The Wonderous Wanderer: A Kabale tale

In order to break my feelings of discontent I thought I’d share a little flashback story to a better time. Kabale. South-Western Uganda. I had to go down there a few months ago from Kampala for a week to help some Slovenian girl with a project for Edirisa, the information booklet on the Gorillas and Kisoro region. Little did I know when I told my dear friend Marianne that I was going to go down that it would be one of the best weeks of my life. And “that” Slovenian girl would turn out to be one very cool chick and dear friend. Tjasa.

Marianne with the evidence

Marianne the Muganda Superwoman!

I’ll start with Marianne’s super human strength. There we were in the Edirisa apartment getting ourselves ready to head into Kabale town and meet Tjasa and prepare for the busy trip to Kisoro. I was in the icy cold shower washing my hair when I heard a squeal from Marianne. On trying to open the front door (and only exit) to the apartment she over-exerted herself and snapped the key off in the lock. Leaving us trapped inside. With meeting already planned and a deadline to keep we did not have the time to spend trying to get out. And neither of us had airtime to call Nelico at the Home for him to come rescue us with the spare key. After about a half hour of getting dressed and laughing at Marianne the Super-Muganda-Woman my super powers of escape kicked in. With the marvellous idea of calling out to the construction workers below us from the balcony, we could get them to put a ladder up to the second floor and we could climb down, go about our day and get the key later for our return. What we didn’t encounter is that the workers didn’t speak English or Luganda or Swahili or Spanish so between us and them nothing actually happened other than a lot of hand signals. So while I was standing there signing that we needed a ladder to climb down the next door neighbour came home and let us in through his apartment and out his front door. Problem solved and the rules from then on in forbade Marianne from using keys ever again in my presence.

The Kabale-Kisoro-Bunagana-Kyanika Road

So they’ve almost finished the damn thing. It’s only been 3 years. The first leg of the journey with Marianne, Tsaja , myself, an American girl, one sick lady and ten horny men jammed into a matatu (mini-bus) for the most part was uneventful. Aside from the men constantly hitting on us and having to stop for the lady to throw up and the extreme overcrowding it was rather pleasant. That is until you reach the Impenetrable Forest and the Forest before that one but I can’t remember its name, beautiful scenery bumpy arse dirt and murrin road enough to get you panicking about the height you’re at and the steepness of the hills. The close proximity of the tyre and the edge and the guys telling you stories of buses that go sliding down and no survivors made me slightly uneasy. So reaching Kisoro was a blessing. I even didn’t mind having to explain that I didn’t want to give the guy on the mat my number because I didn’t want him to call me. Standard apology and excuse issued to standard old creepy man pick up line delivered.

The best coffee in Uganda

Is in the most random place ever. Kisoro! It’s right down the bottom of Ug and within walking distance to Rwanda and Congo. Well I suppose that depends on your idea of walking distance. But it’s a few clicks, not far. We tried various types of coffee to test the Kampala barista’s skills and I tell you from a long black to a latte this guy has what it takes. Kisoro is the gateway to a lot of cool things, gorillas, monkey, home to the Batwa organisations which provide non-exploitative trails that I’m hoping aren’t as weird as the ones that I’ve been on. It seems to me that a lot of people dismiss Kisoro but I know that when I get back to Ug, Marianne and I will spend a week relaxing at the lakes and walking with the Golden Monkeys. After all of our research we went back to the greatest coffee place in Uganda and had juices and sandwiches, we’d coffee’d ourselves out and had a long ride home.

So many other things happened on that trip, we had fun at the markets, I got drunk at Match & Mix, we made new friends and hung out with old ones. I really enjoyed my week with Marianne, who I’ll write more about late as she’s an interesting English/Muganda lass and I got to spend time with Tjasa who I absolutely adore. So below are some photos of our little trip down south so I don’t have to keep writing.