Day 238-239 / 3-4

Date: 6 and 7 December 2022
Sleeping location: Virunga Hotel, Kisoro, Uganda
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 49 / 15028 / 191
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 700 / 121400 / 3400
Kisoro’s hottest venue: SuPa’s
Days in three words: Kisoro Kwality time

I slept awfully despite being incredibly tired, and next morning realised that the 2l mountain dew soda I'd been swigging from all afternoon contained the equivalent caffeine of a pint of coffee. That’ll do it. I was still physically and mentally knackered so I decided to rest a couple of days in Kisoro as it's nice, I had Ugandan money left to use up, I’d heard good things about Lake Mutanda and accommodation across the border in Rwanda seems like it's going to be more expensive (and perhaps also subconsciously because I will be sad to leave Uganda).

The first day I moved to a less crap hotel and spent the day doing a bunch of random admin bits and ironing out lots of little issues with Maggie. During the admin I had a tasty brunch and some western style coffee in a nice cafe and accidentally murdered a load of bees with my leftover salad dressing. In the evening (during Spain vs Morocco) there were loads of bats overhead again, all going the same way, hundreds of them in the sky for about 15 minutes. I wonder where they go. I went back to same place as the night before for tasty chicken and chips and talked to the owner Patra, who named the place "SuPa" after her and her daughter Susan. She was nice and even gave me a lift back to my hotel.

In the morning was dreaming when one of my companions in the dream started talking like he was commentating on a horse race in a language I didn't understand. As I slipped out of sleep I realised that some kind of very loud religious sermon nearby had infiltrated my dreams. Maybe this is how they convert people. The free hotel breakfast was fairly rubbish but did contain boiled eggs and bananas so I ate some, snaffled some more (the return of pocket egg!!) and set off on an unloaded day ride round Lake Mutanda. 

A bit of tarmac and a bit of bone shaking rocky road brought me to the dirt road around the lake, which was absolutely amazing, carved into the steep hillside with the lake far below dotted with little green islands and the triple extinct volcanoes of Sabyinyo, Gahinga* and Muhabura on border with Rwanda looming to the south. The views were constantly spectacular and I ambled my way slowly around, enjoying the lack of time pressure.

The soil around here is quite clay-y and they were making mud bricks so I got to see the process through its stages. First someone (usually a kid) hacks the wet mud out of the hill and slops it into a little wooden template. These are then arranged in piles and left to dry. When they are dry enough the proto-bricks are arranged into a big pyramid with space in the middle, where a fire is lit. Wet mud is then slapped all around the outside to make the kiln completely airtight and the bricks are baked to the appropriate brickiness. It's all very clever and interesting to watch. 

The people along here were pretty friendly, although as usual the slightly older kids would ask for money/sweetie/dolly (=Yoshi). I asked if I could take a picture of the brick kiln with some workers slapping the mud on but was told this would cost 5000 (£1) which was plain silly. There does seem to be an assumption around here that mzungu = money which didn't exist across most of the rest of Uganda. Most of the other foreign tourists I see are clearly on tours, being driven around in 4wds with a driver and a guide, rarely venturing away from the "mzungu approved" places to sleep and eat. It must cost upwards of $200 a day before you even consider the park entry fees and permits.** No wonder everyone assumes I’m rich. I suppose I am, compared to everyone who lives here. Towards the top of the lake I hit a big milestone, 15000km, although doing this whilst actually travelling away from Cape Town sort of summed up the wiggly route I've take to this point.*** To celebrate I stopped at a luxury lodge for one of the most scenic beers I've ever had. 

A bit after this I turned off the "main" "road" and onto a series of glorified footpaths. This would have been tough on a loaded Maggie but her sprightly unloaded self made light enough work of it, even though pushing was frequently required. Along this section I had the usual interactions but a few fun ones - one guy shouted that I was good at riding my bike (I really needed the confidence boost), a drunk guy shouted that he loved me and, best of all, in one village a group of kids started signing "Ah mzungu!" and clapping rhythmically, so I joined in with my bike bell and we had a short weird and brilliant jam session. I have also remembered the best approach with kids who pester - start to take a photo of them. Either they run away laughing or you get a good photo. 

On the home stretch dark clouds suddenly gathered and the wind picked up; it was tropical afternoon storm time. I managed to avoid the worst of the rain despite frequent nearby thunderclaps, though poor Maggie got covered with the very sticky clay brick mud. Back on the road I saw a sign for "Bwindi Mgahinha tea factory, passion fruits value addition centre, tea estates, fishing grounds and mindset change institute" which is quite the spread. I went for dinner at a different place and wished I'd gone back to SuPa's. For the first time in two and a half weeks there was no football on the tv - the end of an era. I've been in Uganda less than a week but life back in London already feels so remote. 

*The English translation of the name means "little pile of stones" which at 3474m seems like something of an understatement 
**To see the gorillas costs $700, or a little less than my monthly budget 
***According to google maps if I'd taken the most direct route it would have been 12,800km, although this may have led to my kidnapping and/or death somewhere in the Algerian Sahara. Out of curiosity I looked back at previous milestones; 5k was in mid Turkey and 10k was in northern Ethiopia. Looking at these three points on a map really emphasises quite how little I have actually travelled towards Cape Town in the past 5k of riding.







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day 38

Day 152

Day 369 / 134