Travels in Africa #3 - Uganda Part 1

It's striking how many thoughts pass through my mind on a daily, hell hourly, basis in Africa. It's quite hard to remember all of them and by the time I get ready to send an email I am typically concerned with detailing all of my adventures and much of my analysis is lost.

The final day in Rwanda was used as a preparation day for the remainder of our trip. We took our laptops to an internet cafe reputed for its high speed connection. Either the source of said reputation is still living in the age of dial-up, or everyone else in Kigali had received the same information and was diluting the total bandwidth of the cafe. The truth surely lies somewhere in between. So, after wasting close to an hour and a half trying to download emails into the mail program on my laptop we realized we had to return to Matthew and Victoria's for lunch.

After lunch we borrowed bicycles and went down to Kigali's main bus station to purchase our tickets to Kampala, Uganda, for the following morning. We'd made a special effort to pick up a bike lock from Victoria at work but were informed that under no circumstances were we to leave bikes unattended in town, locks or no locks.

Kigali's terrain is made up of a number of different hills and the one from the embassy down to the bus station was over a mile long. After racing like a bike courier through the city's largest traffic circle we bombed down the hill. We were competing with cars, trucks, taxis, motorcycles and pedestrians for the limited space on the road. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but coast down the hill, feeling the spring like wind blowing into my face.

Rwanda doesn't have a lot of international bus traffic entering or exiting the country, so 99% of the vehicles at the bus station were "matatus" or "bada-badas" (mini-bus taxis). The parking lot was a madhouse and maneuvering through it in search of the Jaguar bus company terminal was quite a challenge. Not ones to disobey the orders of our friends, I stayed outside mounted on my bike and watching Robert's while he went in to inquire about seat availability.

From reading Lonely Planet and talking to certain other travelers you get a tad bit of paranoia when you're the sole traveler/tourist (Mazungu - the name for white man). Paranoia is actually much too strong of a word, but there is cause for a heightened sense of awareness. Many people want to stop and look at you and often there are ones who want to yell "Mazungu" to get your attention. As I sat outside waiting for Robert a small crowd of hawkers (guys carrying a box full of candy, cookies, biscuits, peanuts and an assortment of other things to sell people), street boys and random other younger men stood around me. Many of them were staring at the bikes, fascinated. One daring young man timidly put is hand on the brake lever of the bike I was holding. I had to keep my wits about me at all times. I wasn't too worried that anything open and dramatic would happen, like someone would knock me over and flee with Robert's bike, but I also concerned myself with potential pickpockets.

Soon enough Robert emerged with the confirmation that we'd be leaving for Kampala the next morning on a 730am bus. From the station, we biked a short distance to the genocide museum. The odd thing about the museum was that it was a large, shiny, new building accessed by one of the worst dirt roads I'd ever been on. The bumpy ride wasn't terrible, but probably would have been worse in a car. Like everywhere else in Rwanda there were tons of people walking along it. In fact, the genocide museum stood out so much because in the hills jus behind it there were shacks/shantys where people lived.

The museum itself was done very nicely. Though I did see hotel Rwanda, it hardly does justice to the lengthy turmoil that's been going on in the country. Surprisingly, the Belgian colonists were the responsible for the initial division between Hutus and Tutsis. The classification seemed to stem little from actual blood lines and more so from ownership of cattle. A Tutsi was one who owned 10 cows and a Hutu was anyone with less than 10 cows (presumably many of them had zero cows). European involvement had quite a bit to do with the genocide, though there was an acknowledgement that the Europeans had bettered the country in certain ways (agriculturally, medicinally, hygenically, etc). Still, it was very disturbing to find out that the French had monetarily funded the genocide - enabling the purchase of weapons.

The entire first floor of the modern museum covered the history, the genocide and the future of the country. Like many modern museums it was done through a tasteful mix of pictures, text and video. Unlike the holocaust museum in Washington, DC, which is incredibly powerful as well, this museum had accounts from people my age and even younger - I could walk outside the museum just then and see people that may have played a role in the genocide. Even if that weren't the case, I would surely see someone who was affected by the genocide - every single person was.

It was bright and sunny when we left the museum. Approaching dinner time there were tons of people walking along the dirt road towards the community water spigot, their bright yellow containers in hand. Robert was beginning to feel ill, but we had a very long, uphill ride back to Matthew and Victoria's.

Robert was knocked out by the time we got there so I went to the new super market to get groceries for our bus ride the next day. by the time I got back it was time for Victoria and I to leave for our tennis match. Her and Matthew belong to a modest tennis and swimming club. Presumably a hold over from the French, the courts were clay. And, the highlight for me was that we had a ball boy. That actually took quite a bit of time to get used to. When I play tennis in DC I typically roll out with only a 3-pack of balls. As neither myself nor my usual tennis partner, Issa, are terribly accurrate, we seem to spend at least half of our time fetching foul hits. Victoria had to slyly remind me that we'd be tipping the ball boy and I should allow him to do his job. After an hour and 15 minutes I was ready to go.

That night, as Robert's stomach virus came on in full force we went for Ethiopian food at the "American Club." I was feeling pretty beat by the end of night, though full of excitement about starting our independent travels in Africa!

I woke up with a bit of a queasy stomach. Robert still felt pretty poorly, but was confident that his bout of vommitting was behind him. The bus ride to Kampala was largely uneventful. Both of us felt exhausted and attempted to sleep as much of the ride as possible. The border crossing was a tad interesting. The bus pulled up to the Rwanda border control and we were required to fill out an exit card. Then, after being hounded by at least 50 people wanting to exchange our money, we walked across a small bridge to the Uganda border. There we filled out an almost identical card (Full Name, pertinent details, passport info, etc) paid $20 USD each for a visa and then boarded the bus once again.

We arrived in Kampala close to 6pm and all either of us was interested in was heading to the hostel for a good night's rest. I quickly negotiated a fare for each of us to travel on the back of a motorbike taxi. The 5km ride actually felt good as the cool, evening air was refreshing.

Luckily the stomach virus both Robert and I got had less of an impactful punch on me. I was spared the vomit, though the feverish and run down conditions were punishing. I never like being sick; I despise it actually. Being sick outside of my comfort zone is especially unappealing. Having to rush to the toilet every 5-10 minutes is bad enough in the comfort of your own home. Having to do so in the dingy confines of Kampala's "Backpacker's Hostel" was downright painful.

Before succumbing to our bodies' request for a bed and some sleep, we briefly tried to figure out our plans for the upcoming week. We'd planned to go white water rafting the next day, and from there we wanted to catch a bus to Nairobi. A fellow American traveller on the bus to Kampala had informed us that he had to book his ticket well in advance due to the Christmas holiday. The power was out at the hostel, something that happens quite frequently in Kampala. In fact, there were signs posted that in the areas outside of the city center operated on a "24 off, 24 on" electricity policy. The hostel did have a generator, but that only allowed for the use of lights and other necessities. The bus lines weren't open to call and if we went rafting the following day we wouldn't be back in time to make travel arrangements again.

Given how we felt, we made a quick call to the rafting company and asked them if we could postpone our trip to the next day. Following that we crashed out.

I still felt poorly the following day, but not bad enough to keep me in bed. I was actually glad at how the travel allowed for us to stay in Kampala for the day. It would have been a true shame to have missed out on Uganda's capital. It wasn't as if we did anything terribly exciting, honestly. It's just that it was a new place, one that was actually quite different than Kigali.

We were able to secure bus tickets for the 3pm bus out of Kampala. On top of that, they were willing to let us catch the bus in Jinja, an hour closer towards the border - we would be rafting there the following day. We spent the rest of the day trudging around the city, exchaning traveller's checks, trying to obtain a local cell phone SIM card/phone number. Though I wasn't feeling great, I did want to head to the market. We'd missed Kigali's center of local commerce and I felt that we really should hit this one.

The streets leading towards the stadium where the market was were absolutely packed. The mini-bus park was one of the most chaotic scenes I've ever seen. I'm not sure if it was the approach of Christmas or just normal Kampala traffic, but everything seemed to be insane.

The market was of little difference. We entered near the stadium and quickly the walkway funneled to a path barely wide enough for two people. There were small, tin roofed stalls on either side of the walkway. The majority of them seemed to be selling the same stuff. Unlike Asia where knock off products of major brands entice Westerners, these guys were mainly selling what were to us no name products. Every third stall was selling jeans and as we slithered our way through the market, watching our step on the uneven surface of crates separated by rocks, we'd hear a "Mazungu! Jeans!". We politely smile and keep going. The funniest items for sale were a multitude of computer cases and bags which had obviously come from business conferences held in the US. Surprisingly, the bag commemorating someone's attendance at the "insert market-drug name here" (think Viagra, etc) made it to a donation bin in the US, was transported to Africa and then ended up for sale in a stall.

Body odor was strong in the market and though I was feeling better as the day went on, the claustophobia of the market was getting to me. There only seemed to be two ways out - either we could turn around and go back to where we entered, or we could continue through the gauntlet and flush out the other end.

Though I'd hoped to have enough energy to remain in town for dinner at one of the lonely planet recommended places, the combination of exhaustion and the onset of rain sent us in search of transportation back. We walked towards the mini!us park just as the skies opened up. We took refuge beneath an awning of a small booth selling phone calls.

In Uganda there were multiple options of making phone calls. The first was the old fashioned pay phone. To make a call from a pay phone you needed to buy a card with a pre-paid amount of money on it, insert it into the payphone and make your calls. The secomd method was a pay as you go SIM card for your cell phone. Unlike the US where you buy a phone "plan", in Uganda you solely pick a particular provider (each offers different prices for different services as well as different areas of coverage, presumably). All providers offer free incoming phone calls and text messages. What you pay for is your outgoing calls and text messages. The third method of making calls appeared to be the booths like the one we were standing in front of now. I am not exactly sure how these worked, but the woman sitting in this one was quite amused by us. We struck up a friendly conversation and she had a huge smile on her face the entire time. She was pleased that we were not fans of that war-monger George Bush (the slow, drawn out pronunciation made the conversation cuter than it transcribes).

Soon enough the rain subsided enough for us to continue. We arrived at the mini-bus park and really couldn't figure out where we needed to go. The park was a red mud puddled mess. Instead of fooling around there for too long we opted to go in search of a motorbike taxi. Thus far we'd had great luck with those.

Like in many third world contries, the art of negotiation is inherent in almost everything that happens on the street. Just outside the mini-bus park we were offered rides by a couple of guys idling there. They wanted a bit more than we were interested in paying, so we moved on to another group. There, one guy wanted to take both of us on his bike, but it was still more than we wanted pay. Just then another guy came up and said he'd rake us for our asking price. We agreed, but an argument between these two guys ensued. Not interested in instigating a fight, we declared that we were headed elsewhere to find rides. We rounded the corner at the end of the street and found a couple of willing drivers. Soon enough, just before another very heavy downpour, we were back at the hostel.

After a small dinner and a few games of cards, we cashed in our chips for the night. We wanted to be rested for the rafting adventure tomorrow.

We awoke around 6:30 and shortly thereafter we heard a light knocking on our door. It was one of the receptionists that we'd asked quite a few questions of during our stay. We thought she was telling us our ride was already there, but after we rushed to gather our belongings and get out the door we found that she just wanted to make sure we were on the move.

There was a Dutch couple in the lobby having a quick breakfast. They, too, had signed up to raft with the Nile River Explorers. We swapped our personal histories and travel itineraries in the mini-bus on the way to Jinja. Lonneka and Jan were in the home stretch of an 8 month trip around Malawi. Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. They'd taken a few months here and there to volunteer, but overall they were just traveling. In our travels so far there have been quite a few Dutch people we've come across.

The mini-bus made a stop at one hotel, but after waiting 20 minutes for the guest the driver decided to leave. From there we picked up another couple of guests and a few locals to fill out the mini-bus and proceeded to Jinja.

Jinja lies at the source of the Nile River. The class 5 rapids (on a scale of one to six) make for some of the best rafting in the world. Nile River Explorers has one hostel and office in the sleepy town of Jinja and another one downstream with a lookout over some of the rapids. We were dropped at the location in Jinja and had a small breakfast there. Then, ourselves, Lonneke, Jan, an irish guy named Richard and his German girlfriend Io (E-O), and a large crew of people traveling on overland trucks all loaded into vehicles and headed for the river.

The four named individuals above, Robert and I all ended up in a raft with a 24 year old Candian guide named Jared. Since he left home at 19 he's been traveling the world guiding on many of the fiercest rivers. He was nice and friendly and prepared us well for our day on the river.

To be continued.....