Okay, very sorry for not updating the blog in a very long time. I'm going to post two updates in a row right now so I can finally get caught up to present on my travels.
After my adventures in the Congo and with the Gorillas, I spent a day in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, getting ready to head out to Uganda. Kigali is an amazing city. Modern, picturesque, nice people, with clean(er) air than most capitals I've visited so far.
When traveling in Rwanda, you have to be careful about asking personal questions. With the genocide in the so-recent past, many Rwandans have immediate family who were killed. I'm not sure what is was about that night, but I met two different locals who nonchalantly divulged that their parents had been killed in the genocide. I certainly wasn't asking questions to get them to share that, but it happened anyways, and it definitely reminded me how priveledged I am to live in a country where our home soil is relatively safe.
In the morning, I began my journey into Uganda. I was very glad that I had Albania and Kenya to prepare me for this kind of travel, because it's not the easiest or most comfortable, to say the least. I went to the old taxi park in Kigali, which is a huge mass of buses and cars and matatus waiting to depart, each one with a tout screaming their destination and trying to get you in their vehicle. Eventually I found a car that was headed to the Ugandan border, and crammed in with 5 other people. The car only broke down three times! Great victory. Finally, when we got to the Ugandan border, and I walked across, got my visa, and continued over, I found a second shared car that thanfully decided to work all the way to Kibale, the town closest to my destination of Lake Bunyoni.
After a thrid car form Kibale to the shore of Lake Bunyoni, I was feeling throughoughly ready for a beer. Lake Bunyoni is a very big, warm lake with hundreds of small islands. The place I was staying at, called Byoona Amagara, shares half of it's own island in the lake with a local tribe. Byoona Amagara does a lot of community projects with the money it raises, and has already built two schools for local tribes on neighboring islands. I decided I would take a dugout canoe that I hired from the shore to Byoona, thinking it would be a nice way to see the lake. I didn't realize that it was going to take two hours to get to the island, and that the dugout paddler expected me to row as well.
The view of Lake Bunyoni from the dugout canoe....
Oh well, it was a good way to see the lake, after all. Byoona was great to relax for a couple of days since I was still sore from Nyiragongo and gorilla tracking. The rooms were cheap, hostel-style, and they had an amazing kitchen with cheap, delicious meals. Bunyoni is one of the only Eastern Africa lakes that it's safe to swim in as well (no parasites, no crocs, no hippos), which makes it an even better destination. Needless to say, I didn't want to leave after just a couple days, but I felt like I needed to keep moving forward. I figured out when I was going to climb Kilimnjaro while I was in Bunyoni (August 9th!), and I had a lot more to see before then!
I met a group of really nice travellers while I was in Bunyoni, and they were headed to Kampala the same day I was. We all decided it would be easiest to rent our own van to take us there, so the trip from Bunyoni to Kampala, about 8 hours, was practically a pleasure cruise. We sayed overnight at a backpackers place called Red Chili, which I wasn't a big fan of (too big, too many travellers). Kampala was just a quick stop, though, on my way to Jinja, which I got to by bus the next morning.
Jinja, I thought, was an amazing town. It was small enough to feel familiar after a day of wandering around, but big enough to have all the things you need. It's situated right on Lake Victoria, at the place where the Nile River begins. The source of the Nile was a mystery for a long time, until explorers finally traced it all the way back to Africa's biggest lake, and the town of Jinja. The highlight of any trip to Jinja is, of course, to hurl yourself down the Nile in a raft.
These pictures were taken by a photographer who followed us down the river...
Rafting the Nile was definitely one of the most fun and exciting things I've done so far. We rafted a number of class 5 (the craziest) rapids, and only managed to flip our raft 4 times. The water in the Nile is so warm that it's actually quite pleasant to have your raft flipped (after you get churned out of the raging rapid, that is).
Another personal highlight in Jinja was getting to see a number of friends from Stanford, who were all in town for a gathering of fellow from Global Health Corps, where they've worked for the last year. GCH is doing amazing things in Africa right now, and it was pure luck that the fellows all had to be together in Jinja (of all places) at the same time as me. We went out and caught a traditional dance show, and later grabbed a beer. It was so nice to see a familiar face in such a cool and remote place.
I spent a couple days longer in Jinja than I had planned, because it was such a comfortable place. I lay around and read for two days straight, which was lovely. I coudn't rest for too long, however, becasue Kilimanjaro was fast approaching. I left Jinja for Kampala, stayed overnight at another backpacker place in Kampala (also not good, not only because I left my phone charging there, doh!), and caught a flight out of Entebbe, the biggest airport in Uganda, direct to Kilimanjaro Airport. Stay tuned for some mountain-scaling adventure!
Love you all!
Clay
(That's me clinging on...)
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