Day 229
Sleeping location: Kafunjo Hot Hot Bar and Lodges, Kafunjo, Uganda
Distance (km today/total): 101 / 14556
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1200 / 114600
Papa: 93
Distance (km today/total): 101 / 14556
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1200 / 114600
Papa: 93
Day in three words: A sad day
In the morning the storms had passed but there was a lot of water around, and the sink was full of strange insects like wasps but with massive wings that seemed designed to fall off. An orange and brown bird was treating this like the delicious buffet it no doubt was. We settled for breakfast at the restaurant, but whilst up there it started to rain heavily and forced us to stay on the island a bit longer. For a while I watched an ibis strolling around the lawn, gobbling up worms that had come to greet the rain. Every so often it would shake out its feathers, which made it look like a huge shuttlecock.
We took the boat back to the mainland and climbed back up the dirt road we came in on, but it wasn’t as bad in the other direction. On the way I got a missed call from my parents’ house. Not a good sign. After a bit of phone tennis I got through to my dad, who told me that his dad (“Papa”) had died in the night. Very sad news on top of everything else. He was a born adventurer and both my dad and his brother said he would have been very proud of me doing this trip. Sadly after a series of strokes six years ago he has been in a care home, mostly sleeping and very rarely compos mentis, so he probably never knew about it.
After taking a bit of time to compose myself we headed into the nearby town to stock up on food at the last decent supermarket we’d see for a while. I was in a bit of a daze though, and wandered around buying a load of disparate things including a 1kg wheel of cheese. Then, as a result of changing our route, we had to head back the way we’d already come for 60km. The air was damp and kind of cold with scattered showers, which felt fitting for my mood. Mostly I kept my head down with headphones in as I was in no mood for coronavirus “banter”. After this we turned off onto dirt and as a result of moving more slowly through villages, and having to take an earphone out on the smaller road, a lot more shouts hit home. Each one hurt more and more.
After about 10km I got heckled by a group of young motorbike taxi guys and all my emotion burst out and I totally lost it. I grabbed a pretty big stone and launched it hard towards them, not caring who or what it hit. Thankfully it had taken a while for me to dig the stone out of the ground and they had all scattered. I picked up another one and threw that at one of their bikes, which it hit but didn’t cause any real damage. Immediately I realised how stupid this had been, and that I couldn’t run off and leave Rebecca to pick up all of the potential pieces, so I wheeled Maggie into the shelter that I’d just been flinging stones at and sat down, shaking and teary with a mixture of sadness and anger. A group of people came closer when they realised that I’d been defused, and I spoke with a guy who had some authority and decent English and tried to explain my actions. He seemed to accept and translated, and to be honest I think they just wanted me to leave, so there were no repercussions. Once Rebecca arrived we quickly left and cycled together for a bit, which was reassuring as she was engaging with people and often getting positive responses. Most people were still friendly and a group of kids chased us, which is often annoying but this time made us feel less like outcasts.
There were a couple of weird experiences though. Two old guys in a village shouted at us to leave (as we were leaving) and a drunk/high/crazy guy in a town got very animated whilst slurring something about “dirty”. He initially seemed friendly but then got a bit aggressive. A man rushed across the street and starting grabbing him and hitting him really hard, which just disturbed us further and we fled the scene quickly. There weren’t many hotels around but we found a very basic (bucket shower, hole toilets) but clean and friendly one with a great name. We have become accustomed to the finer things in Uganda - this place would have been a palace in Ethiopia. We made dinner in the room and raised our last Ugandan beers as a toast to Papa, then I had an emotional moment listening to Switching Off by Elbow. It will now forever be associated in my mind with lying on a squishy hotel bed in southern Uganda and having a little teary moment over the death of a relative, which probably wasn’t what the band had in mind when they wrote it.
In the morning the storms had passed but there was a lot of water around, and the sink was full of strange insects like wasps but with massive wings that seemed designed to fall off. An orange and brown bird was treating this like the delicious buffet it no doubt was. We settled for breakfast at the restaurant, but whilst up there it started to rain heavily and forced us to stay on the island a bit longer. For a while I watched an ibis strolling around the lawn, gobbling up worms that had come to greet the rain. Every so often it would shake out its feathers, which made it look like a huge shuttlecock.
We took the boat back to the mainland and climbed back up the dirt road we came in on, but it wasn’t as bad in the other direction. On the way I got a missed call from my parents’ house. Not a good sign. After a bit of phone tennis I got through to my dad, who told me that his dad (“Papa”) had died in the night. Very sad news on top of everything else. He was a born adventurer and both my dad and his brother said he would have been very proud of me doing this trip. Sadly after a series of strokes six years ago he has been in a care home, mostly sleeping and very rarely compos mentis, so he probably never knew about it.
After taking a bit of time to compose myself we headed into the nearby town to stock up on food at the last decent supermarket we’d see for a while. I was in a bit of a daze though, and wandered around buying a load of disparate things including a 1kg wheel of cheese. Then, as a result of changing our route, we had to head back the way we’d already come for 60km. The air was damp and kind of cold with scattered showers, which felt fitting for my mood. Mostly I kept my head down with headphones in as I was in no mood for coronavirus “banter”. After this we turned off onto dirt and as a result of moving more slowly through villages, and having to take an earphone out on the smaller road, a lot more shouts hit home. Each one hurt more and more.
After about 10km I got heckled by a group of young motorbike taxi guys and all my emotion burst out and I totally lost it. I grabbed a pretty big stone and launched it hard towards them, not caring who or what it hit. Thankfully it had taken a while for me to dig the stone out of the ground and they had all scattered. I picked up another one and threw that at one of their bikes, which it hit but didn’t cause any real damage. Immediately I realised how stupid this had been, and that I couldn’t run off and leave Rebecca to pick up all of the potential pieces, so I wheeled Maggie into the shelter that I’d just been flinging stones at and sat down, shaking and teary with a mixture of sadness and anger. A group of people came closer when they realised that I’d been defused, and I spoke with a guy who had some authority and decent English and tried to explain my actions. He seemed to accept and translated, and to be honest I think they just wanted me to leave, so there were no repercussions. Once Rebecca arrived we quickly left and cycled together for a bit, which was reassuring as she was engaging with people and often getting positive responses. Most people were still friendly and a group of kids chased us, which is often annoying but this time made us feel less like outcasts.
There were a couple of weird experiences though. Two old guys in a village shouted at us to leave (as we were leaving) and a drunk/high/crazy guy in a town got very animated whilst slurring something about “dirty”. He initially seemed friendly but then got a bit aggressive. A man rushed across the street and starting grabbing him and hitting him really hard, which just disturbed us further and we fled the scene quickly. There weren’t many hotels around but we found a very basic (bucket shower, hole toilets) but clean and friendly one with a great name. We have become accustomed to the finer things in Uganda - this place would have been a palace in Ethiopia. We made dinner in the room and raised our last Ugandan beers as a toast to Papa, then I had an emotional moment listening to Switching Off by Elbow. It will now forever be associated in my mind with lying on a squishy hotel bed in southern Uganda and having a little teary moment over the death of a relative, which probably wasn’t what the band had in mind when they wrote it.
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