Date: Fri,18 Sep 1998 00:13:55 PDT
A different format to try and keep you interested only 4 categories this time, but a number of entries in each, we couldn't pick out the best of anything.
FOOD
1. Coming across the border from Kenya, the first thing that struck us was the higher quality of food. Every time your minibus stops, people come running to the windows with freshly cooked offerings. In Kenya, it was always roasted maize but in Uganda there was a sudden wealth of meat kebabs, chapati, roast banana, samosa etc. etc.. The most aggressive sellers sold chicken kebabs. One stop had particularly zealous hawkers, keen for you to have a close inspection of their wares. Later we heard ex-pats name this the, 'In Yer Face Chicken Place'.
2. In Kampala there was a night market where you could eat very cheaply (1 $ = whole meal). Local bachelors needed a place to eat as obviously, without a wife, they're unable to fend for themselves. A bachelor traveller friend of ours took us there (hi Dan) and introduced us to matoke. In Uganda, everything is made with bananas. The staple is matoke - steamed green bananas mashed up - they also have banana wine, banana gin bananas for roasting, small or large sweet yellow bananas and, of course, bananas make great plugs in the top of jerry cans (full of banana gin).
3. We also found a great Ethiopian restaurant in Kampala. If you've never tried Ethiopian food - we recommend it. In order to find this particular establishment, you had to walk down a back alley, up some stairs, round a corner and then knock on a random grey door (in a passageway full of grey doors). Once inside, it felt like someone's home - and it was! the living room was the dining area. Having eaten there on a number of occasions, we felt it wasn't being too cheeky turning up at 8.45am to dump our rucksacks and leave tamara there while Richard spent an hour sorting some things out in town. Due to a slight miscommunication, tamara ended up having beef curry with cheese and sour bread for breakfast.
4. And finally the major excitement in Kampala was the discovery of an Italian deli. Dairy products had been distinctly lacking in East Africa. Big treat for tamara = 1 hunk of oozing brie, for Richard crusty brown bread
TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
1. Murchison Falls (MF) - the 50m wide White Nile is forced through a 7m gap at MF. The strength of the falls looks impressive at the top, but it's not until you take a boat below that you realise the power it creates. The launch boat couldn't get closer than 600m away. One oddity endemic to the area is the shoebill stork - a truly ugly bird. Having spotted one (we were lucky), we all missed the HUGE croc that was 2m away from us, dozing contentedly. In the end, it was all worth the 13 hours we spent in a car that day. The terrain demanded a 4x4 but we only had a Toyota Corolla saloon and so we spent most of the journey scraping the bottom of the car on the 'road'
2.WHITE WATER RAFTING THE SOURCE OF THE NILE Within the next 2 years this won't be possible as the gov't deems electricity for the masses (via hydroelectric dams) more important than cheap thrills for tourists! Never rafted before but what a buzz. 11 rapids in total (4 class 5) each quite short with a long calm stretch in between. Rich got thrown out on the first rapid (with the helmsman/guide and the other guy at the front of the boat). Another time he went out but got hauled back in before his legs completely disappeared. tamara remained glue-like at the back (safer) until we flipped the whole raft at 'The Bad Place'
3. Mountain Gorillas There are only 600 mountain gorillas left in the world. The populations are split into two even halves. One lives in the mountains straddling war-torn DRC/Rwanda and the other are at the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. At Bwindi, there are two families of gorillas accessible to tourists. The 'Mubare' group is the 1st group to be truly habituated and is open to 6 permit holding tourists a day. The other- less habituated and further away - is seen by 4 people who are on a standby list. Going on standby is usually the only option for backpackers and it involves staying in the forest for 7-10 days with no electricity, no running water and very limited provisions (you go to one village to try to buy tomatoes, and then the next to see if they have any pineapples!) We were lucky though, we were able to find a pair of permits that had been cancelled by someone else the day before. We were joined on our expedition by a film crew from Blue Peter (Oct 19 watch then to see hwat was so exciting about a truly special experience). There's no way we can explaln.
JOURNEYS
1. Generally we were surprised at how spacious public transport was in Uganda (compared to Kenya). There was on instance on a 12 hour journey (starting 5am) when it wasn't quite so roomy. Although we had seats because we'd booked, a mother was struggling in the aisle. We offered to take her 3yr old twins on to our laps. 2 hours later, the bus had considerably emptied, the mother had found her own seat, but she showed no desire to take her children back. We soon managed to reduce them to tears and mummy came to rescue them - and us!
2. One very harrowing experience was the bus bombs. We don't know if news of them reached home, but there were 3 simultaneous bombs on buses leaving from Kampala. In one incident the driver was killed and the bus went into a minibus head on. 25 people died, both vehicles were gutted. We went past the scene about half an hour after the event. A huge traffic jam had built up on either side of the accident, but it wasn't caused by obstructions in the road. Each vehicle as it arrived, switched off the engine and EVERYONE disembarked to get a good look at the carnage before driving on. This was what was causing the jam. We've both been astounded by the entertainment value East African people have found in watching human suffering, this was a rather extreme case.
3. On a lighter note: our rowing exploits certainly wouldn't win any medals at the Commonwealth Games. Although I'm not so sure Steve Redgrave would use a dug out tree trunk with a heavy port-side list as his vehicle of choice. Much to the amusement of the locals we managed to reach our final destination in Lake Bunyonyi, not as the crow flies, but in a series of wide meandering circles and turns. Obviously it was Richard's fault - he was steering! 4. The final journey worth mentioning was quite brief - only 30 mins but definitely the most hair raising. It was back from Lake Bunyonyi to Kabale. The terrain was mountainous and bendy with sharp vertical drops at the side of the road. The vehicle was a large flat bed truck with cage top packed full with people (30ish standing) chickens, rice etc from the market. Neither the load nor the terrain discouraged the driver from racing a smaller faster vehicle back to town. After slip streaming down one particular stretch he finally decided to overtake along a narrow straight where I felt =sure we weren't going to make it. All the locals cheered this bold manouvre. We were just hanging on for dear life.
LOST ITEMS
1. The sad one is tamara's ring - sorry mum. I was stupid enough not to think how much my hands would shrink in the water and it just slipped off while swimming (the positive aspect being that I now have nothing of value with me).
2. The only other tamara loss was my sunnies. It had to happen sooner or later, we all thought it would happen to us. My sunnies fell down the shit pit (long drop / latrine). God knows what tamara was doing wearing her sunglasses in the loo!!
3. Rich on the other hand keeps discovering that he's left things behind in the last town - my pink lighter (sorry jim), handkerchief, torch... but the most precious loss in Uganda was his hair. After searching Kampala for a suitable hair salon he decided the safest option was a combo of tamara and a one armed Kiwi truck driver. We had an audience (we did it in the campsite bar) - I think they were quite impressed with the performance. Anyway, that's it. Next message will probably be from Harare in about 3-4 weeks. We'll try to be briefer! Tomorrow we leave Dar es Salaam for Malawi by train. We both love getting all of your emails.
Thank you for keeping in touch.
Catch you next time
tamara and Richard