Monday Jim and I went for a long walk past lots of businesses in the area, and I bought EVERYTHING on the list! (and a few more impulse buys, like a shirt, gum, Stony ginger beer, etc.) The big surprise was finding a microphone cable, since one of mine had disappeared in the comings and goings from the safari truck. We had asked at about 10 places and everyone told us to go downtown, but then Jim spotted a guy with a pile of cables moving large speakers, and it turned out he had one to sell. I paid about $10 for it, which was well worth it since it could have been a huge project to find one otherwise. You can’t just google audio equipment in Kampala.
I have been doing short sessions for the Stawa class at 5pm, on electronic music.
Tuesday morning Larry drove us west toward Lake Mbura. I saw green papyrus puffballs. At a gas station Jim made friends with the female employee, who shook my hand before we left. Shops you see by the road are often the most primitive structures, corrugated tin roof and clay or brick walls, with the most sophisticated technology inside: cell phones, videography services. Cows were sleeping on the median grass in one place.
We stopped near Mpabire to check out the drum makes by the road, who give demos of drum construction, and sell very reasonably priced drums of wood and cow hide. I bought 4, that had different sounds, for around $50.
We passed the equator and took pix with our each food in a different hemisphere. I paid 200 UGX to a boy to use the restroom and bought some things. Now in the southern hemisphere for the first time, there was a lot of road contruction to widen the road. I had the Uganda version of MacDonalds (in my case roasted chicken on a stick, and roasted bananas) which was stuck in the window along with many other possibilities. It tasted excellent. You can also get corn (roasted, slightly smoky, dry and substantial, which is a really good snack), beef, pork or chapati this way. It’s cheap, healthy and good. You grab what you want, and pay a minimal amount. The bananas here are amazingly good, roasted or raw. They have so much flavor: tart and sweet at the same time, and a fuller texture than in the US. The little ones are also extremely good and sweet. The matoke green staple bananas are not sweet, but they are good with beans.
The wide road turned into a narrower road, and we made a left turn (south)
to Lake Mbura. It was a long hard road with many animals — my first view of zebras in the wild! IT was a wonderful drive with many wart hogs, water buffalo, antelope, especially impala. Waterbuck and babboons were in the distance. We had a slowly cooked dinner by the lake, unable to help a British group with car trouble as neither of us had jumper cables. The great-tasting fish with chips took over an hour to cook. I photographed a monkey by the kitchen, heard a hippo in the water, and recorded warthog snorts and bird song. We found a magic place on no trail, on one of the recording sessions, a pond with many birds and lots of sunlight. Another beautiful Ugandan park.
At one point a bunch of cattle had gotten into the park, and a herder was trying to get them out as he was in trouble for it with the Uganda Wildlife Authority. So there were 100 cows with horns on the road in front of us, meaning another great recording session.
On the way to the hotel at night we saw a leopard briefly on the road! He ran away quickly. My first wild cat sighting. The hotel was pretty nice. I heard howling dogs or coyotes, but I was too tired to record.
In the afternoon we drove into the Rwenzori Mountains, which we'd been seeing from Queen Elizabeth and even near Bwindi. The highest peak is 16,761 feet, and they have snow caps. The tribe that lives there came from the Congo 300 years ago, and are shorter and the faces look different from other tribes I'd seen. We stopped at a hotel for lunch, and the waiter there said definitely it would be ready in 10 minutes. Larry laughed and said it would be an hour because they cook from scratch. This is typical in Ugandan restaurants. So, he then asked the woman who cooked and she said at least 30 minutes, so we took off for a hike. We bought some casava bread (fried thick reddish brown pancakes) from children on the road. Gadson, a high school student and our guide took us up the small hill near the hotel, and we got a thorough explanation of the crops grown there (bananas, guava, casava, coffee, etc) and the dam and water moving from the mountain peaks, through the dam on this hill and down into the valley. I recorded a few bird sounds and the water in the dam, and we able to climb on top and see how things worked. There were leaks in the dam that created tiny waterfalls by the path. It was somewhat steep at times going up but then we moved onto a grass road used by vehicles and cows for a bit. After lunch, which was slow in coming but tasty, we drove deeper into the mountains for a hike which I would do alone with another guide, Eddie. This hike was more of a challenge, although still nothing resembling one of the higher peaks which would require equipment and training to ascend. We crossed a little suspension bridge, and climbed up and up. We passed mountain homes made a clay with grass roofs where families lived. Eddie would often whistle softly as he approached, probably to let them know we were passing by. The children were surprised by us, or rather probably by me, a white woman, being there. One scary place where the dirt had been washed away went smoothly. If I don't think about anything except the next step, I do fine. It had been cloudy all day but cleared a little so I could see some wonderful views. Still I could not see the highest peak. He told me about the Ibiza tree from which xylophones are made, a specialty of this area. If I ever come back I will arrange for one of their performances ($8) and to have a xylophone made for me. We reached a lookout near the top, and it started to rain a little. Because it was getting late, we decided to head back. This was challenging because I the trail was now getting slick. I was still hiking in my New Balance running shoes, and my feet were protesting from the abuse of 4-5 hours of hiking. We made it back down and crossed the river, this time on rocks instead of the bridge. After I got in the truck Larry asked me if I wanted to do another hike. A woman stuck her tongue out at me as we drove out of the village. Most people were friendly, and often especially children waved, but perhaps a big truck driving rather fast on these lurching crazy potholed roads did cause some resentment at times.
marahelmuth 