When the alarm went off at 5:45 on Friday morning, it was hard to remember where we were. Oh, yes, Entebbe. Today we go to the mountain rain forest.

We had checked out the route on a map that showed the roads of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. We would drive North just 20 miles or so from Entebbe to the Ugandan capitol of Kampala, then turn left and head West Southwest around the North end of Lake Victoria for lots of miles. Eventually we would leave the lake and continue to the Southwest to the very corner of the country, near the border with Rwanda and the Congo. We were actually looking forward to a day of seeing new countryside, and didn’t know quite what to expect.

Breakfast in the hotel dining room was fairly standard (still the English breakfast tradition: eggs to order, breakfast meats, rolls, fruit and juices, and plenty of all of it), then we checked out and helped Denis load all of our baggage into the land cruiser. At this point there were six of us in the car, counting Carolyn and Denis, so there wasn’t quite as much room to spread out as we were used to. Plus the baggage for 5 pretty much filled up the storage space in the back of the vehicle to the roof. But we piled in, all in good spirits, and left the hotel a few minutes ahead of our 7:00 AM schedule.

The day was sunny and warm, although not oppressively hot even though we were almost directly on the equator. In fact, you’ll see how close we were in a picture just below. In any event, with the windows open and air moving through it was not uncomfortable.

We drove through Entebbe on the main road toward the capitol. This was "rush hour," and there was actually quite a bit of traffic on the road along with an almost continuous stream of pedestrians and cyclists on both sides, including a lot of children in uniforms heading to school. Some of the vehicles were small pickup trucks with the beds completely packed with people. There were mini-buses that were filled to their capacity of 15-20 people. Many people were obviously commuting to work. The road was paved and actually in pretty good condition, so the going was fairly fast in spite of all the traffic until we reached Kampala itself.

Here the situation quickly approached gridlock. I was surprised at the number of vehicles on the roads. Apparently there is quite a bit of commerce of some kind going on in Kampala. There were crowds of people filling local produce markets and simply walking everywhere. We drove past literally dozens of small shops in which people were making and upholstering furniture. Most had overstuffed chairs and sofas out in front of their shops; if a sudden shower had passed over there would have been a lot of scurrying to get things inside or covered up. We also passed quite a number of shops where coffins were being made and assembled, again with the merchandise displayed right on the side of the road. There was one section of road along which people were manufacturing doors, many out of steel or other metal. We were obviously going through an industrial section of town.

Once we turned towards the West we soon began to leave the crowding and traffic. By now it was after 8:00 and most people who commuted were probably already at work, but we still saw a lot of children, mostly in some kind of school uniform, heading off to classes. Before long we were out in the countryside, passing lots of low lying areas of wetland with papyrus reeds growing for a long distance from the road. Once every now and again we caught a glimpse of water off to our left, which would have been an inlet or bay of Lake Victoria.

At one point we saw a herd of Ankole cows beside the road and just HAD to snap another picture to capture the size of the horns on these beasts. Notice the nice, five-strand barb wire fence keeping the livestock off of this major East-West highway! (Hint, there WERE no fences!)

More Ugandan "wildlife."

We hadn’t driven more than about 30 miles from Kampala when we stopped for a photo opportunity. The result is seen below.

 
Here we see American "wildlife" in Uganda. We were still able to smile in these pictures. Not so, later!

After lots of comments about suddenly being on different sides of the world from each other, and being dizzy from going back and forth so quickly between different spins from the Coriolis effect, we got back in the Land Cruiser and pressed on.

One thing that impressed all of us was the number of banana trees growing everywhere. Clearly bananas are a major crop in Uganda! Also impressive were the small produce stands along the road. They were everywhere! Almost each little house located anywhere near the road had at least a table set up on the roadside with piles of fresh fruits and vegetables on it. Usually there were tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash in several colors, papayas, mangoes, pineapples, and other items we weren’t sure how to identify. We commented frequently on how beautiful the vegetables were, and later lamented our inexcusable failure to take a few pictures of the stands. The various vegetables were always piled up in perfect little pyramids, and looked lush and ripe and gorgeous. Since the growing season was year round here on the equator, there was clearly no excuse for (and no evidence of) hunger in this part of the country. Poverty, yes, but not hunger. And one of the biggest causes of poverty was the inability of many of these people to get their produce to a market where people could buy it!

We saw many, many people on bicycles hauling 3 or four huge bunches of bananas that had obviously just been cut off of a tree, heading for a small town where often there was a large truck waiting to take the bananas toward Kampala. There just didn’t seem to be any way to haul the smaller produce to a market. The road was still paved and in good condition. In fact, there were still electric power lines running along the road providing power to the towns we passed. But the people had no small cars or pickup trucks (that we take for granted in this country) to haul their produce in to a market. Denis told us that most people grew more than they could consume, which was why they were trying to sell it along the roadside, and much of it just rotted because they couldn’t get it to a market! What a shame!

At about 10:30 we took the next two pictures just to show the banana trees and scenery, and a house near the road. There was no jungle along here, just lots of hand-cultivated land in small garden plots with bananas growing everywhere.

The word that we kept using was "lush." Bananas everywhere!

 
Denis prepares to change the flat. At right, each of those banana bunches probably weighs close to 100 pounds!


Can you believe it? A modern highway with guard rail and striping! The outskirts of Mbarara in the distance.

We were actually quite close to the town of Mbarara, where I think Denis had planned to stop for lunch anyway, so after changing the tire we soon pulled in at a place called the Agip Motel. Denis told us to go ahead and eat at the restaurant while he took the tire somewhere to get the flat fixed. The Land Cruiser only carried two spares, and both needed to be in good repair before we went any farther toward the remote mountainous jungle and rain forest.

Lunch was really quite good. I ordered a burger and fries, and although it was very different from what we’re used to at a burger joint in America, it tasted fine. I wondered if it was Ankole beef, as we were still in the middle of Ankole cow country. We later saw, right in the middle of a traffic circle in this town, a statue of an Ankole cow! You never really knew exactly what you were eating, but sometimes you realized that maybe you didn’t want to know!

When we had all been served and finished our meal (and it definitely was NOT "fast food!") Denis had still not returned. So we walked outside of the motel into the parking lot and watched the people walking up and down the main street. By the way, the Agip Motel was the only building we can remember on the entire African trip that was identified as a "Motel." We saw lots of "Hotels," including some tiny mud buildings with that designation painted on a sign outside, but no other "Motels." The shot below shows the street activity in Mbarara on a Friday early afternoon.

Lots of mid-day activity on the main street of Mbarara. The open shed across the street advertises the local Rotary Club.

Denis eventually returned, but then he also had to eat, so he ordered his food, waited for it to be prepared, and ate. It was probably after 2:00 PM when we finally said farewell to Mbarara and headed Southwest.

Now well behind schedule, Denis clearly began to hurry. He was driving over 70 mph on the paved road, which was not too big a concern as there was not much traffic this far out in the boondocks. Unfortunately, the paved road soon came to an end as we turned off heading for Bwindi. This had to slow him down some, but not as much as you might think. We were still pushing 55 and 60 over washboard gravel with some pot holes and really rough areas. The Land Cruiser obviously had heavy-duty suspension, as every bump could be plainly felt. In addition, the seats had very little padding. Before too long most of the conversation in the vehicle stopped and we occupied ourselves with simply hanging on, trying not to get thrown about too much, and rising up off the hard seat when an obvious bump appeared ahead.

There were only two times during this drive when I actually flinched in anticipation of disaster. Once, we were driving fast past a bunch of cows (Ankoles I think, but I’m not sure) when one of them turned unexpectedly and looked like it was going to step right in front of us in the road. Denis reacted instinctively, flicking the wheel away from the cow, and then right back to keep us on the road. I thought for sure we were going to have beef for dinner that night! Then, some time later, a man walking along with his back toward us stepped out in front of the Land Cruiser. Denis hit the horn and brakes together and again flicked the wheel to the right (they drive on the left, remember?). The man jumped left and we missed him, but not by much. Denis just hurried on.

At 4:00 he stopped briefly to let us "stretch our legs" beside the road. We were now definitely approaching the mountains, and the scenery was breathtaking. We took the two pictures below of the valley we were driving beside, and of the cultivated hillside beyond it. We have more shots of similar scenes we took on our way back from Bwindi, but I’ll include those later. Denis said this area of Uganda was called "the Switzerland of Africa," and was apparently what the lawyer who sat next to Carol on the plane was talking about when he told her how pretty this part of the country was.

No level plots to cultivate here, but all of it hand-cultivated. If you lived near the bottom you were close to the river,
but it sometimes flooded. The road (to market?) was near the top – a long climb from the bottom!

They would actually dig out a level spot from the side of the hill to build their houses.

Les and Linda commented that the terrain and cultivated fields up and down the mountainsides reminded them of Peru. I thought about it and noted that it reminded me of parts of Puerto Rico that I had seen while in the Navy. Carol said it reminded her of some of the mountainous tropical parts of Hawaii. I don’t remember if Carolyn thought it reminded her of anything or not!

Back in the Land Cruiser, and off again. As fast as ever. More bumps. We flashed through a couple of small towns (all the roads were now dirt and gravel) slowing only slightly and pressed on.  

FINALLY!!

Just before 6:00 PM, we saw a sign for "Mantana – Luxury Tented Camp," and turned off of the road onto a two-tire-track trail for maybe 200 yards. There was a village quite nearby, and people were walking past the almost-hidden entrance to the camp itself.

A side road to heaven – or at least an opportunity to get out of the vehicle!

Looking back across the "highway" from the camp entrance. A village and more bananas.

Thankfully, Denis pulled off the little road and stopped. Moaning and groaning, we crawled out of the vehicle and gratefully accepted the glasses of cold fruit juice that were offered by a smiling man holding them on a tray.

The staff greets us after a long day.


Les and Jim Gervais outside of the dining pavilion.

Les commented that the ride had been one of the most uncomfortable experiences of his life. We were all pretty much whipped and exhausted from being bounced around in the car for the last four hours. None of us was in a particularly good mood at this point, but after a hot shower followed by a cold beer and the prospect of a leisurely dinner, things began to look a little brighter. Speaking of the shower, this was again a matter of the camp staff bringing a (roughly) 5-gallon bucket of water heated over a fire and pouring it into a canvas container that was raised above head level. The container was connected by a hose to the shower head in the shower compartment in the tent. A simple pull-chain served as the on-off valve, allowing us to wet down, soap up, and rinse off. It felt wonderful!

We dressed after cleaning up and gathered near the pavilion where meals were served. Here we met Michelle Gervais and her husband Jim. Michelle was the "travel agent" from Journeys International who had worked with Linda for so long before our trip arranging all the details, then changing most of them to include this side trip to Uganda to see the gorillas. She informed us that evening (for the first time ANY of us had heard this!) that we were scheduled to view the gorillas on TWO consecutive days, starting tomorrow! We were surprised, and thrilled! Michelle seemed surprised and puzzled that we didn’t know. I pointed out to her (probably not very gently) that she shouldn’t be surprised, SHE was the one who put together our itinerary and sent it to us, and it specifically said ONE day of gorilla viewing followed by a day of either hiking or a visit to a local village. We let it pass as it seemed like a change for the better, and pleasant surprises are usually nice.

We also met three other people who might be hiking with us to see the gorillas. I didn’t get the names of the two men, but the woman’s name was Robie (with a long "O", like "ROW-bee"). Dinner was announced, so we all took seats at a large table and began with the soup course.

We did not stay up long after dinner. Still pretty tired from the long pounding car ride, we were able to drop off to sleep in a hurry. 

NEXT: Installment 15. GORILLAS! (Sort of...)

Click HERE to return to contents page.