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Life in Africa continues…

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Let me start with an anecdote that illustrates African life pretty well, I think. A few days ago, we took a shared taxi (which the Ugandans call a matatu) from Mbale in Eastern Uganda to Sipi Falls, a journey of about 45km. Apparently the trip is too short for minibuses (which are called matatus in Kenya but, confusingly, taxis in Uganda) to bother. We were packed in like sardines into the station wagon with two passengers in the front and four in the back (very uncomfortable, but good practice for the taxi-brousses of Madagascar).

Soon after leaving Mbale, the driver stopped, flagged down a boda-boda (motorbike taxi) and one of the passengers in the front got out and jumped on the back of the bike – none of which made much sense to us at the time. We soon found out what was going on: we were coming up to a checkpoint and the traffic police weren’t going to allow two passengers in the front, so the idea was to get through the checkpoint with five passengers and then pick up the other passenger at a pre-arranged spot on the other side.

It didn’t work. The traffic police somehow knew/suspected what our plan was and stopped the car at the checkpoint and refused to allow us to continue. Apparently the driver also had “previous cases” and the car wasn’t up to standard, so he was forced to get out and one of the traffic police got in and drove the five remaining passengers back to Mbale. In between the Lugandan sentences there was some English thrown in and I repeatedly heard the policeman say “1 and 3” to refer to the number of allowable passengers (amazingly, this is also the same number of passengers the car was designed to hold, but I chose not to press this point). The policeman also stressed to everyone that it was much better to follow the law rather than try to find ways around it.

Back in Mbale, another driver then approached us all to make the same journey. We told him that the traffic police wouldn’t allow more than four passengers, but he took all five of us anyway and then he and the Ugandan passengers immediately began devising ways to run the checkpoint. We set off and as we neared the post, we turned off the main road and navigated a series of dirt roads through Mbale’s ‘suburbs’, re-emerging onto the main road beyond the checkpoint. We then picked up our sixth passenger who had been patiently waiting for the first car for some time, and later we picked up a seventh passenger for good measure and he sat in the boot/trunk, which is actually the most spacious place to sit in such a setup.

On the way back the next day, we had seven adult passengers and four children – needless to say, we took the back roads again and skipped the traffic police point.

I think the moral of the story goes something like this: in West Africa, ‘checkpoints’ exist so corrupt officials can solicit bribes, so if drivers want to break the law, they can do so if they part with a handful of CFA. In the Ugandan case, the police officers are trying to enforce the law honestly and won’t take bribes, which is of course a good thing. But instead of that integrity filtering down to the population, it’s instead forcing them to come up with new and more innovative ways to get around the law, and in the end, the result is the same – in this case that Africa, whether in the developing east or the poverty-stricken west, isn’t ready for one seat per person.

We spent our last few days in Uganda running around Kampala getting things done and then making the trip to Sipi Falls, a lovely spot among lush green farmland and a sheer cliff face. Two nights ago, we took a 13-hour bus from Mbale across the border to Kenya and back to Nairobi where it all began.

So, after two months in East Africa, this part of our trip is now over. I’m happy to report that it was infinitely more enjoyable than West Africa in all facets (sights/food/infrastructure/transport) and we’re happy with what we’ve done; the unquestioned highlights were Masai Mara and Lamu in Kenya, Zanzibar in Tanzania and gorillas and the volcano in the DRC.

While on the subject of the DRC, we discovered a couple of days ago how lucky we were to have been able to go there in the first place (and not lose the $800 we had paid in advance for gorillas). The $35 tourist visa for the Goma area has been discontinued and the land borders into the western DRC are now closed to foreigners, except aid workers with a special $250 visa. Two Canadians we met were turned away at two different border points (one of which was the same one we entered through) shortly after we made it in and met others who were also denied entry even after trying bribery. Putting the pieces together, we think the border may have been closed even while we were still in the DRC. Apparently, this was all sparked by increased rebel activity culminating in the killing of three Indian UN peacekeeper troops.

Leaving East Africa behind, we’re flying to Madagascar tonight and by tomorrow night we’ll hopefully already be in a National Park awaiting our first lemur sightings. Madagascar is too large, and the transport/roads are too poor for us to see everything we want to see in 30 days, but we’ve made an itinerary that we think will work well, allowing us to see lots of different types of lemurs and a few of the other natural wonders that the country has to offer.

Taking it slowly in Uganda

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

We’ve been in Uganda for two weeks now, so I suppose I should offer some impressions of the country. It’s the most laid-back and relaxing country we’ve been to in East Africa, with easily the friendliest people, and these aspects have been most welcome. It’s also by far the most interesting market country we’ve seen in East Africa – it seems every other town or village has a twice-weekly market, and everywhere you go throughout the country you can see large bunches of unripe, green bananas being sold or, most often, being strapped onto a bicycle. (These are mashed up to form matoke, the most popular food staple in Uganda).

Unfortunately, given that we’ve already seen gorillas in the DRC and the savannah animals in Kenya, Uganda does lack a bit of star power in terms of attractions. Indeed, we thought about speeding through Uganda and returning to Kenya six or eight days before our flight out to climb Mt. Kenya or visit Lake Turkana. But instead we decided to take it easy and meander slowly through Uganda, stopping for a day or two longer here and there.

The highlights so far have been two relaxing camping spots: Lake Bunyonyi in the southwest and the Crater Lakes near Fort Portal in the west. At Lake Bunyonyi, we stayed at a fantastic place on one of the islands called Byoona Amagara, where for three days we forgot about Africa and instead read books, watched movies, ate great food and met some interesting fellow travellers. Unfortunately it is quite dry and brown at Bunyonyi at this time of year, but it was still a very pleasant stay nevertheless. Further north at Lake Nkuruba, we spent three nights camping on the rim of a volcanic crater lake with vervet, red colobus and black-and-white colobus monkeys for company. The black-and-white colobus monkey is perhaps the most handsome monkey we’ve ever seen with its white face, black fur, white fringes and black tail with a white tip, and it was fantastic to see them up close at our own leisure around the campsite (especially since we nearly paid $140 to track them in Rwanda!).

The camp sites aside, other things we’ve done in Uganda include tracking the very rare golden monkey as well as chimpanzees, though in both cases we only saw the primates high in the tree canopies, and visiting a Batwa (pygmy) village in the southwest, which was interesting enough.

We have now arrived in the capital Kampala, where we have some admin-type things to take care of over the next couple of days. Those tasks aside, we’ve pretty much done everything we wanted to do in East Africa, so we’ll head to Sipi Falls in the eastern part of the country for our last relax/camp stop in Uganda, and then take the bus back to Nairobi.

Four days in the DRC

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Of all the war-torn countries in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, once known as Zaire) remains one of the most dangerous and unstable. According to what we’ve read, the largest current United Nations peacekeeping ... [Continue reading this entry]

Rwanda: a thousand hills and a million deaths

Monday, August 9th, 2010

After a 32-hour bus ride from Dar es Salaam - which was pretty trying but not terrible by African standards – we arrived in Kigali at around lunchtime last Friday and spent the next five days in Rwanda. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Zanzibar: Spices and Spiky Monkeys

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

“This Zanzibar better be worth it,” grumbled Wendy as she forked over US$100 for her Tanzania visa (almost all other nationalities pay $50), the seventh time she has had to pay at least $100 for a tourist visa ... [Continue reading this entry]

The post-Lamu blues

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

"You’ve got the post-Lamu blues," Wendy told me as we arrived, grumpily, in Malindi. And it was true. After a five-hour bus ride (which we discovered was much bumpier for the first three hours on an unpaved road when ... [Continue reading this entry]

Going behind the bui-bui in Lamu

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

According to Lonely Planet, Lamu makes Zanzibar ‘blush with envy,’ which is pretty high praise. And while I will reserve judgement on Zanzibar until we see it for ourselves in the next few days, I am happy to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Some thoughts on Mombasa

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Fort JesusMombasa, the second-largest city in Kenya and East Africa’s largest port, is the kind of place I would have really loved five or six years ago – the streets are constantly bustling ... [Continue reading this entry]

Camping, Hiking and Eating Avocados in the Rift Valley

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

For our last few days in central Kenya, we headed to Lake Naivasha to test out our new camping gear and experience African wildlife from a different perspective in nearby Hell’s Gate National Park, where you can walk or ... [Continue reading this entry]

Lake Nakuru NP: White Rhinos and Pink Flamingos

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

It turned out, whether we were ready for it or not, that barely 36 hours after we'd returned from the Masai Mara, we were being picked up at 6:30am from our hotel in Nakuru for a half-day safari into ... [Continue reading this entry]