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.