Smash Adventures: Notes on Uganda

Hey friends,

We may be ensconced in Arusha, Tanzania at the moment, but we've still got Uganda on the brain. We took an hour or so over dinner at our campsite in the Serengeti to come up with these stats, facts, and figure about our trip to the Pearl of Africa. Here goes:

Days spent: 24
National Parks visited: Queen Elizabeth, Rwenzori Mountain, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Mgahinga
Books completed: Sweet Tooth (team read), The Three Musketeers (Sasha)
Animals encountered: Elephants, hippos, a lonely crocodile, monitor lizards, duikers, mountain gorillas, red and black colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, waterbuck, warthogs, kob, water buffalo, chickens, cows, the exotic domesticated goat, and about a million different birds. Some of our favorite avian species included the turaco, the Malachite kingfisher, and the green bee-eater.
Best guide: Mohammed at the Colonel Qaddafi Mosque. A fountain of knowledge on the history of Kampala and Uganda, he schooled us as we took in the views from the top of the mosque's minaret.
Best signs spotted: 'AVOID MORNING SEX AFRICA' - spotted across the street from the Nile River Explorers campsite in Jinja; 'King of Love Vampire Clan Unisex Salon One Love' - spotted just outside Jinja.
Best shirts: 'FASHIONABLE MOTHERFUCKER' - spotted on a hike near the crater lakes of Fort Portal; 'Razzle Dazzle Elk Grove Women's Softball' (shirt front), 'Salinksy Orthodontics' (shirt back) - spotted in downtown Kilembe; a tie-dyed, Rasta-fied Obama tee shirt - spotted on the shores of Lake Bunyoni.
Fellow Bay Areans met: Two! Interestingly, neither one was American, and both lived in Berzerkeley.
Games played: ~20 NYTimes crosswords (thanks, iPhone app!), dozens of rounds of Boticelli (most challenging for M to guess: Anne Frank and Pippa Middleton), at least a hundred Rhyme Times (thank you, Daniel and Sonja), one game of Scrabble (Sasha victorious), an unhealthy number of Scramble with Friends games, when we have access to WiFi (Sasha victorious), two rounds of lakeside Bananagrams (Sasha victorious), and a few dozen games of SET (thanks, Alex and Michelle - also, Sasha ekes out a winning record). Though Sasha may be typing this right now, you can verify any of these facts with M.
Best hiking: Rwenzori Mountain National Park. Despite lacking sweeping views - we would have had to do the full seven-day circuit, rather than just three, to reach any summits - there was an interesting diversity of flora, several mini-ecosystems we passed through as we gained elevation, and many lovely birds. Plus, parts of the trail were so muddy that they gave us fun gum boots (see Images 8/9).
Earliest M-suggested bedtime: 7:15 PM, Day 1 of our Rwenzori trek.
Earliest we have ever woken up naturally: 6 AM, every day of our Rwenzori trek. It's amazing what the body's capable of when you've been lying in bed since 8:30 PM.
Most fun day: Tandem kayaking on the Nile in class five rapids (see Images 1/2 below for reference).
Most terrifying days for Sasha: Tandem kayaking on the Nile in class five rapids (see Images 3/4 below for reference) and climbing the treacherous ladders of Mount Sabinyo.
Day where we ended up the filthiest: Climbing Mount Sabinyo. Take one muddy, scramble-y hike up a mountain and add a round-trip 28km motorbike ride on the world's dustiest road, and you get actual muddy rivulets streaming off your body in the shower than night.
Most grueling day: Mount Sabinyo, taking it home again! It would have been totally fine, except we were just coming off an 18km hike the day before and all we ate for breakfast was (delicious but insufficiently filling) plain chapatti. We both ended up dizzy at one point - not a great place to be when you're climbing ladders - but we jammed some nuts in our mouths and it was all better. Usually is.
Food obsessions: 1) Chapatti! Imagine a freshly made flour tortilla, but thicker, flakier, and often dripping with delicious delicious oil. You can do anything with chapatti: roll eggs in it, making a 'Rolex,' one of the best street foods ever; stick bananas and peanut butter in it; dip it in a container of Nutella...the options are all amazing. The best chapatti we found in the country was at Serena's Restaurant in Kisoro, just in case you're in the neighborhood. 2) Stoney Tangawizi. Perhaps the best ginger beer on the planet, and a product of the Coca-Cola company! We're curious as to why Coke is hiding this product in East Africa.
Most crowded minibus: 28 men, women, and a handful of children in a 14-passenger vehicle.
Longest truck ride: 8+ hours, Kabale to Nkuringo.
Worst road: Kabale to Nkuringo, followed closely by Mbarara to Kabale.
Most terrifying boda-boda ride: All of them/especially the one we took through rush hour traffic in Kampala.
Weirdest transit pricing: We paid 20,000Ush to get from a friend's place in a residential neighborhood of Kampala to downtown Kampala, a ten minute ride. Though it was a short trip, our timing was sensitive (we had to be downtown no later than 7 AM) and the driver was reliable, so we paid up. We also paid 20,000Ush for a four-hour taxi ride from Jinja to Mbale. Weird. It is important to note that the expensive taxi had multiple TV screens in it which featured ABBA's best music videos, so maybe it was worth it?
Least successful transportation experience: Biking from the Lake Nkuruba lodge to Kibale National Park (you'll note Kibale didn't make it on the 'National Parks Visited' list). One the way, M got a flat. After waiting forty minutes for the guy who rented us the bikes to get us a new tube, we were on our way! Another thirty minutes later, M's tire went flat again. With another 10km between us and the park, we gave up, which leads us to...
Most lost: We decided to turn our cycling/Kibale adventure into a hike through the countryside back to our lodge. We had a rudimentary map and M's great sense of direction, but that didn't help us on the many, many tiny trails leading through many, many tiny villages. We made it home after a few hours of walking and unsuccessfully trying to bushwhack our way through someone's field of corn. Also, we're pretty sure some of the villagers were wary of us, since we had some serious Pied-Piper action going on. At one point, there was a trail of around fifteen kids following us/jockeying to hold our hands.
And now for the accommodation awards! Cheapest/Best Overall Value goes to the YES Hostel in Fort Portal, Best Food/Fullest goes to Byoona Amagara on Lake Bunyoni (this place is not to be missed), Most Secluded goes to our lodge at Lake Nkuruba (we had a cabin to ourselves a five minute walk away from everything else, right on the lake), Most Expensive goes to the Nkuringo Gorilla Camp ($55 a night!), Emptiest goes to the Simba Safari Camp outside Queen Elizabeth National Park (we had a ten bed dorm to ourselves, and there was only one other person there), Best Sunset goes to the Nile River Explorers Camp (see Vlog 3 for reference), Worst Overall goes to the Red Chili Backpackers in Kampala (the only place we've been legitimately afraid of bedbugs), and Best View/Most Rats Living in the Ceiling goes to the Crow's Nest at Sipi Falls (see Images 6/7).
What surprised us: 1) The kindness of the people. We'd heard Ugandans were friendly, but we were blown away. 2) The lack of other tourists. With the exception of the Nile River Explorers Camp and Byoona Amagara, most places we stayed were empty. January isn't high season, but it was still remarkable. 3) The camping options. Oh, if only we'd brought our tent! Almost everywhere, even the fanciest spots, offered camping on their grounds for around $5 a night. We could have saved a ton while still enjoying high-class digs.
Skippable: 1) Fort Portal and immediate surrounds. If you're headed to the area, we'd recommend going straight to a lodge near a lake or to a lodge near Kibale National Park. 2) Queen Elizabeth National Park. The area was lovely, and it was our first safari experience, but it was also more expensive than anywhere else in Uganda. Maybe not worth it?
What we'll hit next time: Kidepo National Park (the security situation didn't allow for it this time around), Murchison Falls National Park, Mt. Elgon, Kibale National Park and chimp tracking.
Where we'll definitely return: Jinja, Lake Bunyoni, Mgahinga National Park, and the Rwenzoris.
And finally, what we'll miss: The boundless enthusiasm of every child, yelling 'Muzungu!' and 'Howayu?!' every time they see you, even if you're half a mile away; the Ugandan's kindness and the overwhelming feeling that everyone we met was looking out for us and trying to help; the easy, abundant transport options; the wide variety of experiences and landscape the country packs into a small area; chapatti; nonstop mangos and avocado and baby bananas; the feeling of safety just about everywhere; the Nile (see Image 5); Lake Bunyoni; and M wants to give a special shout-out to the many rumble strips on the highway, with which he has a love/hate relationship.