Kampala to Crater Lakes: Turn right and straight on for three days

It’s taken a total of 10 days to get from Kampala, via Fort Portal and Kabale, to the Rwandan border. We have had superb cycling and met some fantastic people. Its difficult to do justice to everything Ugandan has thrown up for us, so between Rick and myself we’ve tried our best to summarize it.

As dawn broke across Kampala, we struggled to push our bike out of Emily Lewis’s drive. We were both rethinking our loads and possible mileage for the day. The city, thankfully, remained relatively empty and we made a quick exit via the ring road, successfully negotiating our only turning for the foreseeable future. It was a case of “turn right at the roundabout then straight on for three days”. Bar a few friendly lorries, and some less friendly buses, the road started and remained quite quiet.

Much of what lay ahead was an experiment; where would we eat, and sleep? How long would it take us to get places? One thing that became clear early on was that the heat would play a big role. By 11am suffering from early sunstroke , we dived into the nearest village. The heat was compounded by the road, without gaining much altitude we had a continuous 5 minutes up, 1 minute down cycle.

As any Ugandan will tell you, food is characterized by the banana, whether it’s yellow or green, or mashed or roasted. For lunch that day we settled for a banana stew. One under-represented food we were recommended, and continued to have every day of the trip for our mid-morning snack, was a Rolex. Double egg omlette (maybe with some tomato or onion) rolled in a chapatti – the food of champions and if anyone is looking for a business idea for export, look no further.

Local bikes heavily laden with Matoke

The highlight of the first day was undoubtedly being stopped by a man on a motorbike. He demanded that we both take 1000 Sh (40p) for water. After 5 minutes of bringing him to the verge of anger, we convinced him that if he put it in his Sunday collection, it would somehow make its way to us in the long run.

We camped that night on the crest of a hill above Lake Wamala, as Ugandan legend has it the site of the origin of man. Nambi, the daughter of God, started a family on earth, on the shores of Lake Wamala. Her mistake (as with Eve) was to disobey her father, when she returned to heaven to get grain for her chicken. There she met her brother, the spirit of disease and death, who followed her down to earth and has stayed there since… For us this disease spirit came in the form of mosquitoes. While in the night they were more of a nuisance than a bother, when we emerged from the tent in the morning and looked behind between the fly sheet and inner there must have been hundreds of them! Luckily however, they seemed not to be the Anopheles, malaria carrying species.

Having covered 85km the first day we needed to make some ground if we were to make the 300km to Fort Portal in three days. We were helped by some cooling early morning mist but by 11am this had burnt off and we again dived for cover. Luckily, some early cloud cover allowed us to start out at 2pm (rather than 3:30 the previous day), and make up ground.

The town and villages we passed and snacked in were generally linear trading centers, reflecting that most of Ugandans live off subsistence farming. In general the land is well watered and fertile, and farming is mostly a case of just sowing the seed and taking in the harvest. Uganda’s main exports; coffee, tea and tobacco, are all agricultural, and it supplies grain to S Sudan and the DRC. The Government believes that agriculture is the key sector to provide growth within the country. Like many sub-saharan countries this reflects a lack of economic diversity, which leaves the country so susceptible to variations in price and weather systems. One opportunity has been the recent discovery of oil around Lake Albert, however embroiled in allegations of multi-million dollar bribes and the lack of a regulatory framework which prompted the oil companies to go to the international court of arbitration, the likelihood of seeing any oil before 2015 is unlikely. In addition, the environmental impact of many of these economic policies is painful, for example deforestation of the Congo eco-system for charcoal, agriculture and bushmeat is a huge problem. It is something that we need to think critically about in developed countries, as a recent letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister, outlining the hypocrisy of their Climate Change and Investment policies highlights.

Our second night campsite was, fittingly, on a patch of ground recently slashed then burned. In the misty early morning over looking the remaining forest, we watched a Ugandan Crested Crane calling from the top of a tree, accompanied by Ibis and Colobus monkeys, hopeful that these forests can be retained. The early start that day put us in good shape to reach Fort Portal and we were helped by cooler temperatures as the road wound its way through the foothills of the Ruwenzori’s, culminating in a 20 minute stinger of a hill. The final 30 kilometers rolled through verdant tea estates and, for a short section, through Kibale National Park where we got our first glimpse of some black and White Colobus monkeys and a stunning Long Crested Eagle.

The beautiful scenery surrounding Crate Lakes

Described as one of the more attractive towns in Uganda, Fort Portal is the capital of the Toro Kingdom and is reputedly one of the possible hideouts for Gaddafi, as he has a special relationship with one the ladies in the Toro Royal Family. After a hearty lunch we felt more inclined to move on to our next days rest destination, Lake Nkuruba. It is one of a series of steep sided crater lakes nestled in amongst the forest. The decision was well worth it as we were greeted by a resident group of colobus and a refreshing swim. We spent the rest day around the lake, doing a few washing chores and relaxing in the company of, at one point, three different types of acrobatic monkey.

The local monkeys showing off their athleticism

It’s difficult to finish without mentioning the children and politics of Uganda. Children, mainly because wherever we went we found them in large numbers, whether it was cycling through a village with kids shouting “Mzungu” (white person), through maize fields when a head would pop up with a quick shout, or seeing them streaming down the valleys towards the road, again shouting “Mzungu”. The birth rate of 6.3 (2009) is clear to see, and represents the huge unmet need for contraception in Uganda. (Also incidentally represented by the number of backstreet abortions – illegal otherwise in Uganda, which contribute 16% toward maternal mortality). And Politics because of the towering figure of Yoweri Museveni who will, should he reach the next elections in 2017 in place have ruled the country for 31 years. An incredible feat which leaves opinion divided within the country over the merits of his continued rule, but with half of these struggling to find a safe democratic place for their voice.