Victoria to Victoria

(This is the last section directly on my trip to Uganda. In the next 24 hours, photos will be added for all sections of the Uganda trip!)

Following relaxation at Byoona Amagara so complete that my DNA began to unwind, we had to once again saddle up and get out of Dodge. After settling up with the friendly staff at Byoona Amagara (which, apparently, is Ugandan for “We will take every last shilling you possess”) we loaded our gear into a motorboat and headed back to Rutinda. While the canoeing option was still available, it had a few drawbacks – firstly, the price was the same as the motorboat for five people, and secondly, we’d have to once again combine our sizeable interest in flatwater transportation with our minimal interest in gardening… spades do not excellent paddles make. Besides… the motorboat allowed me to feel the wind whipping through my sunburn, which is about as pleasant as ironing your feet.

Once at Rutinda, it was a simple cab ride back to Kabale, where we were to catch the 10:00am Horizon bus back to Kampala. This seemingly non-complex procedure was, as you should be able to gather by now with regards to my travel, needleslly complicated. Ronnie – who is, to be fair, generally quite a good organizer – insisted that we be dropped off at the Horizon Bus yard, where the man he had spoken to on the phone insisted we need to meet him. The cab driver, on the other hand, was almost equally adament that we needed to be dropped off some 900 meters further up the road. Ronnie, being the one with the money and the louder voice, won and we were dropped at the yard.Naturally, the cabbie had been right.

To be fair to Ronnie, he had been told to meet at the yard. Further still, it is a very common occurance in Africa that the cab driver/motorcycle taxi rider/fellow who follows you asking for money says they know something, then stops to ask every passer-by on the street whether or not this is, in fact, still Uganda that we’re in and would they happen to know where the bus station/bank machine/north is. Besides, it was a pleasant morning, we had plenty of time, and having lazed around for 3 days, we could probably use the walk.

I, on the other hand, was down to 3 US dollar bills and a Nile Special beer bottle cap, which had the cominbed purchasing power to be able to buy me one ninth of a loaf of bread. Thus, while the others breakfasted on egg rolled in chapati, I discovered that ATMs in Kabale, Uganda don’t open until 9:30am… and when they do, they don’t accept the Cirrus network… and when both of those conditions are met, the bank machine suddenly shuts down as you reach to put your card in, and stubbornly refuses to yield any money, no mattter how hard you punch the wall or yell at the buttons. On the plus side, a friendly man armed with an AK-47 escorts you out of the booth, so you know at least someone is paying attention to  you.

Somehow, at 9:55, the ATM right beside the bus (which I had initially tried before walking the kilometer back into the town centre) decided to work right before I left. I celebrated by cheerily cursing the immediate queue of 12 people in front of me, all of whom had brought their 23 closest friend’s bankcards, and stared at the dizzying array of numberpad buttons like they’d only just been introduced to the numeric system. After bemusedly pushing buttons in a haphazard fashion, they would shake their head, remove their card, replace and try again. Eventually, sheer persistence paid off and each person departed clutching a stack of notes thicker than a hockey puck. The Ugandan shilling isn’t worth an awful lot, so it takes a lot of ’em to get something.

I scrambled onto the bus shortly before it decided to leave without me, and settled in for the ride back to Kampala. I had agreed with the ticket seller shortly after boarding that we would be permitted to stop at the Equator markers en route. Considering that the bus routinely stopped for bathroom breaks in fiels, the purchasing of goat meat on sticks and police checks every 50 meters, it didn’t strike me as unusual that they should accede to my request… especially when I hinted that I may be willing to financially compensenate them for the loss of time.

Of course, when we got within a few kms of the Equator, the driver decided that stopping would be impossible, since we were “way behind schedule” and “it wasn’t allowed”. I attempted to point out that every bus in Africa I’d ever ridden was so far behind schedule as to be nearly back on schedule, provided you ignored the date, but this fell on deaf ears. Of all the people with authority I’ve met, it just had to be the only one who wouldn’t take a bribe was the only one I needed to. So I had to sulk and grumble in my chair as I watched the equator monuments go whizzing by out the window.

Back in Kampala, we returned yet again to Kampala Backpackers, where we were to stay our final night in Uganda. We checked in, Ronnie and I went and got tickets for the following day on Kampala Coach (bringing the total number of bus lines used on this tour alone to five: Bobby Shuttles, Scandanavia Express, Gateway Buslines, Horizon Buslines and Kampala Coach) and then retired early to our respective rooms.

The next day was a freebie until our 2:30pm departure from downtown Kampala – Ronnie was off, under the watchful eye of Becky, to bungee jump into the Nile. I considered this, but decided that I had neither the money nor the inclination to hurtle myself from a tower into turbid waters below, while on Ugandan safety standards. MaryLou and Cliff decided to shop Kampala. I considered this, but … no, no I didn’t. That left me on my own with a few options: try to catch a minibus-taxi to and from the Equator monument, some 75km away; visit the UNESCO World Heritage Sight of the Kasubi tombs with its ambitiously priced 10 000Ush entrance fee; or take a bodaboda (motorcycle taxi) to Ggaba, a fishing port on the famed Lake Victoria, with the added advantage of having a nearby geocache.

For those of you who saw the magic word ‘geocache’, you guessed right!!

So boda-boda I did, and found myself walking along the busy waterfront of Ggaba. There were piles and PILES of driftwood, neatly stacked and ready to be made into useful things like palettes and floorboards and ‘genuine ebony carvings’. I also found a number of gentlemen following me along as I ducked in and out of piles of stinking fish and swarms of massive marabou storks (ugliest. bird. ever.). I suppose it was a little unique for them to have tourists – especially ones who were clearly white. Thus it was that I found myself at the end of a pier, talking to Dee and George about various things. This includes (honestly): the largest countries in the world by size, population, population density and quality of life; why I should start a family; my brother Cliff who worked for Kamapala Police (okay, so I was little nervous); and – again, honestly – the current Chinese practice of growing rice on the moon which was to be ended by the “thieving Americans”.

Curiosity regarding the waterfront of Lake Victoria more satisified than I ever could have predicted, I dipped my running-shoe clad toe into the murky, billharzia-happy waters, snapped a quick photograph, and then took off for Backpackers, where no one tried to convince me of astrological agriculture… which, honestly, was kind of disappointing.