Into Uganda

Ruhungeri was a nice spot to stay, another very typical African town, populated by lovely friendly people. I left in the morning on a relatively comfortable minibus to the border at Cyanika. This was real nowhere-land. On the Ugandan side of the border, the immigration office was shut as the officer had apparently gone for his breakfast. I sat down for a wait.

From the border to Kisoro the only available transport was a boda-boda (motorbike taxi), so I clung on as the driver, balancing my pack on the handlebars, negotiated the rocky, rutted road. I was still doing quite well for time, so decided to try to push on to Kabale. The minibus (now back to being a matatu rather than a daladala), spent the best part of three hours cruising and tooting through the tiny town to pick up more passengers before setting off. The road to Kabale was stunning, steep and rough, clinging to the hillsides as it snaked round and over the mountains. If i'd felt in any way safe, I'd have enjoyed it immensely. But of course, in a seriously overloaded matatu, negotiating a road more suited to 4x4 vehicles, driving often terrifyingly close to the edge of the roads and the precipices it bordered, my mind was taken up mostly with other thoughts.

Kabale struck me as a dismal spot. Rubbish lined the streets, in huge reeking heaps. Children demanded money (to say they begged would imply a measure of asking), boda boda drivers responded rudely if you didn't require their services. In what could have been a small green "square" on a pile of slightly burning stinking rubbish, two cows grazed on smouldering newspaper. In a nice little backpackers' cafe, two American tourists (who would never call themselves tourists, but travellers) engaged in a lengthy and loud conversation which would best be described as "competititve travel", each had 'done it better'. This apparently invovles claiming not to use the Lonely Planet, but knowing everything it says and generally being above doing anything that tourists might do. But of course, listening to them, they were just like every other traveller, but with bigger egos. I hadn't seen another mzungu for days, but kept quiet when repeatedly invited to join the competition, simply explaining that I'd just arrived and hadn't been anywhere yet.