Video Log 13: Mount Sabinyo, or How We Added Rwanda and the DRC to Our Itinerary

Video Log 12: GORILLAS

Words aren't necessary here. Enjoy!

And, for your viewing pleasure, one minute of a gorilla eating leaves. Way better than watching paint dry.

Video Log 11: This Is What Nine Hours in the Back of a Truck Will Do To You

Oh, the backpacker lifestyle. We're obviously trying to save money wherever we can on this trip, given its length and some hefty expenses (ahem, $500 for a permit to track gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest). As a result, we sometimes make interesting (M would say 'awesome') travel choices, like opting to load ourselves in the back of a truck with around forty Africans and a couple hundred pounds of flour, fruit, booze, firewood, sweet potatoes, and other sundries to get ourselves to the far edge of Bwindi, many winding miles away on rocky, unpaved roads. The usually-accurate Lonely Planet let us know of the existence of said truck (the cheapest option to get to Bwindi, departing Kabale Tuesday afternoons) and also said the journey would take four hours. M and I, ever the intrepid travelers, thought, 'Doable,' clambered into the back, and tried to settle our bottoms as comfortably as possible on the exterior railing of the truck bed (M) and on bags on lumpy potatoes (me) for the 240 minute journey. We were definitely the only muzungus in sight.

When we pulled ourselves into the truck bed, a wonderfully cheerful and chatty guide from the camp we were headed to happened to climb in as well. We got to talking, and an hour or so in I asked what time we could expect to arrive - rather, my numb bum was wondering and my lips did the talking. Since we got on just after two, I was expecting an answer in the 6 to 7 PM range. Nestor, our new friend, grinned widely and said, 'Oh, it may be 8 or may be 9 or may be 10 PM!' Shortly thereafter, the truck, which was already extremely full by American standards, added another fifteen people and several huge rolls of firewood, boxes, and giant sacks of goods. Sure, we've ridden in minibuses intended for 14 passengers carrying 24, but this was a whole new standard of crowded. In the friendliest way possible, everyone jockeyed for space for their feet, elbows, knees, and children. People fell asleep with their cheeks resting on strangers' backs/thighs/arms. At one point, I tried pulling a toddler who was awkwardly squished under his dad's legs into my empty lap (note for context: kids here get passed around to strangers on public transport CONSTANTLY) but he saw my relatively pale skin and immediately burst into tears, to the great amusement of the 13 people seated within two feet of me. (Note for context: this same child later fell asleep on my thigh, in almost the same spot where his tears had fallen earlier.) Nestor's brother, who happened to be on the same truck, smiled and said, 'This is Africa.'

Several hours later, after nightfall and several stops to offload/onload goods and passengers - we had to disembark every time the grade got too steep, walk top the top of the hill, then repeat the amiable competition for space when we got back in - we made it. Not to our camp, but to 2 kilometers away from our camp, which we decided we could walk to faster than the truck was moving. We beat it there by about twenty minutes. At about 10:30 PM, having traveled about 80 kilometers, we rolled into our VERY fancy-by-our-backpacking-standards safari tent digs and used what energy we had left to make this video. We hope you enjoy it, almost as much as we enjoyed our afternoon on the truck. We may have been sore, dusty, and tired, but we got to experience some spectacular countryside from our slow-moving, open-top ride, make a handful of new friends (we actually just missed a call from Nestor today, a week later!) and reconcile with a child we'd previously moved to tears. It doesn't get much better than that.

Video Log 10: Beautiful Lake Bunyoni, or How We Discovered M Has Schisto

Video Log 9: Sasha Deals with the Munchies

In my normal San Francisco life, I always ate six or seven meals a day, add compared to M, whose diet was far more regimented. As a result, although M is much bigger than I am and generally eats much more, I'm the one constantly on the prowl for our next meal.  Here's how I deal! Apologies for the nonstop boobage; M was filming. 

Video Log 8: Queen Elizabeth National Park

We spent two days at the end of last week at Queen Elizabeth National Park, immediately after our three day trek in the Rwenzoris. No lions, tigers, or bears (oh my!) to be seen, but we did see elephants, dozens of hippos, water buffalo, the very-attractive African warthog, and some spectacular scenery.

Video Log 7: Adventures in Ugandan Transport

There's nothing like riding in the back of a pickup with a freshly skinned cow.

Video Log 6: Monkeys at Lake Nkuruba

As it turns out, we'll really only be able to upload videos every week or so in Africa, so you'll be able to 'enjoy' several at once (if you call watching our impromptu ramblings enjoyable, that is).

Here goes our first of the series, taken about a week ago at our lodge beside Lake Nkuruba.

Video Log 5: Fort Portal

M and I have spent the last two days just outside Fort Portal, which, despite its name, is not a destination in a sci-fi novel. It's a lovely small town in Western Uganda which serves as gateway to some beautiful crater lakes and Kibale National Park. (M would like to add that it's just south of Lake Albert, which was created by the Albertine rift. World's cutest nerd.)

We're not sure when we'll have a reliable internet connection, so here's our latest video log (the first we're not posting days after the fact). Enjoy, and if there's anything you'd like to see or hear more or less of - i.e. more attractive scenery/coordinated dance routines, less of our boring faces - just let us know. We're pretty sure we'll be connected again by the 26th, perhaps earlier.  Until then!

Love,
S & M

Adventures in Ugandan Cuisine: Video Log 4

Short and sweet (unlike matoke). Here you go!

Video Log 3!

Whoa. Two posts in a day. Crazy.

Best of all, we finally worked out embedded video!

Love,
S & M

Vlog 2, and Notes on Sudan

Hello, world.

Apologies for the delay in updates, but M and I have been deprived of a stable internet connection (and in some cases, electricity) for the past week, more or less since we arrived in Uganda. While there's lots to say about Uganda, let's baaack it up for a moment and recap our time and the wedding we attended in Sudan.

We arrived on the evening of the 26th, and after a reasonably confusing multi-step process to get our visas, we were greeted at the airport by Ira, one of M's closest friends from home. After they hugged and Ira gave me a polite tap on the shoulder - Sudan is ruled by Sharia law - we retired to the lovely German Guest House, our home for the next week. Many of the other guests arrived at some point in the middle of the night, and by the next morning, our happy group of 12 non-Sudanese (Ira's family and a handful of friends) were together.

For context, there are three parts to a Sudanese wedding: the religious marriage, the legal marriage, and the cultural marriage. The religious and legal portions of the marriage were taken care of last summer, and we had all been invited to the cultural marriage, which is the most wedding-y portion. The first event, the henna party, was the following day. All the females were shuttled to the home of one of the bride's relatives, leaving the men behind, since the henna party is the equivalent of a bachelorette bash. We ate, danced, met many members of the bride, Rihab's, family, and listened to three women sing traditional songs and drum. Several hours later, Rihab emerged looking gorgeous; she wore a traditional Sudanese toab, which looks much like a sari, and was covered in gold. 

Another hour or so later, Ira arrived with the men of our party in tow. Ira and Rihab danced together (Ira's go-to move involves snapping his raised right hand with a huge, goofy grin on his face) and then the henna part of the party began. Women generally receive a floral pattern on the back of the hand or top of the foot, where men usually get large circles on the palm of their hands, and sometimes stripes across their knuckles. M got the circles, and because he had to wait at least forty-five minutes for the clay to dry, he spent a lot of time looking like Fred Willard from 'A Mighty Wind' ("Wha happened?") and/or a beggar. 

Henna, brides bedecked in gold, and sari-like dresses are all things I previously associated exclusively with Indian weddings, but they're equally a part of the Sudanese tradition. Two days later, I was equally surprised to find that the actual wedding felt almost totally Western, with the bride wearing a white dress, the groom in a tuxedo, a cake cutting, DJ, etc. However, there are some very real ways that a Sudanese wedding is different than its American counterpart:

• The guest list generally tops out around 1,500 - 2,000 guests. Ira and Rihab wanted a more intimate affair, so they invited only 250. Side note: Videographers projecting a live feed of the bride and groom are mandatory because it's totally likely that you might never run across them during the reception.
• Typically, around 700 of the wedding guests will be family. Yes. Seven hundred. Do you even know 700 people? We didn't think so. Unless you're M, and you know 1,200 people, at least on Facebook. One of Rihab's many, many cousins was describing her relationship to another wedding guest to me, and she said, "Oh, she's my first and my second cousin." What? The nuclear-family-minded American simply can't wrap his/her head around it.
• In order to throw a party in Khartoum, you need to apply for a permit with the police. This way, they're aware of the time/location of everything going down in the capital, and can pop in at a moment's notice to bust partygoers for alcohol, indecent dress, etc. Unfortunately, 'indecent dress' remains undefined, so they can penalize you for whatever strikes their fancy.
• The permit specifies that all amplified sound has to shut down at 11 PM. Since wedding guests often don't show up until 9 PM or later, it makes for a brief reception. Time is also a pretty loose concept at weddings (and in Sudan in general) - most wedding events started an hour or two late, and guests arrived within a two hour window.
• Speaking of sound, Sudanese DJs like to turn the volume to 11. If you can hear the person speaking next to you, you are not at a Sudanese wedding.
• There's a robust blend of tradition and modernity. The bride and groom arrived in a VW Bug covered with flowers - pretty adorably modern - and were then led to the reception by a team of three traditional singers and three dancing women (see above). After the three drumming singers at the henna party wrapped up, a DJ started playing Drake and Beyonce.

Between the two events, the non-Sudanese wedding party took a trip to the desert four hours north of Khartoum to visit some pyramids from the kingdom of Meroe (see Video Log 1), and on New Year's Eve the whole group took a sunset cruise on the Nile. While we were meant to depart for Kampala at 2 AM on January 2, our flight ended up being canceled, and we had a bonus day in Khartoum. Cue Video Log 2!

If you didn't gather from watching that video, M and I were at a roadside juice stand, and who should happen to roll up as we were filming but Ira and Rihab. Khartoum might be a big city (over 5 million people) but that night, it felt small. Next up, look forward to more news from Uganda, the Pearl of Africa.

Love,
S & M

P.S. Internet connection is too slow to load many pictures. We'll wait until we're at an internet cafe. Thanks for your patience!

Khartoum bridge at sunset

Our group at the pyramids of Meroe

One more Nile sunset