After fishing around, I went onboard a splendid travel idea: go to Uganda (the border is just 25 kilometers from where I live) together with my colleague Joseph and his roommate Innocent. Both of them were born and grew up in the Mbarara region, as children of Rwandan Tutsi emigrants from the 1960s (when the “first genocide” occurred here). So yes, savannas in their backyards, and history in the making. Plus the promise of loots of cold beers and amazing clubbing scene. Sounded very promising, right?
And it certainly was a crazy weekend – from the roads, to the driving, to the music. Now that I am an expert in African matters, I can certainly draw comparisons.
I have been warned, to begin with, that I would be shocked at the sight of dust in south-western Uganda. I didn’t want to quite believe it, since I had seen “the worst” in Congo, but I was soon rebuked in my beliefs (NEVER take anything for granted in Africa!!!) Basically, the road for most part is this pot-holed red-sandy soil, which, given the dry season, is constantly changing consistency. When a car (and even worse, a truck) bypasses you, you really feel like you’re being pushed off the course, whilst trying to make some sense of direction in this HUGE dusty cloud that hangs over for minutes. Since I was in the passenger’s seat on a left-wheel-car in a country where they also drive on the left, the image of these trucks coming directly at me and overtaking like crazy (NO RULE is the rule) was actually quite scary. Add to that the POUNDING music in the car (we had this one CD with Ugandan hip-hop and house music that we played for three days straight, at top volume), and yes, it was INTENSE.
The guys took turns at driving (I refrained, thank you very much), and drinking, and for most part they also remembered which side of the road the traffic was on (not always, though, which was OK, apparently because everyone else was driving as they pleased, crossing each other from all directions, cutting lanes, overtaking FREELY.) The heat unbearable, we would stop every hour or so to get cold beers and wash the dust off – and yes, even to see Chelsea-Manchester in a road-restaurant, at some weird afternoon hour. I was warned from the very beginning that corruption being so high in Uganda (unlike in orderly Rwanda), traffic police would be the least of our worries.
We did have an eventful encounter, though, on Saturday morning, on this actually good road that goes to Kampala. We stopped at some random village corner and picked up this guy, whom I later understood was Joseph’s brother. All I knew of him was that he owns large cattle herds and is a feared poacher at the side (funny family, Joseph the ultimate conservationist, his brother the ultimate poacher). The guy (also Innocent), takes the wheel and starts off very confidently, on this road along which all of a sudden zebras and antelopes started showing up (yes, I know, WOW!). What also showed up was this very professional-looking Ugandan traffic-police-patrol: three very black guys dressed in very white, shiny uniforms. They pull us over, and come towards the driver in a frenzy. They order him to stop the engine, give away the keys, and show his driving license – which he cannot produce, since he doesn’t have any! At that point, I am thinking, does this guy do anything legal in life?! Not that much, of course, since everyone rushes out-of-the-car and start bribing the police, to let us go. Nothing THAT weird for me, as a Romanian. What I found funny, though, was that we left, some half-an-hour-later, with the same Innocent driving, in full-police view (his claim was that if he now bribed the men, he also earned his right to keep driving without a license?!?).
He was a completely amazing guide, though. For the rest of the day, he drove us through only-God-known savanna paths, in the middle of wildlife herds. I simply could not believe what I was seeing – vast, desolate, scorched lands, without any mzungu tourist interference. Just incredible, wild animals, mingling with farmers’ even-more-amazing Ankole-Watusi cattle. The treat of the night would be at Innocent’s very remote house: the BEST goat meat I have ever had, grilled under a huge cactus tree. Innocent’s wife was just beyond herself at the sight of a white person (she said she didn’t even know how to imagine one.) She held my hand and felt my skin all evening long. With my other hand I became quite good at maneuvering the famed poaching knife. Next time, I can see some illegal hunting going on (ha!).
As for the clubbing scene – I left it mostly to the guys. At 2 a.m., when they were ready to head out, I was kind of ready to turn in. Unluckily, my mosquito net did have some holes in it (which I tried the best I could to mend, but since power was out and everything was pitch black, I didn’t do that good a job). I am now counting some 5 bites (granted, some of them are ‘my fault”, since on the third night I forgot to put repellent on), so yes, testing times ahead… But who cares, right, when I had the most amazing experiences, in the savanna, and then at beautiful Lake Bunyonyi (the resort is manicured just like a Swiss resort).
On the way back, I did push it a bit as well. Some two weeks ago, I had heard this phenomenal story from an American guy: he was coming down from Uganda to Rwanda, but his taxi-driver made a mistake and dropped him off instead at the Congolese border. Unaware of what he was doing, he started crossing on foot, until he saw a sign “Welcome to ZAIRE!” (!!!!) and realized he was not going to the right country. When he eventually showed up in Musanze and told me this story, I was SOOO taken with the idea of the “ZAIRE” sign that yesterday I also wanted to cross that border ‘by mistake” as well. So we drove off some 30 kilometers, through banana fields and dust clouds, just to come to this other side of Uganda. Of course I got into trouble – first of all on their side, where I lied that I just needed to go across for five minutes and collect some paper from a guy ‘waiting for me’ in Zaire (ha!). They didn’t quite understand, but they did let me go, closely scrutinized by this guard. The Congolese, though, were very unfriendly (even if I do have a DRC visa), and kind of wanted money, until a Rwandan came to my rescue and “understood” I had made a border mistake. Unluckily, I could not see any ZAIRE signs, so now I am thinking that either the American lied (kind of hard to imagine you’d come up with such a crazy story out-of-nowhere), or I actually did go to the wrong-wrong border crossing. Or, who knows, the Congolese will have realized in the last two weeks that their country name had changed some 13 years ago?!
But yes, now that I am back to peaceful Rwanda (AND THAT IS A FACT), with Ugandan house music all over my brain, I am ready for “normal life” again: forest, gorillas, GREEN!!!
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