Back in Mbarara

After a rather epic trip from Arusha to Mbarara, I arrived back in Mbarara on Monday afternoon. The trip started once Liz left Stonetown on December 31st. We’d arrived in Stonetown the previous afternoon and spent our first hour in that beautiful city going to three separate banks trying to find an ATM that was in service so we could pay the cab driver. Once we checked into our beautiful hotel room we were able to wander about and take in the beautiful mazey (yes, it’s a word) streets reminiscent of the medinas of Fez and Marrakech. The Arabic influence was so different from what I’d experienced in Kenya and Uganda that it was funny to think we were still in Africa. Everyone was very friendly, offering to sell us shirts and art and offering to guide us around Stonetown (for a small fee of course). Enjoyed a most beautiful sunset from the restaurant on the roof of our hotel before we were kicked out to make way for the paying customers. Spent the next morning wandering the streets and watching Liz abandon all caution trying out as many different types of street foods as she could find before her flight back to civilization. I think she gained 5lbs in two hours (darling, if you happen to be reading this, please ignore that last).

Had a sad farewell at noon as Liz went to catch her plane (heard later that she spent 2hrs in 30C heat waiting for the plane to leave) and then headed off in search of the cheapest hotel room on Zanzibar. Two hours and a lot of walking later settled on a $15 room near the port with an AC unit that sounded like a freight train and a neighborhood that made Hell’s kitchen look boring (never actually been to hell’s kitchen, so I have no right to compare).

Celebrated New Year’s with a bunch of kiwi’s I’d met the previous evening and partied ‘till the wee hours of the morning (well, 1:30am, yes I realize I’m getting old). Managed to get 4.5 hrs of sleep before catching the 7am ferry ride from Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam. I’d heard Dar was boring so caught the first bus I could that was bound for Moshi. Pulled into Moshi around 9pm at night, but was happy to report that after the first four boring hours, the scenery changed to the beautiful Usambara mountains (in my heart, I still consider the Rwenzoris to be coolest mountains I’ve seen in Africa, but that could be because I’d spent over two months on their foothills).

I wasn’t sure what to do in Moshi other than gaze appreciatively at Mount Kilimanjaro, so I decided to climb it. As I didn’t have the time or the money, I went for one of the day hikes up one of it’s flanks. The 4hr hike took me up to 3,000 metres and through a few different ecosystems of jungle and giant heather (and cost me $90). Pretty cool ecology and it made me wish I’d just taken the plunge and went for the full five day hike. But I didn’t have time, I had a date with gorillas.

Only I didn’t. Tim, my boss in Acts, called me as I was heading up the mountain and told me there’d been a grenade attack in Kigali near the genocide memorial and a second grenade had been thrown into a nearby nightclub. Despite neither Canada nor the UK changing their travel advisory, Acts didn’t want me to go to Rwanda. This was depressing for two reasons. One, I wouldn’t be able to see the primates in the “best place to see Gorillas” and second, it seemed to be a sad state of affairs for Rwanda which had been a bastion of peace when I’d visited in September. But now I’m thankful I’d at least been able to spend some time in that country.

So in my depressed state I packed up and headed to Arusha for a change of scenery. A 1.5hr very cramped bus ride later and I arrived in the tourist fly trap of East Africa. My god, all the locals are trying to strike up a conversation to sell you something! Give me the tourist backwater of Uganda!

However, one of the bright sides of rampant tourism industry is the abundance of restaurants, so I was able to satisfy my noodle cravings at a Japanese restaurant for lunch and a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Headed to the airport the next morning on the chance I could fly back to Uganda. Couldn’t, but I did manage to get a seat on standby to Mwanza which is on the shores of Lake Victoria. From there, I managed to get on a little 21 seater to Bukoba, on the other side of Lake Victoria. On the plane, managed to befriend the headmaster of a school located halfway between Bukoba and the Ugandan border. So I weaseled my way into a free ride halfway to the border which was a delightful little town in the middle of nowhere where the infants flee at the sight of a Muzungu. So nice to be back in the stixs. Next morning managed to get into a minibus/matatu (re: minivan), to the town of Kaisho. These matatus are about the same size as a modern Westphalia VW van, but with four rows in the back each of which seat three people for a total 18 people in each vehicle. Matatus are the main form of public transport in East Africa and I am happy to report that I was in one that managed to get 30 people and 5 children into it, a new personal best! I traveled for 2 hours with a five year old on my lap, which started out as cute, but rapidly turned to painful as my legs slowly went numb. That record was continued with my next form of transport which managed to get 11 adults and 2 kids into a Honda civic for the 2hr trip to the border. It was one of the lesser traveled border posts and so I walked into Uganda unchallenged and had track down the border guards to get stamped in. Took another 11 person/car trip from the border to Mbarara, stopping once to let the driver bribe a traffic cop to let us continue with 11 people in the car. Bribe cost; $3.

Have now been back at work for the past two days and right back into the roving swing of things. Acts is now pushing us hard to get a third project around Mbarara, but considering we’ve spent the first 3.5 months in Kasese, this seems slim. Still, we’ll give it our best. In the meantime I’ve managed to get a line on a free gorilla spot in Bwindi. The downside is that I’ll have to give $550 USD to a guy in a parked car and hope the receipt he gives me is legally enforceable. So I’ll either see the gorillas in a week’s time or have made a very large charitable contribution to Mbarara’s underworld.