Fort Portal and Jinja
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
10
19
Trip End
Nov 11, 2007
Jinja,
Uganda
Sunday, October 14, 2007
We arrived back in Kampala yesterday to meet up with Jess and Lachlan. The bus from Fort Portal was hell - we were convinced by a few people that it would be faster to take a Kalita Transport bus (logo 'In God We Trust') because it would be faster and left slightly later than the Post bus. Very true if it had left when it was supposed to leave at 7:30 am (the Post bus left at 6 am - ON TIME) while the Kalita bus moved around Fort Portal for two hours before actually leaving the town at 9:30 am. It was excrutiating - we got on the bus at about 7:15 am and still didn't get off until after 1 pm.
That being said - our time in Fort Portal was awesome. We spent the first two days at the Unique community campsite in the Rwenzori foothills. It was run by a community developement officer named Elisha, who was also a herbalist, farmer, bee keeper, medic...
Chris hiking in the Rwenzori's
. the list goes on. He lived with his family in a well built mud hut with a tin roof and dirt floors. Cooking is done on an open fire - he has plans to put in a type of mud oven vented outside. The house is surrounded by fruit trees and then his farm land, all which is hand tended (they don't use animals to do the plowing - the terrain is too steep). They also keep goats and chickens. The house is about a 20 minute walk to the nearest road - no electricity, running water. His house is very typical of the houses in the area - if not one of the nicer / better equipped ones. The land is very fertile so no one goes hungry (there are at least two growing seasons), but it is very difficult for many people to pay school fees / get proper health care etc.The campsite is located just up the hill from Elisha's house and currently consists of one banda (hut). There are plans to add more bandas and a number of other buildings (kitchen, dining tent...) They also have a brick storage shed, which they use to teach tailoring and basket weaving to the young adults in the area who did not have enough money to finish school. The campsite is being built by the local people - everyone gets paid fairly for the work they do. They hope that the campsite will eventually generate enough revenue to aid in some of the other projects - such as building primary schools, as well as provide needed money to some of the local people. The current schools are up to 7 km of walking (remember there are no roads) from some of the homes, which is quite a trek for a 5 year old
On the bank of Lake Nkuruba
. The landscape is beautiful, and we spent the two days hiking through the area and villages. We spent the next couple of days at the crater lakes - we stayed in a cottage on the banks on Lake Nkuruba. The forest came right up to the edge of the lake, so we spent most of the time watching monkeys (colobus and vervet) jump between trees, fight eat, and basically exist. The campsite served local food which was really good - in Canada people talk about the 100 mile diet - in Uganda the people live a 10 km diet - they get everything fresh, organic, from very close by.
Tomorrow the four of us are heading to Murchison Falls for three days. We will be back in Kampala on Wednesday night, and on Thursday we head to Tanzania... I will be sad to say good-bye to Uganda, but I'm looking forward to all the events we have planned in Tanzania. Until next time - take care...
