Bombs

No, no, no. Not that kind of bomb! I'm talking about guava bombs. And believe me, when a monkey or hornbill drops a guava from a tall tree onto a tin roof, the effect is as shocking as a bomb - though perhaps not as destructive, unless you're the guava.

We rented a lovely cabin with a nice tin roof under a tall guava tree by the shores of a crater lake near Fort Portal, Uganda. There were lots of monkeys and lots of hornbills, and therefore lots of guava bombs. The ones in the middle of the night were the worst. There's nothing quite like waking up suddenly to what sounds like a shotgun being discharged right above your bed!

I spent a morning lying in a hammock watching red colobus monkeys in the trees across the lake while Z and our Canadian travel companion, Frances, went for a walk. All was still until a tree rustled violently and a small brown body appeared in mid-air, hurtling from one tree to another. In this fashion, the monkeys would cross gaps of about 30m. On my side of the lake, a curious black & white colobus descended low into a nearby tree to stare at me with its grumpy-old-man face. Behind me, the crash of guavas onto tin let me know that hornbills were about. Their wingbeats sounded as loud as small helicopters. With so much noisy wildlife (including toads that at night sang a chorus of belches!), the lake wasn't exactly peaceful - but it was relaxing.

From Lake Nkurubu, we moved on to Lake Bunyoni by bus. I fared better than Z, actually getting a seat - but one so cramped that several of my toes fell asleep. In some places, the road was under construction which meant that we detoured onto side roads - really more like tracks parallel to and below the real road. I caught a glimpse of the first detour through the crush of people around my seat and was dismayed: thick, black mud, a deep and wide puddle, and tire tracks that seemed to slide all over the place. "We're going to get stuck for sure," I thought. Seeing the look on my face, a woman seated near me (by seated, I mean perched on the railing above the stairwell) turned to reassure me saying, "And now we pray." Uh, thanks. Feeling much better now! We didn't in fact get stuck, though we did slide all over the place and I did pray.

The view from the bus grew steadily more beautiful as the hills gathered into highlands and mountains and the bus emptied out and my toes woke up. We got to Kabale under dark storm clouds which highlighted the contrast between sky and bright green hills. From there, we took a taxi to Lake Bunyoni: a stretch of silvery grey water between steep green hills covered with a patchwork of green terraced fields that reached all the way to the shores of the lake. It was beautiful and peaceful and surprisingly cold. On our second night at the lake, a storm rolled through. The lightening lit up lake, clouds, trees and grass with a violet light. I sat outside and listened to the thunder rumble from one side of the sky to the other and back. I once counted it rumble on uninterupted for two minutes. I crawled into bed once the rain pounding on the tin roof drowned out the thunder.

From bunyoni we took a spectaculor bus ride to Kisoro, a town nestled at the foot of the Virunga volcanos on the border with Rwanda and the Congo. The volcanos are immense, rising 10,000ft in perfect triangular form - exactly the shape that children draw mountains to be. Their peaks were wreathed in swirling clouds and their slopes densely forested. Staring into the Congo and Rwanda was a strange feeling - there, right over there, are two countries that are kinda sketchy. And here we are, in Uganda, feeling safe and happy. I guess I'm still a stranger to land borders.

Once again, our room in Kisoro had a tin roof, though it wasn't guava bombs that woke me in the morning but crow bombs. Which is to say crows - big crows, landing full force on the roof and jumping around. Not quite as loud as guava bombs, they nonetheless woke me up!

We had come to Kisoro in search of pythons which live on the shores of nearby Lake Mutanda. We walked with guide Joseph across hills and through villages to the lake, the air echoing with the sound of children yelling, "Muzungu, how are yooooooooooouuu?" (Muzungu means, approximately, white man.) I had imagined us taking a dugout canoe trip around the island looking for pythons that were curled in trees and safely distant across the water. Once again, however, Africa delivered the unexpected. We did take a dugout canoe across to the island, but they we got out of the canoe and walked. In search of snakes. Big snakes. Clad in sandals, we pushed our way through thickets of beans and corn and bananas and rushes, staring into the reeds for python. This struck me as absurdly stupid. I mean, who goes looking for snakes in thickets? (Answer: M&Z - duh!) The thought of surprising a snake made my toes curl protectively towards my body, as if that would put enough distance between me and snake to avoid getting bitten. Hah! For better or worse, we didn't see any snakes. Not surprisingly, I was disappointed.

The night after the hike was filled with another storm. The thunder was so loud that I couldn't help but flinch when it crashed directly overhead, sounding like a semi truck trailer full of metal filing cabinets rolling around on the roof.

After a crappy bus ride on a broken seat, we find ourselves back in Kampala. The trip through southwestern Uganda was really great. I felt happy to be traveling; the work to get somewhere was rewarded by the places at which we arrived. Not a lot of Africa has been like that. Kisoro was just so beautiful - and not overrun with overland trucks full of drunken yahoos. A lot of our experience here has been tempered by the presence of these large groups. I met an Austalian from one truck at Lake Bunyoni who asked me which company I was traveling from. When I told him that my husband (!still not used to that!) and I were traveling independently he was astonished by our bravery.

"You have a jeep, then?" he enquired.
"Nope."
"Well, how do you get around?"
"We take the bus."
"Bus?"
"Yeah, the public bus."
"You do???" Astonishment. "But how?"
I tried to limit the sarcasm in my response, which was something like, "You get on the bus. Someone asks you for money. You give that person money and they give you a ticket. You get off at your stop." I mean, what's the bravery in that???

Sigh. We're going to rest up here for a few days, stuff ourselves with Indian food and get over the colds we both have before pushing on to Murchison Falls. From there the plan is still to make our way overland to Nairobi and hop on a flight to Ethiopia. I'm looking forward to seeing Ethiopia. It should be really different. I'm also looking forward to going white water rafing on the source of the Nile. And then seeing the other end of that mighty river in Egypt. Even with travel being different this time - not so much fun, I suppose - I certainly can't complain. I mean, I'm in Africa!