ($7.50) but no one is in the mood for that. Crayfish are a local delicacy, although the guy on the dock totally puts us off by demonstrating what a live crayfish looks like, and then twisting its tail off and peeling it to show the meat while the rest of the crayfish lies twitching on the dock. Not appreciated by this audience! The boat trip is smooth and easy, along the very convoluted shoreline where there are scattered resorts and villages. Kingfishers and cormorants abound, and there are crowned cranes grazing on the sloping shorelines.
The resort is interesting – a series of flagstone paths leads up from the dock and the shoreline to the open air reception and restaurant, and then up and around to the dorms, bathrooms, and the geodomes. We are booked in a regular and a “deluxe” geodome according to availability. Jan has the regular geodome, with two single beds, and we have the deluxe which actually comes with a double and a single bed and its own little compound with a large deck looking over the water, and our own bathroom and shower area, complete with solar heated water. The geodomes are made of reed and have open fronts facing the lake – they are quite clever in design and very attractive and spacious. The toilets here are of the composting ones, modified long-drops but with a proper seat which makes it so much easier for Sarah to handle. All surrounded by trees and filled with chirping and singing birds. Pretty lovely.
We decide it’s half-beer o’clock and wet our whistles while perusing the menu – which has an amazing variety of really good looking food. There is a small craft sale area, and a variety of activities that one can take part in – including canoe rides, community tours, and trips around the lake. We are happy to plant and relax for the two night we will be here. Sarah has a pain in her thigh, for which we can see no actual lesion, and has decided that surgery will probably be necessary. She asks if Elizabeth can help give her the injections. We have a great dinner by candlelit lanterns, and then put Sarah to bed and retire to our deck with glasses of amarula to admire the full moon and listen to the drums from an adjacent village. A perfect end to a long and not quite so perfect day.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Saturday August 21, 2010 – a day in Buhoma and a lot of eating out
Saturday August 21, 2010 – a day in Buhoma and a lot of eating out
6:45 AM. There are noises all around. Birds, vehicles, cattle, Africans calling to each other. The generator at the hostel next door. The girls are still fast asleep. And a voice near by calling “hodi, hodi”. Then a knock at the door. It dawns upon me that the voice is Isaac’s and “hodi” is the polite way to call someone in their hut in Swahili. He is bringing us hot water for the day. So kind and so not wanted at this point. So we are all up and awake much earlier than we need to be. We get ourselves organized and get ready to head across the road but Isaac has very kindly made us tea, and set it all up at the table in the office– hot water, teabags, coffee, sugar, and milk powder. Plus a pile of bread and a big tub of Blue Band (margarine). “Oh Isaac,” we say, “we are meeting friends for breakfast”. “This isn’t breakfast” he tells us, “just a small something”. So Elizabeth and I have tea and coffee (apparently Ugandan coffee is nothing to write home about) and Sarah piles into the bread and Blue Band, making a large dent in it which means Elizabeth and I don’t have to have any. Honour upheld, we thank Isaac profusely and then head across the street for juice, toast, and Spanish omelettes. We feel like we are sneaking around behind his back!
After breakfast we stroll back through the village, checking out the shops we didn’t get into yesterday. Isaac joins us, making sure we are well looked after and enjoying ourselves. He takes his role as our host very seriously. The new ones have t-shirts at 15$ so we go back and buy Sarah a pink one for $10 – it has Bwindi Inpenetrable Forest and a picture of a gorilla on the front, and a big gorilla on the back with the logo “muzungu in the mist”. She is thrilled. After we pay for it Isaac tells us it would have cost him 10,000 shillings, half of what we paid. Oh well. We check out the tea bushes on the side of the road, there are people picking leaves, and then decide to go to the internet café at the local hospital, a few km down the road, as Jan and Fred won’t likely be back until lunch-time – they have a 5+ hour drive. Isaac comes along as well for the ride, and then hangs out and watches us surf for a few hours. Likely more interesting than sitting waiting at the house.
Jan and Fred arrive about 1:15 –they are starving and so are we, so we walk down the road to Volcanoes Lodge, a lovely spot built on a hillside overlooking the forest. Owned by a fellow Jan knows who also has lodges in Rwanda and several other primate locations here. We sit in the lounge and have a drink (our beer consumption is seriously increased on this trip) and wait for our three course lunch to be served in the beautifully decorated dining room. Hot bread rolls, soup, main course, and desert. We’re stuffed and happy. We stroll back through the village, visit the parks office, spot some birds, and go back to the house for Jan and Fred to properly unpack. Sarah and Elizabeth flop behind, and Jan and I go for a walk along the river. The “self-guided trail”. Apparently sometimes the gorillas actually come down and wander the self-guided trail themselves, in which case tourists are advised not to walk it. Elizabeth comments, and I agree, that that would be the best time to be there. Anyway no gorillas anywhere near here today, but Jan and I have a lovely walk through the forest alongside what could legitimately be called a babbling brook. It would be a perfect spot to lounge about the water on a hot day. I even catch sight of the russet rump of a duiker as it bounds across the path in front of us. The forest rises up steeply on either side, lush and green with tall trees and intertwining vines. It must be tough going to climb through it gorilla tracking.
We bathe in warm water provided again by Isaac, which has the strongest imaginable smell of smoke. It must be heated in a large barrel over a wood fire. Fred is prevailed upon to have dinner with us so we all cross the road and meet John and Dorothy for a culinarily adequate and socially very pleasant dinner on the raised deck looking across at the darkened forest.
6:45 AM. There are noises all around. Birds, vehicles, cattle, Africans calling to each other. The generator at the hostel next door. The girls are still fast asleep. And a voice near by calling “hodi, hodi”. Then a knock at the door. It dawns upon me that the voice is Isaac’s and “hodi” is the polite way to call someone in their hut in Swahili. He is bringing us hot water for the day. So kind and so not wanted at this point. So we are all up and awake much earlier than we need to be. We get ourselves organized and get ready to head across the road but Isaac has very kindly made us tea, and set it all up at the table in the office– hot water, teabags, coffee, sugar, and milk powder. Plus a pile of bread and a big tub of Blue Band (margarine). “Oh Isaac,” we say, “we are meeting friends for breakfast”. “This isn’t breakfast” he tells us, “just a small something”. So Elizabeth and I have tea and coffee (apparently Ugandan coffee is nothing to write home about) and Sarah piles into the bread and Blue Band, making a large dent in it which means Elizabeth and I don’t have to have any. Honour upheld, we thank Isaac profusely and then head across the street for juice, toast, and Spanish omelettes. We feel like we are sneaking around behind his back!
After breakfast we stroll back through the village, checking out the shops we didn’t get into yesterday. Isaac joins us, making sure we are well looked after and enjoying ourselves. He takes his role as our host very seriously. The new ones have t-shirts at 15$ so we go back and buy Sarah a pink one for $10 – it has Bwindi Inpenetrable Forest and a picture of a gorilla on the front, and a big gorilla on the back with the logo “muzungu in the mist”. She is thrilled. After we pay for it Isaac tells us it would have cost him 10,000 shillings, half of what we paid. Oh well. We check out the tea bushes on the side of the road, there are people picking leaves, and then decide to go to the internet café at the local hospital, a few km down the road, as Jan and Fred won’t likely be back until lunch-time – they have a 5+ hour drive. Isaac comes along as well for the ride, and then hangs out and watches us surf for a few hours. Likely more interesting than sitting waiting at the house.
Jan and Fred arrive about 1:15 –they are starving and so are we, so we walk down the road to Volcanoes Lodge, a lovely spot built on a hillside overlooking the forest. Owned by a fellow Jan knows who also has lodges in Rwanda and several other primate locations here. We sit in the lounge and have a drink (our beer consumption is seriously increased on this trip) and wait for our three course lunch to be served in the beautifully decorated dining room. Hot bread rolls, soup, main course, and desert. We’re stuffed and happy. We stroll back through the village, visit the parks office, spot some birds, and go back to the house for Jan and Fred to properly unpack. Sarah and Elizabeth flop behind, and Jan and I go for a walk along the river. The “self-guided trail”. Apparently sometimes the gorillas actually come down and wander the self-guided trail themselves, in which case tourists are advised not to walk it. Elizabeth comments, and I agree, that that would be the best time to be there. Anyway no gorillas anywhere near here today, but Jan and I have a lovely walk through the forest alongside what could legitimately be called a babbling brook. It would be a perfect spot to lounge about the water on a hot day. I even catch sight of the russet rump of a duiker as it bounds across the path in front of us. The forest rises up steeply on either side, lush and green with tall trees and intertwining vines. It must be tough going to climb through it gorilla tracking.
We bathe in warm water provided again by Isaac, which has the strongest imaginable smell of smoke. It must be heated in a large barrel over a wood fire. Fred is prevailed upon to have dinner with us so we all cross the road and meet John and Dorothy for a culinarily adequate and socially very pleasant dinner on the raised deck looking across at the darkened forest.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Friday August 20, 2003 – A lion in a tree, a new phone, and a night in Bwindi
Friday August 20, 2003 – A lion in a tree, a new phone, and a night in Bwindi
It was a noisy night – there was a hippo making the standard range of hippo grunts and calls, as well as the oddest range of squeaks and squeals like I have never heard. It was so close I thought I should be able to see it from the window of the banda, but no such luck. But the noises really were strange. As well there were lions at quite a distance, and hyena whooping periodically from a bit closer. We packed up the car with all our stuff, I paid a small amount to the ‘volunteer” for setting up our fire, and then we headed off for a morning game drive. It was not a total success – so much of Ishasha is burnt and awaiting the rains that there is nothing but black earth and dried earth in the unburnt areas. There may be more game in the park than we saw, but they must be deep in the bush near the river. We tried to get down to the Prince Edwards flats, which are supposed to be a good game area, but only a few km from the lakefront marshes the road, we reached the end of the recently graded road and it became virtually impassible with the ruts and I chickened out on going any further. So we backtracked, seeing a large herd of buffalo, some elephant, and a lot of topi, the first place we’ve seen them. The males stood by the road and stared at us for almost as long as we stared at them. Our plan was to get tea and maybe breakfast at the Ishasha Wilderness lodge, ¾ of the way around the morning circuit but for the first time here we were turned away as we were not ‘registered guests”. Oops, must be really up-market or else just short on food. So back to the bandas for oatmeal and noodle soup.
Game drive number 2 was our attempt to see the famous tree-climbing lions of Ishasha. There are large fig trees to the east of where we were staying, and apparently the lions like to climb up in their branches and spend the heat of the day in the shade up where there is a breeze. So we drove round in a fair number of circles, dutifully inspecting the fig trees for lion-shaped masses, without any success. Given the fact that the terrain was dreadfully dry and there was virtually no game we eventually gave up in disgust, hypothesizing that it was unlikely that the lions would be hanging out there without much in the way of food in the larder. So what do we see on the way out to the main road – a lion up in a tree snoozing, tail and paws dangling down in the air on either side of a large branch. It was quite funny as we had so totally given up on the possibility of seeing one.
Lion ticked off the list, we rejoined the road heading south and went along our way towards Kihihi, the next “major” point on the map, almost missing the turn. A trip to the Congo border would have been quite inconvenient! Kihihi was eventually reached, I’m sure our speed is about 20 km per hour average, and we spotted the electronics outlet Wayne told me about. Outlet might be an overstatement, but they had an excellent collection of phones, as well as an enormous bank of phones and other gear being charged. Providing charging services for electronic equipment is a good business. I found the same phone as mine, with an asking price of 100,000 shillings. When I exclaimed that I paid 85,000 in Kampala for the same thing the price became 90,000. Better. Plus I got a charger with a different plug type so now my phone is electrically bilingual. Plus a gas fill-up, and we were ready for the final run to Buhoma. It amazes me that the roads we are travelling are the main routes for the tourist ‘circle”, and they are all terrible. A number of Ugandans have asked me why the large East African parks get more tourism traffic than the Ugandan ones, and I would bet the roads and infrastructure (or lack thereof in many areas) have a big part in it.
It’s getting late and we’re getting hungry and Buhoma may take a while to reach so we stop for “local food” in a local spot. I don’t know they have ever had a muzungu here. It wasn’t a big success! Sarah and I had rice and matoke and a beef stew, with more gristle than beef. And to top it off she had to use the bathroom, which was the most rickety latrine I’ve ever seen, off behind the restaurant in the village area. The girl from the restaurant brought a key to open the small padlock – I guess there are private latrines here. I don’t think they could believe that we wanted to use it, but use it we did. Elizabeth passed on the whole exercise and read her book in the car – I think she was the smarter one in the end.
Following Fred’s instructions, we reached Buhoma, passing through a serious stretch of curio shops immediately before the park gates. We were signed through no problem thanks to Fred’s arrangements, and found the MGVP house without much problem. A rectangular one story building with a series of doors around the outside, and a steep back yard with a charming but decrepit and unusable raised bungalow and a pit latrine up on top. We holler a bit for Isaac, who appears and greets us and shows us to our room – a double bed and a single mattress, with an ‘ensuite”, that is a small concrete chamber with a drain on the floor. We’ve got our sleeping bags and we’re set. Isaac is dead keen to be as hospitable as he can, under pretty direct orders from Fred, but his English is a bit so-so leading to some rather complicated exchanges. We unload and go for a stroll – checking out the community accommodation across the road – bandas, flush toilets, and a restaurant. It is definitely beer-o’clock so we have a beer, enjoy the beautiful view out over the heavily forested mountains of Bwindi and plan to have dinner here. To our surprise we bump into John, the Canadian birder from Red Chili. He is here with his wife on their quest for birds. And apparently gorillas.
After a little rest we are ready to tour the craft shops. Both sides of the road are lined by small kiosks with hideous carved gorillas outside selling woven baskets, small carved gorillas, and lots and lots of Congolese masks. Plus gorilla-themed t-shirts. Sarah is totally excited about a gorilla shirt so we dutifully compare prices and styles in all the shops, check out the Congo masks which tempt me, but not enough. Our best stop is in the Batwa support program shop. The Batwa are the original indigenous people of the area, a tribe of pygmies. They have not fared well at the hands of the subsequent Bantu tribes and live a pretty marginal life. So their shop sells very nice baskets to support social programs, and they have a small bar with tea and coffee and cinnamon bread. By this point Sarah is dying of starvation so we get her some cinnamon bread, and the nice man behind the counter throws in an extra slice for Elizabeth and I to try. Client loyalty instantly assured! Out behind there is a stage with a group of orphans doing a local song and dance routine. We later find out from Fred that they aren’t all orphans, but it makes a better selling point for the tourists to say they are.
Back to MGVP -, where Isaac tells us he has tea ready for us, and pulls a set of chairs out for us to sit in. we sit, he sits, we chat. Eventually Elizabeth asks about the tea and he says it is ready. More time goes by and eventually I ask where the tea is and it turns out the tea things are laid out on the counter in the pantry, whose door is closed and whose existence we were not aware of. Miscommunication number one. Isaac, who is 26, tells us about his 2 young children who live with his wife in the home area, about ½ an hour away by boda boda. He has a man he hires to look after his matoke and his tea bushes, so I guess there is a whole hierarchy of who works for who. He is surprised I was happy to stop after 2 children, especially with both being girls. He intends to have at least 5. He is surprised Elizabeth and Sarah are as old as they are, we are surprised he is as old as he is. We manage to get Jan on the phone and it turns out they will not be back in time for supper, so we are on our own. Isaac tells us with great pride that he has made dinner for us, which kind of blows our plans for eating across the road. Isaac turns the generator on so we have electricity to see by, and we clean up with a jerry can of lovely warm water that smells incredibly strongly of woodsmoke, and we are seated in the office come storeroom come medicine dispensary. Isaac has set the table and serves us a dinner of spaghetti (in chunks) and matoke with g-nut sauce and meat stew. Meat stew here in Uganda isn’t really what we think of as stew at home – it means boiled meat and the water has enough colour and taste to act as a gravy. Pretty basic fare, even for local food. Tea and coffee, and the rest of our pineapple carefully chopped.
Before bed we have a long and we thought clear conversation about tomorrow morning. We do not need breakfast, we are eating with friends across the road. We will probably get up at about 7 or 7:30. Seems all clear. Or so we think!
It was a noisy night – there was a hippo making the standard range of hippo grunts and calls, as well as the oddest range of squeaks and squeals like I have never heard. It was so close I thought I should be able to see it from the window of the banda, but no such luck. But the noises really were strange. As well there were lions at quite a distance, and hyena whooping periodically from a bit closer. We packed up the car with all our stuff, I paid a small amount to the ‘volunteer” for setting up our fire, and then we headed off for a morning game drive. It was not a total success – so much of Ishasha is burnt and awaiting the rains that there is nothing but black earth and dried earth in the unburnt areas. There may be more game in the park than we saw, but they must be deep in the bush near the river. We tried to get down to the Prince Edwards flats, which are supposed to be a good game area, but only a few km from the lakefront marshes the road, we reached the end of the recently graded road and it became virtually impassible with the ruts and I chickened out on going any further. So we backtracked, seeing a large herd of buffalo, some elephant, and a lot of topi, the first place we’ve seen them. The males stood by the road and stared at us for almost as long as we stared at them. Our plan was to get tea and maybe breakfast at the Ishasha Wilderness lodge, ¾ of the way around the morning circuit but for the first time here we were turned away as we were not ‘registered guests”. Oops, must be really up-market or else just short on food. So back to the bandas for oatmeal and noodle soup.
Game drive number 2 was our attempt to see the famous tree-climbing lions of Ishasha. There are large fig trees to the east of where we were staying, and apparently the lions like to climb up in their branches and spend the heat of the day in the shade up where there is a breeze. So we drove round in a fair number of circles, dutifully inspecting the fig trees for lion-shaped masses, without any success. Given the fact that the terrain was dreadfully dry and there was virtually no game we eventually gave up in disgust, hypothesizing that it was unlikely that the lions would be hanging out there without much in the way of food in the larder. So what do we see on the way out to the main road – a lion up in a tree snoozing, tail and paws dangling down in the air on either side of a large branch. It was quite funny as we had so totally given up on the possibility of seeing one.
Lion ticked off the list, we rejoined the road heading south and went along our way towards Kihihi, the next “major” point on the map, almost missing the turn. A trip to the Congo border would have been quite inconvenient! Kihihi was eventually reached, I’m sure our speed is about 20 km per hour average, and we spotted the electronics outlet Wayne told me about. Outlet might be an overstatement, but they had an excellent collection of phones, as well as an enormous bank of phones and other gear being charged. Providing charging services for electronic equipment is a good business. I found the same phone as mine, with an asking price of 100,000 shillings. When I exclaimed that I paid 85,000 in Kampala for the same thing the price became 90,000. Better. Plus I got a charger with a different plug type so now my phone is electrically bilingual. Plus a gas fill-up, and we were ready for the final run to Buhoma. It amazes me that the roads we are travelling are the main routes for the tourist ‘circle”, and they are all terrible. A number of Ugandans have asked me why the large East African parks get more tourism traffic than the Ugandan ones, and I would bet the roads and infrastructure (or lack thereof in many areas) have a big part in it.
It’s getting late and we’re getting hungry and Buhoma may take a while to reach so we stop for “local food” in a local spot. I don’t know they have ever had a muzungu here. It wasn’t a big success! Sarah and I had rice and matoke and a beef stew, with more gristle than beef. And to top it off she had to use the bathroom, which was the most rickety latrine I’ve ever seen, off behind the restaurant in the village area. The girl from the restaurant brought a key to open the small padlock – I guess there are private latrines here. I don’t think they could believe that we wanted to use it, but use it we did. Elizabeth passed on the whole exercise and read her book in the car – I think she was the smarter one in the end.
Following Fred’s instructions, we reached Buhoma, passing through a serious stretch of curio shops immediately before the park gates. We were signed through no problem thanks to Fred’s arrangements, and found the MGVP house without much problem. A rectangular one story building with a series of doors around the outside, and a steep back yard with a charming but decrepit and unusable raised bungalow and a pit latrine up on top. We holler a bit for Isaac, who appears and greets us and shows us to our room – a double bed and a single mattress, with an ‘ensuite”, that is a small concrete chamber with a drain on the floor. We’ve got our sleeping bags and we’re set. Isaac is dead keen to be as hospitable as he can, under pretty direct orders from Fred, but his English is a bit so-so leading to some rather complicated exchanges. We unload and go for a stroll – checking out the community accommodation across the road – bandas, flush toilets, and a restaurant. It is definitely beer-o’clock so we have a beer, enjoy the beautiful view out over the heavily forested mountains of Bwindi and plan to have dinner here. To our surprise we bump into John, the Canadian birder from Red Chili. He is here with his wife on their quest for birds. And apparently gorillas.
After a little rest we are ready to tour the craft shops. Both sides of the road are lined by small kiosks with hideous carved gorillas outside selling woven baskets, small carved gorillas, and lots and lots of Congolese masks. Plus gorilla-themed t-shirts. Sarah is totally excited about a gorilla shirt so we dutifully compare prices and styles in all the shops, check out the Congo masks which tempt me, but not enough. Our best stop is in the Batwa support program shop. The Batwa are the original indigenous people of the area, a tribe of pygmies. They have not fared well at the hands of the subsequent Bantu tribes and live a pretty marginal life. So their shop sells very nice baskets to support social programs, and they have a small bar with tea and coffee and cinnamon bread. By this point Sarah is dying of starvation so we get her some cinnamon bread, and the nice man behind the counter throws in an extra slice for Elizabeth and I to try. Client loyalty instantly assured! Out behind there is a stage with a group of orphans doing a local song and dance routine. We later find out from Fred that they aren’t all orphans, but it makes a better selling point for the tourists to say they are.
Back to MGVP -, where Isaac tells us he has tea ready for us, and pulls a set of chairs out for us to sit in. we sit, he sits, we chat. Eventually Elizabeth asks about the tea and he says it is ready. More time goes by and eventually I ask where the tea is and it turns out the tea things are laid out on the counter in the pantry, whose door is closed and whose existence we were not aware of. Miscommunication number one. Isaac, who is 26, tells us about his 2 young children who live with his wife in the home area, about ½ an hour away by boda boda. He has a man he hires to look after his matoke and his tea bushes, so I guess there is a whole hierarchy of who works for who. He is surprised I was happy to stop after 2 children, especially with both being girls. He intends to have at least 5. He is surprised Elizabeth and Sarah are as old as they are, we are surprised he is as old as he is. We manage to get Jan on the phone and it turns out they will not be back in time for supper, so we are on our own. Isaac tells us with great pride that he has made dinner for us, which kind of blows our plans for eating across the road. Isaac turns the generator on so we have electricity to see by, and we clean up with a jerry can of lovely warm water that smells incredibly strongly of woodsmoke, and we are seated in the office come storeroom come medicine dispensary. Isaac has set the table and serves us a dinner of spaghetti (in chunks) and matoke with g-nut sauce and meat stew. Meat stew here in Uganda isn’t really what we think of as stew at home – it means boiled meat and the water has enough colour and taste to act as a gravy. Pretty basic fare, even for local food. Tea and coffee, and the rest of our pineapple carefully chopped.
Before bed we have a long and we thought clear conversation about tomorrow morning. We do not need breakfast, we are eating with friends across the road. We will probably get up at about 7 or 7:30. Seems all clear. Or so we think!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Thursday August 19, 2010 – Mweya to Ishasha – tea on the lake and some dusty game drives
Thursday August 19, 2010 – Mweya to Ishasha – tea on the lake and some dusty game drives
Travel day again. We had our standard breakfast, accompanied by weavers and bulbuls who actually came up on our table to steal toast crumbs, flying away if we moved too fast. One of the things I look forward to back home is hot toast – that doesn’t seem to be the concept here. Goodbyes said – Sarah creates a host of new “friends” everywhere we go, we set off for a game drive out of the Mweya portion of the park heading back to the main southerly (paved) road. After too few km we pass over the Kazinga channel bridge and then a few km later take a fork to the right – back on the murram into the park, and to the Jacana Lodge in Maragambo Forest. The road skirts the edge of cultivated areas, with terracing right up on the hills on either side. There is a great vista to the west across to the plains of Queen Elizabeth park. We pass through a gate, and we’re back into rich forest. The parks ranger is very disappointed we aren’t going for a forest walk, I wonder how many people venture down this way who aren’t staying at the lodge. But we’ve done enough forest walks for a while, and there has to be a pretty good carrot involved to keep Sarah going. Instead we are on a tea and samoosa hunt, with pretty much a guarantee of catching our prey. At the end of the road we enter lodge land again – this time perched on the shore of a volcanic crater lake. The water is the strangest green with algae on the surface that make it look like a piece of malachite. Fisherman paddle their wooden boats in the water, fish eagles cry overhead, and there is a group of black and white colobus monkeys in the trees. A pretty special place. We settle into the comfy chairs overlooking the water and have our elevenses – tea, coffee, and vegetable pies.
Once restored we backtrack to the main road and make another detour to Fig Tree Camp at Kyamboura Gorge, one of the chimp trekking locations. It consists of a couple of huts for the ranger’s station, a rondavel for shade for waiting tourists, and a viewing platform that looks across the gorge running north and south. It is definitely a geographic anomaly - a huge steep sided ravine filled with riverine forest and greenery from which the sounds of birds emanates. A marked contrast to the incredibly dry and dusty country up where we are. Chimp trekking involves hiking down into the gorge to find them, and then hiking up again at the end. It may be lovely in the forest but I’m glad we didn’t opt for this location to trek. A great place for someone to build a lodge, and in fact we hear later that there is a plan for one.
Next stop is Ishasha – the campsite in the southern part of the park. It’s a long hot dusty drive of about 70 km. The road isn’t too bad, but there are big lorries coming the other way and they don’t seem to believe in giving way. Or maybe I’m just too chicken to test them. We pass from grasslands to forest to grasslands again, spotting colobus in the trees in the forest and long-crested eagles in the grasslands. Not much game again, we are a long way from the water here. Once we pass through the main gate to the southern part of the park we start seeing animals – topi, a big herd of buffalo, scattered Uganda kob. A bit more like a game park at least. Ishasha River Camp is pretty basic – perched up fairly high and a bit of a distance away from the river, there are two rondavels of ehich we have booked one, tents scattered about here and there, several fire pits, pit toilets, and the semi-walled showers with a large water tub up on top which we have seen in so many places. The rondavel has three beds with nets, big towels, and the totally essential rubber bath sandals. Plus a kerosene lantern for night time as there is definitely no electricity here. There is a canteen, but so rudimentary that we decide to break out the stove and become independent travelers again.
We settle down for the heat of the day reading in the shade, when a man comes by to ask us if we would like a fire that evening and if we want water put in the top tank for showers. He tells us he is very lucky as he was sitting at home in the village with nothing to do and UWA (the wildlife authority) offered him the opportunity to volunteer here to make fires and carry wood for the tourists, the assumption being that we tip him and thus he makes a living. Not sure if this is a clever ploy on the side of the paid camp attendants who don’t have to do the required work, or whether they don’t have people to do those jobs which seems a bit unlikely. Anyway, we book fire and water, and he suggests we go to the campsite by the river as it is cooler. We thought this was the campsite, but apparently a few km down the road there is a nicer one so we up chairs and head there. It is prettier, in an open treed area next to a stream, which seems to be one channel of the river. We can hear hippos on the other side of a small island. A bit of a breeze but tsetses, so I’m not sure it is a better bet for hanging out. But we do for a while, the go for a short game drive, and then head back for dinner. In the mean time a big overland truck has arrived and is setting up – turns out I met the leader Wayne in Jinja last fall and he is from Zimbabwe so we had a good chat then. As well there is a girl who is volunteering at Ziwa rhino ranch and recognizes us. Small world. Sarah gloms onto the girl from Ziwa and Wayne lends me his phone - I can put the sim card from my phone in it, get access to my address book, and text both Jan and Fred to make plans for our trip to Buhoma. Amazingly I get both of them – they are meeting at the Uganda border to necropsy a dead chimp, and then will meet us in Buhoma either tomorrow night or Saturday as originally planned. If they are not there Fred’s ‘boy” will sort us out.
In the mean time a group of Italians has come back from their game drive and are walking about in their bathrobes. The bathrobe seems to be an essential part of the Italian safari kit based on our observations in several locations. Our camp guide has a roaring fire going even though its an hour from sunset, but eventually we eat dinner, it gets dark, and we pick up warm beers and soda and settle into our chairs in front of the fire to listen to the hyena in the distance. We end up chatting with the Italians, several of whom are veterinarians and one of whom has worked with one of my colleagues at Guelph. Coincidences everywhere today! BY 9 o’clock the girls are done and head to bed by lantern light while I go and chat with the overland crew for a bit to get some hints on game drives. Also find out that the river campsites have been closed for the past few years as the river is actually the border with Congo (my map-reading skills didn’t quite take that in) and they were not considered secure. The overland group wanted to camp there but the recommendation was to have 4 armed guards and there weren’t enough around so they had to stay up with the bandas. Not sure whether our helpful guide should have been sending us down there to spend the afternoon I guess!
Travel day again. We had our standard breakfast, accompanied by weavers and bulbuls who actually came up on our table to steal toast crumbs, flying away if we moved too fast. One of the things I look forward to back home is hot toast – that doesn’t seem to be the concept here. Goodbyes said – Sarah creates a host of new “friends” everywhere we go, we set off for a game drive out of the Mweya portion of the park heading back to the main southerly (paved) road. After too few km we pass over the Kazinga channel bridge and then a few km later take a fork to the right – back on the murram into the park, and to the Jacana Lodge in Maragambo Forest. The road skirts the edge of cultivated areas, with terracing right up on the hills on either side. There is a great vista to the west across to the plains of Queen Elizabeth park. We pass through a gate, and we’re back into rich forest. The parks ranger is very disappointed we aren’t going for a forest walk, I wonder how many people venture down this way who aren’t staying at the lodge. But we’ve done enough forest walks for a while, and there has to be a pretty good carrot involved to keep Sarah going. Instead we are on a tea and samoosa hunt, with pretty much a guarantee of catching our prey. At the end of the road we enter lodge land again – this time perched on the shore of a volcanic crater lake. The water is the strangest green with algae on the surface that make it look like a piece of malachite. Fisherman paddle their wooden boats in the water, fish eagles cry overhead, and there is a group of black and white colobus monkeys in the trees. A pretty special place. We settle into the comfy chairs overlooking the water and have our elevenses – tea, coffee, and vegetable pies.
Once restored we backtrack to the main road and make another detour to Fig Tree Camp at Kyamboura Gorge, one of the chimp trekking locations. It consists of a couple of huts for the ranger’s station, a rondavel for shade for waiting tourists, and a viewing platform that looks across the gorge running north and south. It is definitely a geographic anomaly - a huge steep sided ravine filled with riverine forest and greenery from which the sounds of birds emanates. A marked contrast to the incredibly dry and dusty country up where we are. Chimp trekking involves hiking down into the gorge to find them, and then hiking up again at the end. It may be lovely in the forest but I’m glad we didn’t opt for this location to trek. A great place for someone to build a lodge, and in fact we hear later that there is a plan for one.
Next stop is Ishasha – the campsite in the southern part of the park. It’s a long hot dusty drive of about 70 km. The road isn’t too bad, but there are big lorries coming the other way and they don’t seem to believe in giving way. Or maybe I’m just too chicken to test them. We pass from grasslands to forest to grasslands again, spotting colobus in the trees in the forest and long-crested eagles in the grasslands. Not much game again, we are a long way from the water here. Once we pass through the main gate to the southern part of the park we start seeing animals – topi, a big herd of buffalo, scattered Uganda kob. A bit more like a game park at least. Ishasha River Camp is pretty basic – perched up fairly high and a bit of a distance away from the river, there are two rondavels of ehich we have booked one, tents scattered about here and there, several fire pits, pit toilets, and the semi-walled showers with a large water tub up on top which we have seen in so many places. The rondavel has three beds with nets, big towels, and the totally essential rubber bath sandals. Plus a kerosene lantern for night time as there is definitely no electricity here. There is a canteen, but so rudimentary that we decide to break out the stove and become independent travelers again.
We settle down for the heat of the day reading in the shade, when a man comes by to ask us if we would like a fire that evening and if we want water put in the top tank for showers. He tells us he is very lucky as he was sitting at home in the village with nothing to do and UWA (the wildlife authority) offered him the opportunity to volunteer here to make fires and carry wood for the tourists, the assumption being that we tip him and thus he makes a living. Not sure if this is a clever ploy on the side of the paid camp attendants who don’t have to do the required work, or whether they don’t have people to do those jobs which seems a bit unlikely. Anyway, we book fire and water, and he suggests we go to the campsite by the river as it is cooler. We thought this was the campsite, but apparently a few km down the road there is a nicer one so we up chairs and head there. It is prettier, in an open treed area next to a stream, which seems to be one channel of the river. We can hear hippos on the other side of a small island. A bit of a breeze but tsetses, so I’m not sure it is a better bet for hanging out. But we do for a while, the go for a short game drive, and then head back for dinner. In the mean time a big overland truck has arrived and is setting up – turns out I met the leader Wayne in Jinja last fall and he is from Zimbabwe so we had a good chat then. As well there is a girl who is volunteering at Ziwa rhino ranch and recognizes us. Small world. Sarah gloms onto the girl from Ziwa and Wayne lends me his phone - I can put the sim card from my phone in it, get access to my address book, and text both Jan and Fred to make plans for our trip to Buhoma. Amazingly I get both of them – they are meeting at the Uganda border to necropsy a dead chimp, and then will meet us in Buhoma either tomorrow night or Saturday as originally planned. If they are not there Fred’s ‘boy” will sort us out.
In the mean time a group of Italians has come back from their game drive and are walking about in their bathrobes. The bathrobe seems to be an essential part of the Italian safari kit based on our observations in several locations. Our camp guide has a roaring fire going even though its an hour from sunset, but eventually we eat dinner, it gets dark, and we pick up warm beers and soda and settle into our chairs in front of the fire to listen to the hyena in the distance. We end up chatting with the Italians, several of whom are veterinarians and one of whom has worked with one of my colleagues at Guelph. Coincidences everywhere today! BY 9 o’clock the girls are done and head to bed by lantern light while I go and chat with the overland crew for a bit to get some hints on game drives. Also find out that the river campsites have been closed for the past few years as the river is actually the border with Congo (my map-reading skills didn’t quite take that in) and they were not considered secure. The overland group wanted to camp there but the recommendation was to have 4 armed guards and there weren’t enough around so they had to stay up with the bandas. Not sure whether our helpful guide should have been sending us down there to spend the afternoon I guess!
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