Road to Queen Elizabeth National Park

It's 11am when I leave my room at the University Inn to try to grab some food. Maybe some breakfast leftovers. We went to Vision Empire last night and it was fun, maybe too fun considering I had to drive for 2h. Pidson, our guest for the weekend, has already arrived and everyone is waiting for me. Not surprising.

We sort of rented a car to a friend with Pidson’s and it was a lot better than I expected, a Toyota Hilux Surf. Whatever that means, it was roomy and tough, just what we need to drive around the park and face the poorly built Ugandan roads.

Our ride, a Toyota Hilux Surf

The road to QENP is gorgeous. Vast tea and banana plantations and beautiful lakes lying in the middle of tall green mountains. We could be in Switzerland if it wasn’t for the potholes, the traffic of bikes carrying the most amazing amounts of bananas, or the aspect of semi-built houses by the side of the road.

Tea plantation

Banana plantation by a lake

Banana bike

Village by the road to QENP 

Driving in the middle of Uganda gives me a different perspective of the country. Mbarara is not exactly shinning and organized but it’s definitely a lot more developed than the villages I see in the countryside. In Mbarara, and hanging with URI people, everything seems to be moderately fine.

Traveling out of Mbarara is a reality bath, just like it is watching the local TV. Commercial don’t try to sell you cars, electronics or shampoo. They try to make you boil the water you drink, to bury your trash, to use a condom, or to stop ‘being’ with underage girls. Apparently these campaigns are effective but new problems arise all the time. As AIDS prevalence decreases among teens and young people, it increases among married people. Why? Because men cheat on their wives without using a condom and they can’t use one when they go back home and have sex with their wives, as it would be too obvious they cheated. So they need new campaigns to make people use condoms when cheating. How about that as a commercial?

On the way to QENP we stop to take some pictures. Two kids approach us riding a bike. I expect them to ask for some shillings. They don’t.

- ‘Do you have a pen?’, it’s their only request.
- What do you want the pen for?, it’s the obvious question
- I want to draw

Nothing more is said, I don’t insist either. I look for a pen in my bag and find one. He smiles. How sad is that when a country can’t provide you the most basic learning tools? And this kid is not an illiterate. He speaks English, something you only learn when you go to school. And he wants to draw. I’m sure he also wants to learn.

The kid who asked me for a pen

Queen Elizabeth National Park

‘The Park occupies 1978 sq. kilometers’. Eddie, the ranger we hired to guide us around the park, would mention this figure every five or six sentences, perhaps to emphasize the size of the QENP. No need for that. Coming from Mbarara, we crossed the mountains surrounding the park and we could see the endless valley with the Rwenzori Mountains far away on the horizon. Rwenzori was the original name of the park, but that was before 1954 when Queen Elizabeth II came to Uganda and decided that her name would be a better choice.

The Queen Elizabeth Park

Emily, Pidson, Sarah and I at the main gate

Our weekend safari started with a boat ride on the Kasinga Channel. Ugandans claim that the Kasinga Channel contains the largest concentration of hippos and from what we saw they are probably right. The 2-hour boat ride was productive: water buffalos, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, antelopes, warthogs, and a large amount of birds including fish-eagles, pelicans, storks, and a bunch other that I don’t know the name.

Elephants, hippos and buffalos mingling by the water

Herd of water buffalos

Hippos resting with pelicans

Lots of hippos and buffalos squeezing in the water

The Mweya Lodge was our next stop to grab some food and find accommodation. The lodge is the most luxurious place I’ve seen since we arrived in Uganda and that left me thinking about the bubble that tourists live in when they come to Africa. That will be subject of another post. US$110 was the price to stay at the lodge, whereas the neighboring hostel charged USh30,000 (US$15) for bed and breakfast. The only issue was that they were ful booked so they could only accommodate the five of us in the entrance area. US$95 were worth the sacrifice and so we stayed at the more interesting Mweya Hostel.

The Mweya Safari Lodge...

... and the Mweya Hostel

Andres hanging with warthogs in the lodge's backyard 

The Mweya Lodge is the typical place where white tourists come to pretend they are in Africa without actually being in Africa. Western comfort, Western food, decent prices for Western standards, and the inevitable ‘indigenous’ music and dance show by the bonfire so they can have pictures that look like Africa. The lodge served the most expensive meal I had in Uganda yet. USh40,000 ($20) doubles my previous record at the most expensive place in Mbarara. Western cheap, Ugandan exorbitant.

Very African? Bonfire and 'indigenous' dance

It was 6am when my alarm buzzed reminding we had a game drive scheduled with Eddie, the ranger. Eddie was promptly waiting for us at 6.30 and we left with the promise of spotting some leopard and the unique climbing lion, which just like the name says, is a lion that climbs trees like leopards do.

Eddie, the ranger, in the middle of us

We can’t complain about Eddie’s promises. We first saw hippos doing their morning walk to the water. Later, after herds and herds of antelopes and buffalos, Eddie shouts ‘Leopard’! We all look left: where? There he was, imperceptible under a cactus tree. We suggested a closer look but Eddie discouraged us, ‘he will run away, leopards don’t like company’. We then tried to spot Mary, a female elephant that is a regular visit to a local fishermen village. Eddie asked the kids around the village but they hadn’t seen Mary for a few days. All of the sudden Eddie receives a call. ‘Someone spotted a lion’. Eddie takes us to the spot. There are four other cars trying to spot 'the king'. She, a female lion, was resting in a cactus tree. The problem was that the tree was pretty far away from the track and off-road is prohibited. Well, nothing that Eddie can’t solve ‘just let these cars go away’. The excitement grows as Eddie goes off-road and we approach the tree. We can now perfectly spot the lion, lying in the middle of a cactus tree with their typical aristocratic look as if we weren’t there. As Eddie starts driving around the tree we can see she’s following us. Finally, she opens her eyes and slightly her mouth. Good enough. We are super excited. There is no way she’s going to climb down since it’s not hunting time yet. Mission accomplished.

Warthog sniffing

Antelopes staring

Female elephant, not Mary though

Leopard saving a good distance from us. Can you see it?

Lion in cactus tree

For the rest of the day the highlight is a herd of elephants that we ran into on our way out to Mbarara. Several elephants cross the road and halt their march staring at us as we stop to take some shots. We are literally 2-3 yards away from them but they don’t move. Patiently they wait for us to go away and resume their march to the lake. Time is obviously not a problem for them.

Elephant staring at us

Part of the herd waiting for us to leave

Closed for the weekend

This blog is closed for the weekend. We are headed to the Queen Elizabeth Park to do a safari. No hot water until Monday. I hope to have good pictures. Meanwhile, here is a picture from today's lunch break. I called it 'Cow Truck'.

Mbarara University Inn

Our base camp in Uganda is the University Inn, located in Plot 9 on the road to Kabale Road. The personnel is extremely nice and diligent and the services include manual laundry, laptop guard, and cheap beer.

The entrance of the University Inn

Some of the rooms

The reception

The room rate, 40,000 Shillings or approximately US$20, includes a clean bug-free room, 2 beds with mosquito nets, running water, television, closet, and breakfast. Some of the luxuries not available to everyone include hot water, toilet seat and bath mat.

Unfortunately you can’t choose the luxuries available in your room and so Sarah and Andres got a room without hot water or toilet seat, and Emily got one with intermittent warm water and unstable ceiling. Fortunately, the ceiling collapsed when she was outside so we now have some cool pictures and no injuries to report.

The collapsed ceiling

And the mess in the room

My room is sort of a presidential suite, 4 times bigger than my room in Boston, and with all the frills plus the company of a lizard that stares at me every night from his spot in the upper corner. I believe the lizard is the reason why I don’t have any mosquitoes flying around in my room. The lizard and me have a pretty good relationship, I tell him good morning and good night everyday and he responds changing color and eating mosquitoes. I would say it’s a promising relationship.

The door to my kingdom

Inside the room

This extremely important switch allows me to have a hot shower everyday

The University Inn has also a cool patio where we hang out everyday having a beer and playing cards or domino. 0.5 liter of beer costs 2,000 shillings or US$1, very cool.

Breakfast is good. Coffee, Tea, passion fruit juice, bread, jam and butter if you’re lucky, pineapple, watermelon and another kind melon, plus eggs a la carte. This is all included in the room rate. The toaster’s on button doesn’t hold for more than 20 seconds so in order to toast bread you need to stand-up next to the toaster and after 10-12 hits you get the bread toasted.
I’m still trying to negotiate the laundry rates. They charge 1,500 shilling for a pair of boxers and 800 for a pair of socks, which is far more expensive than the wash and fold service I use in Boston. The problem is that here they hand wash everything but Peter, the receptionist, told me he could give me a good discount. Let’s see how good it is.

Food in Uganda

Food options in Mbarara are reduced to chicken or fish, they say it’s tilapia but it doesn’t taste like tilapia. Or at least not like the South American tilapia, the only I had before I came here. They catch it in local lakes, including Lake Victoria, and that might explain the difference in taste.

Chickens here are extremely skinny, so skinny that stews look more like bone stews and when fried you get more fried flour than actual meat. But they are tasty. As far as I could see, fish or meat are luxuries than not everyone can afford. We always pay a premium for chicken or fish so most locals eat rice, potatoes, matóke, chapatti and avocato. Avocatos are abundant and grow everywhere, almost like a weed they say, which is great for them since it’s such a caloric fruit.

It’s hard to find anything other than fried chicken, fried fish, chicken stew, or fish stew. The goat meat barbeque was an exception but goat is a more expensive meat. Well, we always have the option of going to the upscale hotels and eat western-like food.

Chicken stew

Fish stew

But the local food is the real experience. One of the most popular dishes is Matóke, mashed green bananas fried in a sort of thick patty shape. The matóke can also be served in the regular banana shape, in that case they just fry or grill the banana. The matóke is not very tasteful but with some sauce it’s a great side. We had it with a tomato and onion salad or with stew and it’s great. Matóke is so popular because bananas are abundant here. So abundant that they pick them either green for the matóke or ripe for desserts. Everyday we can see several trucks fully loaded with bananas, I still didn’t have the chance to shoot one but as soon as I do it I’ll post the picture.

A couple of days ago, at the university canteen, we had Biñeuá. I don’t know how to spell it but it’s how it sounds in Runyankore, the most popular language in Mbarara. Biñeuá is a stew made with a sort of local aubergine. It’s the perfect partner for matóke and they eat it as a sauce since it’s so rich.

Another popular side is chapatti, a corn-made sort of tortilla or crepe, thicker than Mexican tortillas and also tastier. They dip it in the stew or Biñeuá and it makes a great side.

Matóke on the left, Chapatti on the right

Hopefully there’s more to come about local food. I’ll keep looking for something other than chicken and fish.

Daily commute

Leave the University Inn

Turn left into the goat path before hitting the road

Go all the way through the pinneaple and corn field

Climb the small dirt hill

And turn right into the main road

When you see the dumpster on your right you're really close to URI

Walk 50 meters and you'll see URI banner. You arrived at your destination

Socializing in Mbarara

Pidson, Evelyn and the team eating goat meat barbeque

Pidson, a guy that works at URI, invited us for dinner. Goat meat barbeque at a place down the road from where we’re staying. Sounds good so we have a plan for the night.
The place is really local. Inside there’s a bunch of people around a pool table and a bar. The weather invites to stay outside and so we do.

Pidson wants to take us to a club in Mbarara. Friday is apparently the best night in town and we can’t miss it. We talk about our plans for the weekend, about going to the Queen Elizabeth Park, and he suggests we should get a car and drive there. Even better, he can find a car and come with us. That sounds cool because driving in Uganda didn’t look easy, maybe even too risky for beginners like us.

As we walk to our hotel Pidson says

- This is a good place for weddings; a lot of people get married here. Oh actually, a friend of mine will get married this weekend. We can go.
- What do you mean ‘we can go’? Crash the wedding?, I ask
- Yes, there’s no problem. You don’t have to be invited to go to a wedding here

Well there’s a great thing to know. It sounds like we might just crash a wedding this weekend and then go to the Park on Sunday.

First day at the office

Sarah with one of the tailors

Emily, Joseph, myself and Sarah

First day at work. Yesterday we were introduced to everyone and we scheduled for this morning a conference call with Irene, the CEO of the organization who we briefly met in Kampala.

The 5 minute walk to the office is made through the middle of bushes, pineapple and corn fields. That’s our way of escaping the dusty main road. The office is a cute house and it’s a lot fresher than I could expect for a place without air conditioning.
As I could probably anticipate, the picture they made in the US of the poor work conditions here was exaggerated. They’re obviously poor when compared to a top-notch company in the US but they’re definitely decent. The internet connection is fine, slow but perfectly ok to check email and navigate through most websites. The only problem is that the four of us have go share two connections.

We use a cell phone to call Irene since someone took home the only phone with conference call capabilities. Funny. The conference call is not of great help, they have very few answers and it appears that we have to build a strategic plan from scratch. That was not exactly planned but we’ll see.

The day at the office ends at 5pm. We go to town to run errands: phone card, groceries, a soccer ball that we forget to buy. I understand what it feels to be a minority. We’re the center of all attentions wherever we go. We enter what it looks like a street market. A lot a men with sewing machines tailor suits and dresses on the street. That might explain why and how people look so groomed here.

Joseph, a phone card seller, runs to us. He wants to sell phone cards but we already bought ours. It doesn’t matter, he just wants to know about us: where are we from, what are we doing here, when are we leaving.

- I want to visit all your countries, he says

Cultural clash?

You know you’re in a totally different world when you hear radio commercials like this.

Three women talking:
W1 – I don’t know what to do. I just got tested HIV positive.
W2 – Don’t panic, you should go to a doctor and start medication right away. I was tested HIV positive a few years ago and my doctor is optimistic.
W3 – However you should have been tested earlier. I was tested HIV positive very early and my doctor said that was crucial to save my life
W2 – Yes, being afraid of HIV is not a solution. Visit your nearest clinic and get tested. Early diagnosis can save your life.

Later when we got to Mbarara we saw these two gigantic banners by the side of the road.

Ugandans don’t bullshit, the message has to pass whatever it takes.

From Kampala to Mbarara

Arriving at Mbarara

The Equator Line

Selling couches by the side of the road

The strident buzz of my alarm at 6.30am sounds like a nightmare. We are supposed to leave at 7 for Mbarara. As I try to come to life I hear music coming from outside. Gorgeous music, like a dance, with rhythm and great singing. I wonder where that comes from. A bird maybe inspired by the music gives me the good morning with a compassed melody (C - G - G - A♭). The breakfast, served in the patio, is impressive: eggs, sausage, beans, meat, potates, vegetables, toast.

It’s 8am and we’re still eating. We meet Irene, our host, at the reception. Time for some discussion about the project but everything is postponed to a conference being held tomorrow at 9. We are informed that we might have to come back to Kampala for a couple of days to meet URI’s board.

Moses is our driver today. The negotiations for the ride are tough. It’s a 4-hour ride to Mbarara and they charge $250. The problem is how much we should pay upfront. Irene says $50, they want $125. Then there’s a problem about the receipt. How will they write it? One here another in Mbarara? Everything now? We end up paying $250 upfront to speed things up and get into the van. It’s 9 and we’re finally leaving the Mosa Court Apartments. Moses stops for gas and we take a closer look around. The city is very polluted. According to Moses 16 million people live in Kampala. The many cars we see expel a dark smoke leaving a black trace behind them. Although roads are very dusty, people walk around dressing really neat, men with button-down shirts and slacks, some with tie, women with dresses, usually long dresses with shinning colors.

The ride to Mbarara is not different from my ride yesterday, maybe slightly more organized, as there are fewer cars on the road. Moses is a master in invading the right lane and turning left at the last moment when you think you’re crashing. Yes, I said the right lane because these guys drive on the wrong side of the road, damn British heritage. We stop in the Equator line for some pictures. I look around and everything is green. Messiah was right, the land looks fertile. I see a lot of fruit and vegetables stands along the road and the several kids I’ve seen until now look good.

We arrive at Mbarara at 1pm and go directly to the University Inn, the place where we’re going to stay for the next 3 weeks. The rooms are basic but look clean. It’s time to rest. Tomorrow we’ll start at 9 with a conference call.