Malaba --> Jinja --> Kampala [Paul departs] --> Masindi --> Butiaba --> Wanseko --> Panyimur --> Arua --> Lira --> Sipi --> Kampala
Another border, another crapsho- no! Wrong! Wow, what a difference a change of attitude makes. The border staff were fine, of course, with one at the Uganda side of the border who was leaving work as we exited showing us to a hotel (we had crossed just after sunset after confirming that there was an ATM on the Uganda side of the border). Arriving at the Kenya exit hut a money changer approaches us and offers us a good rate (only 4% commission, compared with the c10% which is normally charged by freelance changers). Deal done, no bullshit. A hotel with a friendly manager with good prices actually listed in writing and, the next day, a matatu driver who quotes us the correct price (the one the locals pay) first time; no negotiating, no bullshit. I love Uganda.
Our first stop was Jinja, home of the source of the Nile, and ground zero of east Africa's adventure sport industry. White water rafting is done here, including through grade 5 rapids (very hard work), one short of grade 6 (you will die). It's also home of the Nile Swimmers, a small band of plucky locals who, for 5000 Ugandan shillings (about US$2.70), will jump into the river above the rapids with a plastic jerrycan for company and ride the rapids sans raft. According to Lonely Planet not all of the members of this unique club are still with us for reasons we can all guess. One can also do a bungy jump from 45m above the Nile and, if they've measured you correctly, touch the Nile. We eschewed all this (money: always the money) and instead camped in the grounds of the delightful Timton Hotel for a price considerably less than one of their rooms. It turned out that we got a great deal. For nightlife, such as it was, we went to a nearby backpacker hostel and indulged ourselves there.
For non-adventurers there's not too much to Jinja: the town is small but pleasant, there's a small golf club that passes as a well-looked-after paddock, and there's the source of the Nile itself. However, like all things touristy, there's a price: 10,000 Ugandan shillings (US$5) in this case so we stood on the brick wall of an empty section back from the entrance and took photos from there. I later met a chap who had paid to enter. His verdict: “It isn't even worth 1000 shillings.” Apparently the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, whose ashes were scattered there, was not to be seen and the only benefit of entering was to read a plaque proclaiming that this was indeed the source of the Nile.
Arriving at Kampala, we checked into the Backpackers Hostel. After a little while exploring Kampala town which is distinctly large and void of tourist sites Paul decided to fly home for family reasons; however just before he did so he started experiencing symptoms of what was later diagnosed as kidney stones. After several weeks it was confirmed: an ultrasound follow-up at 12 weeks post-op means the absence of my travel partner for a while.
As it happens the Backpackers Hostel has a high concentration of mazungu, more whites in one place at one time than I can remember seeing for the last 6 months or more combined. In the meantime, I found some friends and took in Kasubi Tombs (burial place of the Buganda kings), Ssezibwa Falls, and a night of cultural dancing at the Ndere Troupe Centre.
In the run-up to Christmas I formulated a cunning plan: to head to Lake Albert – because it's there – and then meander back to Kampala by looping around Murchison Falls National Park. First stop: Masindi, a small but pleasant town but one which was covered with dark cloud. No reason to stay so after a quick tour for photos I left the next day arriving at Butiaba, a small fishing village on the shores of Lake Albert. It is small with very limited services but wow: great scenery and great weather. As an aside, the Bradt guide to Uganda (which I found lying around Backpackers Hostel, Kampala and read) notes that Butiaba used to be a commercial port of great importance (starting from about 80 years ago); became a landing site for seaplanes traveling between Cairo and east Africa in the 1930s; formed an important supply point for bits and bobs heading to the nearby filming location of Bogart and Hepburn's 'The African Queen' and has also had more famous visitors than me. Specifically, one Ernest Hemingway visited Butiaba after a jaunt to Murchison Falls. Bradt describes his visit to Butiaba:
“The American writer Ernest Hemingway and his fourth wife Mary Welsh arrived there on 23 January 1954, somewhat the worse for wear after a bruising trip to Murchison Falls. The day before, their chartered Cessna had dipped to avoid hitting a flock of birds, in the process clipped a wing on an abandoned telegraph wire and forcing a crash landing in which Hemingway dislocated his right shoulder and Mary cracked several ribs. The injured passengers and their pilot spent the night huddled on the riverbank below Murchison falls to be rescued the next morning by a boat headed to Butiaba.”
Could it get worse for Ernest? You bet. Bradt continues:
“At Butiaba, Hemingway chartered a de Haviland to fly him and his wife back to Entebbe the next morning. On take off, however, the plane lifted, bumped back down, crashed and burst into flames. Mary and the pilot escaped through a window. Hemingway, too bulky to fit through the window and unable to use his dislocated arm, battered open the buckled door with his head to emerge with bleeding skull and a rash of blistering burns. The battered couple were driven to Masindi to receive medical treatment and spent several nights at the Masindi Hotel. On 25 January 1954 the Daily News broke the news of the accident under the headline 'Hemingway Feared Dead In Nile Air Crash'. A spate of obituaries followed before it was discovered that the writer had survived, if only just.”
“Hemingway had, in addition to the dislocated arm and several first-degree burns, limped out of the burning plane with a collapsed intestine, a ruptured liver and kidney, two crushed vertebrae, temporary loss of vision in one eye, impaired hearing and a fractured skull. In October of that year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature but was too battered to attend the ceremony.”
It seems I need to 'man up' and get some proper travel souvenirs!
Anyhow, I digress. Butiaba is the sort of place where you need a good book to get you through the day. However thanks to the miracle of technology, specifically satellite TV, the weekend's evenings becomes a football festival thanks to the reception of the English Premiership via a South African sports channel direct to large TVs positioned around dingy, unlit shacks packed with excitable local men. If you do come to this part of the world tell everyone that you're an Arsenal fan: that's who they support.
Butiaba is, albeit not exclusively, also home to a breed of longhorn cattle. The important adjective here is long: their horns are massive to the point where surely they are a hindrance. Check out the photos. It was also, at the time, home to Carl, an ex-Pat pom who's been there and done that all over Africa and pretty much every other part of the world several times over. He'd just come through Sudan (including the allegedly but not really dangerous southern Sudan) following the Nile upstream to Lake Albert. Good for tips and hints. As a Liverpool fan, however, he was the only person in Butiaba to be disappointed to watch Arsenal come from behind to win 1-2 at Anfield.
After a couple of days in a Ugandan paradise I headed north to Wanseko a town that is distinguished by being even smaller than Butiaba. Like Butiaba it is a fishing town but unlike Butiaba I actually saw plenty of evidence of this: lots of fish being dried (often with ducks and chickens wandering all over the catch picking out bits), fishing nets being repaired and fish (and sometime meat) being smoked in large earthen ovens. I stayed there overnight, spending most of my time with a local shopkeeper called Fred – sharing the shade outside his shop - who was incredibly friendly and, in between serving his many customers with cooking oil and paraffin showed me around and regaled me with conversation.
The next day I took the free daily car ferry (operated by the Uganda National Road Authority) across the Nile to the town of Panyimur. When I say across the Nile this isn't exactly true: whilst the total distance between Wanseko and Panyimur is about 11 kilometres the ferry makes a journey of 39 kilometres up then down the Nile to avoid crossing the mouth of the Nile directly and catching all the turbulence and debris which comes out. I can be sure of this fact because I met the ferry operators at a pub in town and shared some beers with them. Anyhow, after three hours squashed under a hot tin ferry roof I was glad to get out and find some liquid refreshment. What can I say about Panyimur? Not much really, it's even smaller than Wanseko although I met a pharmacist who gave me a mini-tour down to the market area where his fisherman brother works. Apparently, according to pharmacist-cum-tour guide, a Nile perch's swim bladder is cut out, dried and then sold to Japan for US50 / kg. For what use? I dunno. The rest of the meat is cut into very thin strips and sun-dried for the weekly market.
After one night in Panyimur I was ready to leave and took the local pick-up service to Nebbi. It was all off the beaten track through small town, rural Uganda and quite an enjoyable ride. I ended up sitting in the cab after a young child – perhaps 3 years old max – was deposited into the back tray by his parent / guardian, took one look at me and proceeded to bawl his eyes out. I know that I was the cause of this discomfort as he occasionally stole a glance at me, wailed even more and buried his head into someone. As an aside, some children can be genuinely scared of mazungu (presumably because mazungu are quite obviously strangers) but none have reacted quite like this.
I didn't stop in Nebbi, a dull town, and instead headed straight to Arua a market town and a supply town in the far northwest of Uganda. There's nothing special there although it's large enough to have important things like a library, a decent market (especially good if you want engine parts and hardware) and home to a golf course (to accommodate the large number of NGO workers who work in DR Congo but live in Uganda, I was told). I settled down at the delightful Honest Guest House and spent my time wandering the markets, did a short walk out of town, pottered around the golf course (there's a road through the river and the scenery ain't bad) and finally found a Ugandan flag to photograph for my online album cover. Disaster strikes: I then got stopped by security for photographing a police station; I didn't know it was a police station because the sign above the door said 'River Ari'. I ended up inside having a chat and they were happy with my explanation; it turns out that being so close to DR Congo makes them a little jumpy especially as the Uganda-originated Lord's Resistance Army (which variously operates in south Sudan, northeast DRC and Central Africa Republic; wherever they're not being chased by the Uganda Army) could be lurking nearby.
I also read after I left Arua that it was Idi Amin's home town. I didn't see a statue of him anywhere.
After a few days in Arua I decided I had to leave; I still had about five days to spare before heading back to Kampala for Christmas so decided to tack on a visit to Sipi Falls in the interim. First I zipped across northern Uganda to Mbala, stopping overnight in Lira. The scenery was flat with scrub, the towns looking pretty much the same. No loss there. Sipi, however, was something a lot better.
On the foothills of Mount Elgon, the wee town of Sipi sits amongst banana palms, gardens and farms all wedged onto the various volcanic plateaux. It affords stunning views of the plains below and, if you camp and Moses' Campsite (run by Moses), you also get A-grade views of the falls themselves. Actually, Sipi Falls is a series of three falls which drop over various ridges and cliffs; however, Moses chose well and his camping site is perched on a grassy outcrop overlooking Sipi 3 (the lowest of the falls but the one with the biggest drop, just over 90m). I spent three days there, walking around the various falls and to nearby towns and had a great time.
Christmas comes: I'm back in Kampala which is notably cooler and a lot cloudier than anywhere I traveled to over the past two weeks. It rains all day on Christmas and most of the day on Boxing day, brightening up as New Year approaches. Will the break in the weather continue? Find out in the next blog update.
I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and will have a great New Year.
Cheerio, Stephen
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