Day 172: Fort Portal back to Kampala

When planning out this trip, I totally underestimated how long it would take to get from Point A to B. Generally, it seems in Africa, one needs an entire day to get from one city to another regardless of how close it may be. When we left Kampala for Buseesa, I knew it was only about four hours to get there, but didn’t even consider we would have to wait just as long for the matatu to fill up before we could leave Kampala. Fortunately, we arrived to the bus station in Fort Portal just in time and were one of the last people to board the bus back to Kampala. The ride itself was uneventful. Except for, maybe, the stops in between where dozens of vendors clamor up to your window hoping you’ll purchase some of their grilled bananas (yum) or perhaps a chicken on a stick.

Arriving in downtown Kampala- a first for us- was anything but uneventful. Fortunately, our hotel was a short walk away and we were able to be amused by the chaos rather than getting swept up in it.

Worn out by another day of travel, and gearing up for another matatu stint tomorrow, we stayed close to our hotel. We snuck out for dinner. Chips Chicken (fried chicken with french fries) yet again and I began to wonder when the next time I would come across a salad would be. Oh fresh baby greens, how I miss thee!

Day 171: More crater lakes

We were told the crater lakes were a twenty minute walk or so from where we were staying. Turns out, the village market was a twenty minute walk and the crater lakes were another twenty (maybe more?) minutes after. At least we decided not to go by bike. Lots of ups and downs on a bumpy dirt road would have made the trip unpleasant. Instead, we walked, mingled in the market, kept a hungry cow company at the edge of one of the lakes, and Andrew scared a handful of schoolchildren by pointing a camera at them while we were walking back towards our campsite and awaiting banda.

I have never seen children run and hide so quickly. It felt a little Wizard of Oz-ish when they reappeared creeping out from behind the banana trees to walk with us again.

The market was a little surprising. It wasn’t that big for being labeled “third largest” in Uganda. It also didn’t have nearly as much of a variety as we had hoped. We wanted to eat lunch in the market (as our place didn’t have the best food) but the only food that appeared to be for sale was bananas, tomatoes, and some other vegetables in pretty stacks in front of their vendors- but not exactly what we were looking for.

We took a few pictures of the market, but had a rather difficult time blending in, so we didn’t stay long and made our way further down the road to check out the other crater lakes. Along the way children waved and a few ran out to the street to greet us. A young teenager had been walking with us for a bit and told us they were asking for their picture to be taken. I obliged, and they were delighted seeing themselves on the camera screen.

The lakes were pretty, but not what we were expecting. Our whole trip to Fort Portal wasn’t exactly what we were expecting, but it was a nice calm after the journey to get there and what we were expecting as we tried to return to Kampala. We debated going to Lake Bunyoni- but I had had enough lake action, so we had a quiet night before heading back to Kampala the next morning.

Day 170: Crater Lakes outside of Fort Portal

So really, there is nothing in Fort Portal to do. There’s not even a Fort. And it seems that not even Wikipedia can give me an explanation of why there is a ‘Fort’ in its name. There is, however, quite a bit to do outside of the city, or so we were told. We headed for a campsite with bandas (small thatched-roof huts) near the crater lakes for a couple of days.

Getting out there was the most interesting part of our day, really. We took boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) to the matatu (shared bus taxis) stop. And then, we waited. Luckily, this matatu was a car and we only needed to wait for two other passengers to show up, instead of waiting for up to fourteen to fill a van. An hour or so later, four of us were squeezed into the backseat and two were squeezed into the front passenger seat, and we were on our way. The older Ugandan man who I was scrunched up next to pointed out different things along the way. The school. The health clinic. Maybe a few other things I can’t remember right now… It was really sweet, except he was only inches away from my face as we were scrunched next to each other and spittle landed on my face (lips included) every time he pointed something new out. I had a brief respite when the other older man crammed in the back didn’t seem to care for the audio tour and they argued back and forth until I smiled and said that I really did appreciate hearing what was where.

Once at the campgrounds, we had a late lunch, put in our order for dinner (fried chicken that tasted like they had started cooking it then, even though it wasn’t served for three more hours) and then we hung out on our front porch of our ‘cabin in the woods’ on the edge of one of the crater lakes.

Colobus monkeys danced around the trees above our cabin all afternoon. Can you see it’s white bushy tail?

When we walked back down to our cabin in the woods after dinner (about 400 meters into the woods) I was so jumpy and scared thinking that some zombie redneck torture family was going to reach out and grab me that I refused to let go of Andrew’s hand. Then I got him so jumpy when we went to sleep that I might have had him momentarily convinced something was in our cabin that we had to investigate under all of our bags and the bed and then I made him turn off the outside light so any lurking stranger dangers couldn’t see that we were in the cabin for the night. And don’t even get me started on going to the bathroom- a steep climb in the opposite direction from the campsite. I peed off of the front porch instead of even thinking about attempting that night climb into the wilderness on my own. I made Andrew stand outside with me while I took care of business. He made me do the same. It was that scary.

Day 169: Buseesa to Fort Portal

The Sisters warned us that we might have to wait for a matatu (shared bus/taxi) for possibly two to three hours. We headed out before seven with the expectation of sitting for several hours and waiting for a ride. But, I’m pretty positive all of the Sisters said a little prayer for us because when we arrived to the junction, a truck had just pulled up and we happily squeezed in. It was extra bumpy, but we made it to Mubende and after a short twenty minutes we were on the bus to Fort Portal.

The ride was uneventful, yet beautiful and we were in Fort Portal earlier than we had planned. Not having arranged a hotel for the night, we had a short standoff in the bus parking lot until we agreed to jump in a taxi (whose driver wasn’t being as pushy as the rest) and as we pulled out onto the road, we simply asked him to take us to a hotel. Of course, he takes us to one we could not afford. We stop by another before giving directions to one Andrew had read about online. This was all within a 2-3 kilometer radius. Not far between stops. At all. Yet, when we climbed out of the taxi… his fee had doubled. This is what visitors call the “Mzungu (Swahili for white person) price” in other words, a price that is not asked of native Ugandans. Andrew laughed. I argued that it was too expensive, but we were tired, and annoyed and not really in the mood to fight. We paid, and then took a nap before walking across town to a guesthouse TripAdvisor said had good pizza, and called it an early night.