Rolling Ugandan hills and haunted eyes in Rwanda...

Hello again from Tanzania!

This is devotion for you – back at the hotel ‘business center’ to catch up on the journal despite the gorgeous beach day here in Dar-Es-Salaam! Looking forward to this portion, though, as Uganda and Rwanda were quite an adventure. It took a while to get to Uganda – we flew from Wolwedans, Namibia to Windhoek, then connected on Air Namibia to Jo’Burg, spent the night in Jo’Burg, and caught an early morning flight to Entebbe, Uganda. 

The first thing that’s striking about Uganda is the landscape. Quite unlike anything we had seen, Uganda is rolling green hills and craters, some filled with fresh water to create dramatic high elevation crater lakes. The hillsides are a patchwork of browns and bright greens, as ALL the land (including some amazingly steep hills) is cultivated and farmed. Much of it is banana, and most of the rest is tea or coffee. It creates a striking image, though, as fallow fields or patches about 50’ by 50’ lie directly beside bright green banana trees or dark green tea plants. It all adds up to a quilt-like effect that has a rugged, earthy, cool feel that is in stark contrast to the Namibian desert or the South African bush. It was great to feel moist air on our faces, and we were excited for our rain forest treks. 

We stayed at a place called the Ndali Lodge, which straddles a narrow hilltop in between sloping valleys of farmland on one side, and an obsidian crater lake on the other. The view was sweeping and hillsides just billowed off into the distance like clouds… 

Ndali was quite a long ride into the countryside, though, and 90 minutes of the 2-hour ride from the ‘airport’ was on dirt roads through shanty villages. Kids rode wooden bikes carved in likeness of modern bikes and kicked around stuffed plastic bags instead of soccer balls. They don’t apparently see many cars or white people, though, and stares and shouts trailed us everywhere. You’ll laugh when I tell you that the thing that will resound in my memory the most is the phrase ‘how-ah-yoooo???’ It seems that ‘how are you’ is the first – and sometimes only – English taught in village schools. Most kids yelled ‘how-ah-yoo?’ and waived frantically. Other, bolder ones, yelled with upturned palms ‘how-ah-yoo-geeve-me-mahney.’ Charming at first, but very depressing the 3rd to 1000th times. Finally, some kids yelled ‘mzungu!’, which means ‘white man.’ Adults usually just stared. With respect or resentment we could not tell. Most men were clustered in village centers and most women were found working the fields. Polygamy is the norm in tribal Uganda, and the more wives a man has, the more workers he has to tend his crops. Men spent their time drinking the locally brewed banana wine, I imagine. At first, Cathy and I stared back at the villagers with wide eyes, but soon we found the scrutiny too much and began to feel incredibly self-conscious. After a while, it was very, very difficult to take – the combination of the yelling kids, the begging kids, and the seemingly resentful adults proved too much. We looked forward to getting through the towns as quickly as possible after that. 

Ndali was quite rustic, and there was infrequent hot water and no electricity. It seemed like we spent much of the day in the dark twilight and we really began to adapt into a sun-up to sundown routine. We spent three nights there, and our days were spent at the Kibale Forest, a national park designed to protect the indigenous chimpanzees. It took a period of years, but local rangers had managed to habituate (get them used to humans) a few groups of chimps so we set off into the forest to find them. The most amazing thing about this portion was that the chimps themselves are anti-climactic – they just sit up in the trees eating figs and either urinating or defecating on tourists below. (You learn to look up with your mouth CLOSED. It’s harder than you imagine.) I must admit it was good fun seeing a slow tourist or two run for their lives amidst the raging waters of chimp pee, though. It’s always the Japanese guy that seems to get it, too. You know the one. Anyway, the chimps were just chimps – sitting there and doing not much. Every now and then they’d screech at other monkeys trying to make a foray onto their fig tree, though, and they all screamed like mad over that. The best part of this adventure, though, was the forest itself. Once you step in you feel the thickness of the air increase and you begin to smell JUNGLE, that mix of vegetation, animal faeces, dirt, and decaying leaves and plants. In the fall, after you’ve raked a pile of leaves and left them sitting there for a few days before picking them up, stick your nose inside. That’s how the Ugandan forest smells. Overall, it was quite exciting. We saw all sorts of butterflies, avoided the dreaded safari ants as best as we could (we still got bit, though), and heard all the strange monkey and bird sounds that make up ‘the jungle.’ 

From Uganda we drove (yes, drove) to Rwanda, which proved to be 10 hours of the bumpiest roads I’ve ever encountered. Neither Rwanda nor Uganda spends very much or roadwork. Here’s a simple, random thought: If all the money we poured into health or food programs in Africa were diverted into roadwork, would anything change? Hear me out, here. Think of the old adage: give a man to fish and he eats today, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime. The idea is to make people self-reliant, isn’t it? I wonder what sort of economic impact a simple thing like paved roads would do for these people. Trucks could deliver goods to more remote areas – different foods and products would be available to people who were lacking before. Conversely, new trading opportunities might open up for remote villages as well – their wares and crops might reach new customers. Also, things might operate more smoothly. A 2-hour ride into town might now take 20 minutes. Commuting into town – where better jobs are found – might be made possible in time. Sounds simplistic, but I would have loved to have written a paper on this in college and seen just how far it could be taken. 

Anyway, we feared the border crossing from Uganda to Rwanda, but it all went pretty smoothly. Of course, the guy who was supposed to be manning the customs station had to be dragged out his favorite bar stool or something in order to process us through, but we’d come to expect that. Of note was the burgeoning black market currency trading at the border, and the stupefying fact that Uganda drives on the left (as a British colony) and Rwanda drives on the right (as a Belgian colony). It was really weird to make a switch like that in transit, and I give our driver Deo lots of credit for keeping it all straight in his head. Pretty impressive. 

The main geographic difference was that Uganda’s rolling hills became more sharp and pronounced in Rwanda, known in French as Pay des Milles Collines, or the ‘land of 1000 hills.’  More like mountains, really. Switzerland would gush at such gorgeous peaks. People seemed much the same as Uganda, except for one thing, and maybe this was simply my imagination and predisposition towards Rwanda and its past, specifically the 1994 genocide in which nearly 1 million people were killed – mostly by machete: the place, and the people, felt haunted. Or maybe just ‘sad’ is a better word. It was only 8 short years ago that the Hutus and the Tutsis were at each other, and I swear that there was a tangible sense of ‘bruising’ or tenderness still in the air. People proved quite helpful and friendly, though, and they were quite happy that I could converse in French. For my part, I felt much more comfortable knowing some of the local language in such a place. 

Here’s a crazy side note: on the ride into Rwanda I noticed a Buffalo Bisons (Buffalo’s Triple A baseball club) t-shirt on someone. And then a Tim Horton’s t-shirt (a Buffalo donut shop). And then a Clarence soccer t-shirt (Clarence is a small town outside Buffalo). And then a Buffalo Bills t-shirt. It was wild. My only guess is that the Red Cross in Buffalo must be supplying this area. I couldn’t help but wonder what the Clarence kid who once owned that shirt would think if he/she knew where it was, and how different their life is from the Rwandan kid wearing it – a kid who had a 60% chance of having seen one or both of his parents murdered before his very eyes. 

We drove steadily up and down the mountainsides, carefully avoiding the killer potholes along the way. Ultimately we reached our goal, the Asoferwa House, a simple lodge in the shadow of the Virunga National Park and its volcanoes, the area that Diane Fossey made so famous and setting of the film "Gorillas in the Mist." 

 Asoferwa was quite rustic, and obviously Rwanda wasn’t quite ready for tourists yet. They were still learning. The generator at the lodge was on from 7 to 10 pm, the only time the lodge had electricity. The problem is that it takes 2 hours to fill the hot water tanks, and you have to shower at 9 pm sharp each night, or either shower in the dark after 10 pm, or shower in cold water any other time. We opted for cold-water showers each morning, just to start the day off with a sunny and cheerful disposition. It’s funny, but little things like that can really make travel trying for two people spending 24-7 together for 3 months. Let’s just say Cathy and I almost killed each other in Uganda and Rwanda! We made it, though, and we’re back on speaking terms after Cathy threatened to stay in the hillsides with the gorillas. She claimed they were better company. 

 
The gorilla trekking itself was great. We had passes for 2 days and it was well worth it. The first day we trekked for 90 minutes straight up hillsides and through dense vegetation. Wild celery grew there and that will be the smell I always remember. Gorillas smell like wild celery, too, since they eat a ton of it. The vegetation was so dense, we actually walked on it instead of terra firma. Every now and then your foot would slip through a crack, though, and your leg would drop through. Think about walking on a snowdrift that gives way every now and then. Same idea. Anyway, the gorillas were awesome. One or two brushed right by me and I tensed at their size and intelligence. A lion or an elephant regards you with a blank stare of sorts, but I gorilla looks at you with eyes that say ‘I know exactly who and what you are.’ It was thrilling. The silverbacks (the alpha males) put on quite a show for us, too, as they thumped their chests and pounded the ground (which made our legs vibrate beneath us) as they tried to steal females from one another’s groups. There are 4 habituated groups in the Virunga Park – Subinya, Amohoro, Group 13, and one other I forget. We saw Group 13 and the Amohoro group. Amohoro, I should point out, means ‘peace’ in the local dialect. OK – that’s all for now – my time at the business center has run out. Sorry I type so slow! I’ll try to finish up the gorillas next time and catch up on Zanzibar and Pemba Islands here in Tanzania!

Other random thoughts and footnotes:

-- I forgot about the Bat Cave in Uganda. We went to check out the bats and maybe see pythons and rock cobras feed on them at someone’s recommendation. Only they forgot to recommend a gas mask! Man, bat guano STINKS. The guide giggled afterwards. ‘Good job,’ he laughed. ‘Most people throw up in the cave.’ Thanks for the warning, Smedley Guideman. Could have told me that BEFORE we went in. Anyway, we survived amidst a scent I could only guess can be compared to rotting flesh or something else gruesome, and didn’t even see the pythons or cobras. Lots of moulted snake skin, though. But no snakes. Cathy was relieved. I was bummed. 

-- Southern Africa is bumpy and dusty. Eastern Africa is bumpy and wet.

-- There are two things that seem to exist in EVERY country in the world: Beer and Chinese restaurants. Please prove me wrong if you can, but provide adequate proof of neither existing. I’ve seen Chinese restaurants in some weird places including Northern Ireland, Uganda, and Zambia, and beer is simply ubiquitous.

-- Beers of Africa: 

Castle Lager (South Africa) – yuck. Tons of preservatives. Tastes like Colt 45.

Windhoek (Namibia) – excellent, but ingredients (except for water) actually imported from Germany

Mosi (Zambian) – a great local brew, named after Victoria Falls (Mosi-Oa-Tunya – ‘The Smoke that Thunders’). It has a great tag line on the label: TRULY ZAMBIAN!!

Nile Special (Uganda) – a black label with a leopards face. Was ok, but like all beers, tough to drink warm. There weren’t many cold beers to be had in Uganda.

Bell Lager (Uganda) – see above

Club Lager (Uganda) – see above

Chairman’s ESB (Extra Strong Brew) (Uganda) – see above except for the fact that they weren’t kidding about the ‘extra strong’ – it was 7% alcohol, which I found out as I peeled myself off the table from lunch. It kicked, and kicked hard.

Mutzig (Rwanda) – a pretty good beer, Belgian-style due to the Belgian colonial presence in Rwanda

Tusker (Kenya/Tanzania) – very good stuff. Something like Miller or Bud at home. Great label – all black can with yellow frame around a black elephant.

Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) – another great label: a giraffes head with Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. 

Safari Lager (Tanzania) – my favorite so far. Very cool "Dr. Seuss" label (see below) that includes local village huts and a baobab tree. A simple, tasty beer – just like Miller Lite – nice and crisp.

Bye for now – more soon, I hope!

All the Best, Cathy and Ben