So, after securing our Bodas in Ntungamo and fueling them up, off we went from the gas station riding along the nicest road I had seen in all of Uganda. It was extremely lightly traveled, perfectly paved and maintained… in fact there was a group of men along the side of the road doing maintenance as we passed. I began to feel so good that this was going to be a pleasurable trip… the hills were still the lovely green rolling farmlands I described earlier, this road seemed to be off limits to the game of chicken that was so prevalent everywhere else I had been in Uganda… We were zooming along at about 80 kph only slowing now and then as we passed a town and the speed bumps appeared. It was sunny and warm so I removed my long sleeved shirt and tucked it under my backpack which was tied down behind me. I knew we had a long trip if we were going to see Queen Elizabeth National Park and have a shot at seeing Elephants, but I was encouraged by how nice the road was and how pleasant the day was.
Oops!! Why was he turning off the road? Oh no!! Not one of those dirt roads!!! Oh yes. After only maybe 30 or 40 minutes we were turning off that wonderful road and onto a more typical Ugandan highway… a 20′ wide dirt path with potholes and gullies, soft sand and hard packed rocks, twisting and turning through fields, passing little run down towns, open fields, up hills and down, dodging other Bodas, moving aside for cars to pass us… This was a bit more challenging, but a bit more fun as well, I must say. I was a little nervous at first simply because I was not very used to handling the Boda and very nearly drove off the road and down into a pretty steep and deep mucky field… that’s what might happen when you turn one way but lean the other on a motorcycle… but I managed to keep the bike on the road and began to gain some confidence in handling the rough terrain that passed pretty swiftly beneath my wheels. David was not taking his time since he knew just how many miles we needed to put behind us if we were going to get those Bodas back by 6:00 as promised. When i did get the chance to look up and notice my surroundings the landscape was just beautiful. Those hills were closer and we were weaving between them. This was a very lush part of the country with a variety of plantings lining each side of the road. Another awesome view of the hills … one after another, fading into the distance, would come into view around every other corner.
At one point I noticed that my backpack had come loose and had flopped over and was dangling behind the boda. So I stopped and re-tied it, but I had lost that long sleeved shirt and the broken reading glasses that were in the pocket. At first I thought, no big deal… it was a nice white shirt at one time, but I had worn a tear into the shoulder where my guitar strap crossed the shoulder and so it was heading for the scrap pile soon enough. And, I thought, someone will find it and enjoy it for a while yet. But what I realized a little later, as we climbed into those hills and the day wore on, was that this shirt was the only long sleeve shirt I had, and I would want something on my arms as the evening came along. Oh well… cross that bridge when we get to it.
We rode for what seemed like forever on this tiny, bumpy, twisty turny road and eventually came through a town and back onto pavement. We continued for a while longer and stopped along side the road at a little restaurant that I believe David had been to before on his trip with Christy and Adam. It was the typical fare of posho or matoke, beans, rice and / or meat. It would take me quite a while to get used to that diet… it was not very satisfying for me, but it did the trick, filled me up and provided the energy I needed for the rest of the trip.
As we went on the hills began getting bigger and the road more curvy, and the air just a bit more chilly. At this point I do wish that I had taken a few minutes to get out my camera but we seemed to be on a mission and I did not want to put a kink in the works… but this countryside was gorgeous. And then we rounded one last hill and came around a sharp curve … and there, laid out for miles and miles and spreading out to the north, east and west, was the low flat grassy, scrubby plains of Queen Elizabeth National Park. It was breathtaking actually. It literally went on for miles and only ended at the Renzouri mountain range some 100 km away across the park. Silly me… I did not stop for this photo op either.
We then began our descent into the park passing one sign after another for safari adventures and little hotels for the tourists that came to see the real wilds of Africa. We passed them all and headed right down onto the main highway that shot straight through the center of the park running north and a little west. About 10 or 15 KM along that road we made a left hand turn onto a dirt road that seemed to get more into the heart of the wild… and sure enough, after just a few minutes we saw a pretty big Elk of some kind wandering across the road up ahead. He heard us coming, stopped and took a quick look, then vanished in the scrubby trees and brush that lined the road.
We then continued along this road for quite some time, I’d guess 45 minutes or so. The only spottings after that Elk were a broken down tractor trailer, several Bodas and bicycles, lots of grasslands with those scrubby trees … and butterflies… lots of butterflies. They liked to hover near the puddles and they flew up en mass as David’s Boda zoomed by. We probably stayed on this course longer than we should have continuing to hope for some wild animal sightings, but it was not to be. We then turned around and headed back to the main road… still hoping to run across some animal or other. Once back on the main road we did see a lone baboon just sitting on the side of the road watching us go by, but that was it for my romp through the wilds of Africa. We reasoned that it was pretty late in the day and the animals had probably long since made their way to their watering holes and were napping in the hot African afternoon sun.
This is an interactive map of Uganda highlighting the places I have written about and mapping the Bike and Boda trips… enjoy!!
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I stole one last look at that incredible view as we crested the hill on our way out of the park, and then turned the corner back toward our final destination of Ntungamo to return the Bodas. It was getting near 5:00 pm and we realized we were going to fail miserably at returning them by the 6:00 time we had promised. David made a call to the Boda guy so they wouldn’t worry. The sun was moving toward the western sky and the day was cooling off. We stopped at a place that had cloths and David found me a long sleeve overshirt with an insignia for a soccer team. We stopped for a cup of tea at a roadside business that seemed to have Americans and Europeans in mind. It had a bathroom! The tea was good!
At this point we knew we would be getting back in the dark. We mounted up and put the pedal to the metal. It was nice to have that extra shirt, but even then it would have been nice to have a jacket… oh well. We made our way back to the turn that put us on the dirt road and began our return trip bouncing and dodging. It seemed to me to be a lot busier a road at this point and so there were many more obstacles. At one point along a steep and very crowded section of road as I worked to navigate the potholes and ravines that made up the road, I saw one Ugandan woman, carrying a burden on top of her head, go scurrying to the roadside as far away from me as she could get. I don’t think she had any confidence that I was going to successfully maneuver the road obstacles and avoid her. I can still see that look on her face… part fear and part contempt. Well, what does she want, I missed her! We both survived!
So the sun is getting lower and lower, we are coming to lower elevations so the temperature remained warm enough… but there was this one other little problem we began noticing as we rounded certain corners and crested certain hills… there was a nastly line of dark clouds that were obviously dumping lots of rain over the hills and valleys directly in our path. At first we were both hopeful that it would pass and the worst thing that we would have to deal with would be wet roads. But as we twisted and turned and made pretty good time along this road, and we watched the lightning streak across the threatening sky, we began to understand that we were going to either get really wet, or we would have to find a place to wait it out. David pulled up to stop and said that he thought we were very close to a certain town we had come through earlier in the day and he asked if I thought we should just forge ahead or try and find a place to stop. We were putting on our rain ponchos as we discussed this. I told him I was ready to do whatever. Well, his instincts were very good. Within 5 minutes we came upon that little village and we found an awning to stand under just as the worst of the rain pelted down. We were there with 5 or 6 locals and we struck up conversations… well, David was having a good and lively conversation with one guy and there was a second guy that was trying to have a conversation with me. I did manage to understand some of what he asked, and we talked a bit about America… most Ugandan’s talked as if they were going to get to America one day, and a few asked if they could come back with me. I told he he would be welcomed if he was able to make it there. He then asked me if I had contacts. I thought he meant for putting in my eyes so I could see the road through all the rain.. but no, he was asking for my phone information, a way to reach me when he got to the states. I did not have a phone there in Uganda so I simply stated that he would reach me through David, who was busy trading contacts with his guy.
I would say we waited for about 30 – 40 minutes for the worst of the rain to let up and to get back on the road. By this time the sun was pretty much down and we were in twilight. Off we went through puddles and rivers. The sand of earlier in the day turned into the slickest mud that, at one point, grabbed David’s front tire and turned him 90 degrees in an instant and he slammed into the raised embankment on the side of the road. He was fine, never fell… he just looked at me, we both chuckled and got back on our way. Just before the last remnants of the light of day vanished altogether, I followed David into a pretty deep puddle and my motor sputtered and died. David did not notice and continued along ahead and around the corner. I did not panic as I knew he would notice sooner or later and come back to find me. I tried starting it again several times but with no luck. I then began to simply walk with it, again, knowing David would be back soon and then we would figure it out together. I knew the motor would dry out and we would be able to get it started again eventually, but i thought we might need the light from his boda to make that happen. After several minutes another boda came by and the driver stopped and asked if I needed help. I said I did. He obviously knew what had happened and knew the remedy. He simply kicked the starter over and over and over … and eventually the motor sputtered back to life. This was just as David returned around the corner in front of me. The other driver was asking to get paid for his efforts. David seemed annoyed with him but I told David what he had done and I had no problem giving him a little money. David let me, but said later that he would have told him that if he ever came across him broken down, he would help him for free. The same thing happened a second time a few miles down the road but this time David was paying a little better attention, having been a bit freaked out that he had lost his Pa along a dark African road… not sure if I had ridden off the side and crashed into some dark, overgrown field where they would find my body the next morning if the wild animals hadn’t eaten me. (Okay, that wasn’t really David’s thought, but it did pass through my mind just a tad…)
On we went through the night, and every time I saw a light up ahead I thought we were back at the road and it would be clear sailing from there on. But no… it was one false alarm after another for a seemingly interminable time. Speaking of sailing, I was reminded of the last sail that David and I had had before he left for Uganda 19 months earlier. On our way back from the Thimble Islands and just as we were coming up on Faulkners Island, we had run into quite a storm
(remember this picture)and had to endure a couple of hours of soaking wet and cold wind before we got back to the slip and a hot shower. This felt pretty much the same. The rain never really stopped and we were pretty wet. It was cold, but thankfully the plastic poncho did wonders keeping out the breeze and keeping in the warmth… and the return trip just seemed to take way too long.
But, just as we had once upon a time finally sailed back into our slip back in the good old USA… our cold, wet and bumpy ride along this dark African road came to an end. We finally reached that intersection where we turned left and headed back down that paved, smooth, unpopulated road toward Ntungamo. As we drove back into town and came to stop near where we had first gotten on the Bodas, the crowd materialized again. The boda leader, Ivan, returned to the spot and there was good cheer and chuckles at these two ballsy muzungos. I am sure there was also some relief that the Bodas actually came back and in one piece. Ivan then had us delivered to a hotel where he made all the arrangements for us to stay the night and to have a nice sit down meal. he was introducing us to the hotel manager and the owner.. and they were all making a fuss over us. I am really not sure why this happened except that perhaps Ivan really liked David and wanted to be his friend, his contact for any further travels in the area, but we sat and had beers and dinner with a Ivan and his sidekick, and the owner of the hotel. I think both David and I would have been happy to have been left to ourselves for a quick bite (it took over an hour for them to bring our meal by which time neither of us were hungry) and to slink away for a hot shower and a good nights sleep. This was a nice place as far as buildings go, but it had only one double bed we had to share and, while it was a nice “suite” the second room had 2 plastic chairs and a tiny coffee table… period! The room was concrete and tile all around and so being inside was not unlike being entombed in a pretty grave. It had this unwholesome echo that seemed to almost swallow itself. After a less than satisfying nights sleep we got up, did our usual morning reading and lazing around ritual, and decided to bypass Ivan’s offer to find us a ride back to Lukaya and simply cross the street and jump on the bus that was about to leave. As far as timing goes… this was perfect! We simply got on the bus and they left. They sat me next to one of the larger Ugandan men I saw, and between us two lard asses we could have used an additional 6 or 8″ of seat… but no complaint, I just sat there with that handle digging into my hip for the 4 1/2 hour ride to Lukaya. This was the ride which I spoke of earlier in which we were nearly run off the road, in which the bus stopped so everyone could use natures bathroom, if they chose. David spent a good deal of this trip with a little baby on his lap. I sat across the aisle from a man I considered to be Muslim who chanted for a good long portion of his time on the bus beside me. It was actually rather soothing and a bit meditative. There were mothers nursing their babies, men pedaling soda’s, there was some kind of official guy in uniform. I never heard a baby cry, and there were several on board, never heard a word of complaint uttered by man, woman or child. One and all simply existed in the place they had landed and waited patiently for their stop along then way. My seat mate was very conscious of making sure I had as much room as he could give me by tucking his ample self into the smallest ball he could manage… that is, while he was conscious. But he fell asleep several times and then his body kind of spread out casually to the point where I could not sit straight forward but had to turn sideways with my feet in the aisle. But finally, when I thought we still had to go through Masaka and therefore another hour to our final destination, my buddy informed me that Lukaya was just ahead. Five minutes later David and I had left the bus and were walking along the streets of Lukaya on our way back to his home… exhausted, but grateful for a wonderful trip and each others company. We were both aware that there was one more lengthy trip to make, a bittersweet one, back to Kampala… Entebbe, where I would say good-bye to David and head back across the pond… and he would meet up with a new Peace Corp recruit and bring him back to Lukaya for a week in the trenches as part of his training.
So I will continue this blog later for one last installment where we will meet David’s host family that named him Kimuli, and say our farewells… if not just a bit later than anticipated.
Peace
Jim
