Raindrops falling on my head
Trip Start
Apr 21, 2008
1
22
225
Trip End
Apr 20, 2009
Kasese,
Uganda
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
We found a bus to take us to Kasese which is the major town closest to the Rwinzori Mountains. As always, the conductor tried to scam us into paying double what everyone else was paying. You just walk away until they drop the price a few times. The trick is to look in their receipt book to see what the others paid to get on the bus. We knew the price we ended up agreeing to was the same price everyone else was paying.
Like all the other long journey bus rides in Africa, this was a very uncomfortable one. The bus company tries to cram in as many people (and cargo) as possible on the bus. A two seater in Uganda means a 4 seater. A bus aisle isn't for walking up and down but for placing items such as boxes of chickens, bags of vegetables, TVs and suitcases. If you wanted to get off the bus, you had to jump over all of these items. It's like an obstacle course. Myself, I was sitting with 4 other people on a 3 seat bench right by the driver. It is part of the whole African experience I was expecting. Immediately at my feet, I had some kind of Otteman that 3 kids, a big TV and Lynsey were sharing. They did not look comfortable. To my immediate right, I had 3 people sitting next to me on a separate seat. Their knees were rubbing against my upper legs for pretty much the whole ride but it was all good. Lynsey wasn't having fun though.
When you go on these long bus rides, the bus will stop every now and then to let people on or off. At each of these scheduled stops, street vendors swarm the bus mainly trying to sell food. The most common food you see is pork on a stick, liver on a stick, peanuts and corn. In many instances, the vendors go in the bus. You see them jumping over all the items on the aisle trying to sell their food. It is quite comical to see as they also have to fight the people going on and off the bus. No one moves for each other. You are on your own trying to get on or off the bus. It's like friggin Mad Max on the bus sometimes. What's funny is that you will get 5 people selling the same thing. So the first one on the bus gets the most sales. The others still try to sell. Why not? They have nothing to lose.
One advantage about being at the front of the bus is that it feels like you are watching a scary movie as you look out through the windshield. The buses here go VERY fast and it is very normal to drive on the wrong side with oncoming traffic if it means passing a slower driver. It's as if all the drivers can read each others minds as they always seem to avoid each other qt the last minute. When I look at my driver, he never flinches. Always calm. I, on the other hand, force myself to not look ahead sometimes as it could be too much. I will definitely take a video clip the next time I find myself at the front of the bus.
The drivers also have a set of 8 colorful buttons by their door. Each button causes a loud noise to come out from an outdoor speaker on the bus. The noise is to warn people walking on the side of the road to get closer to the sidewalk as the bus is approaching them. Its also to warn other cars or trucks that they are about to be passed. He just picks any button he wants. However, I did notice that when he uses the actual horn of the bus, it signals to the people that they are about to get crushed if they don't hurry up. Each time he hits the bus horn, I would notice people hustling a little bit faster.
One thing that got me excited about the bus ride was seeing an elephant from a distance. It was grazing in the open fields. My first roadside elephant! It was awesome.
When we got off the bus, we realized that we weren't in Kasese. Our bus was never going there. It was going to the Congo. Our driver said we were a few miles away and we should be able to find a cheap taxi to get us there. We met a young Ugandan doctor on the bus who wanted to make sure Lynsey and I found our way. So he negotiated with the taxi drivers to make sure we got to Kasese. He joined us for the ride even though it was a bit out of the way for him. When we got to Kasese, we needed to take another taxi to a town called Ibanda. Aqain, he escorted us. Our taxi was a piece of shit Toyota with a cracked windshield. All the windshields are cracked here. The driver fit 10 people in the car! The driver had one other person on his seat. The doctor and I shared the passenger seat up front while Lynsey shared the backseat with 5 other women. Only in Africa!
We said goodbye to the doctor when we reached Ibanda. From there, Lynsey and I took a boda boda (motorbike) to the community camp we were looking for. It was a beautiful area. The camp was totally surrounded by mountains. There was a lodge that had a spectacular view. Lynsey and I each rented our own tents. We paid 6 dollars each for our tents. If we were in the Rockies, we would have had to pay 500 dollars a night for the view.
I really enjoyed sleeping in the tent that night. It rained during the evening and I enjoyed hearing the rain hitting the top of the tent. I don't camp back home so this explains why I enjoyed this. Traveling isn't just for seeing great things but also for hearing things you normally don't get to back home. Sounds cheesy but it's true. The one thing I could do without though is the sound of birds chirping at sunrise.
