Around Uganda in 16 days (V): Karamoja - Kampala

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A) Kidepo Valley National Park
B) Kaabong
C) Kotido
D) Moroto
E) Soroti
F) Mbale
G) Jinja
H) Kampala

Day 14.

We got up early in the morning and we took down the camp to continue our journey heading south. The way back to Kapala from the remote Kidepo would be through Karamoja, the most arid and inhospitable region of Uganda.

Karamoja is located in the East of Uganda, and lies all along the Kenyan border from the North until the central eastern part of the country. It is the land of the Karamojong, a tribe sharing its origin with the Maasai, who nowadays live in Kenya and Tanzania. The Karamojong are tall, slim and strong people, and many of them wear a shuka (the "blanket" with bright colours which comes to our mind if we think of a Maasai warrior) and a long stick that they use to lead the cattle.

As the Masai, Karamojong is mainly a pastoralist tribe, and for them cattle (especially cows) is what sets the path of their life. Cows are the most important thing on Earth, and the more cows you have the more respected you are and the more rich you are.

We left Kidepo and drove south. Our first aim was to stop to meet Father Longinos, a Spanish missionary who has been living in Karamoja since 1978. He lives in the North of Karamoja, and we had already talked with him to see if it was possible to pass by where he lives and spend a bit of time with him.

They invited us for lunch and we stayed there for a while talking about all the problems that Karamoja had some years ago, about all the things that had changed during the last years and how nowadays things are much better, especially when it comes to security.

After taking a photograph all together we continued our way south.

The memories I have from that day are seeing how the landscape was turning more and more arid, how there are less people along the roads and how from time to time you start seeing children leading cattle.

We reached Kaabong, one of the three main towns in Karamoja, and there, thanks the contact that Father Longinos gave us, we stopped at the offices of Medecins Sans Frontieres, they had a mechanic who was going to try to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-repair the brakes (in case you haven't read the other parts of the trip,we have a small problem with the brakes).

Mikel y Muskilda, the Spaniards working there, welcomed us and in a couple of minutes we were once again taking a look on the rear brakes.

As you can imagine, at this point we all are experts in drum brakes, and we are explaining the mechanic all that other mechanics have been trying to fix before.

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

  

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

This mechanic really seemed to know more about it and, working at the same time with the brakes of both rear wheels, he was the only one who managed to repair the brakes, maybe not perfectly, but in a way that we didn't need to stop again because of the brakes until we reached Kampala. And so the prize goes to the mechanic of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Kaabong.

We continued our way and after several stops to enjoy and admire Karamoja we managed to reach Kotido, the next important town in Karamoja. There we found a place to sleep which could be considered decent (among the very few options available), we had dinner and after spending again a nice time chatting we went to sleep. 


Day 15.

Since we arrived to Uganda we have always had a high interest in Karamoja, maybe because it is remote and it has been much less influenced by the colonization that the rest of the country. After some months in Uganda, this was the day in which we were going to try to know by ourselves how Karamoja is (well, as much as you can know about something in such a short time).

And apart from our own interest, Oscar's idea is to show Karamoja to the people who come to visit Uganda, but not with the typical touristy visit that people usually have in Kenya or Tanzania in a Maasai village, where you go, they show you how the village is, they make the typical jumping dance, then please "Mr, Tourist", should you buy some handicrafts, and... Next group!!! What Oscar wants is to show how the real life in Karamoja is, not to make just another performance for tourists in a village. So this trip was another opportunity for him to explore new possibilities. He will be one of the firsts touroperators doing something like this in Karamoja, there are not many touroperators including Karamoja in their tour packages.

And so our idea was to look for a random village, talk to them and ask them to explain us how they live and how their villages are... ask them to explain us how they are.

We had been told to go to an area where there is a big Karamojong village called Nakapelimoru, which is close to Kotido, and we decided to look for it.

We left early in the morning and we asked several people the way to Nakapelimoru. After a couple of kilometres we passed by a village which really looked like an authentic manyata (the name that they give to their villages). We didn't know if that was Nakapelimoru or not, but who cares... Does it really matter the name of the village? So we decided to stop there and ask if we could visit it.

Don't think that in these small villages in Karamoja they don't know what a car or a white person is, Karamoja is a remote place but there are cars and motorbikes, and there have been many NGO operating in the area for many years, so we are not such an alien as you might think. That doesn't mean that probably, for many of the children there, we are the first muzungu they see ever in their lives; or that for many people of the village we could be the first muzungus with which they have a close contact. Or I would even say that, seen how many of the children were laughing when seeing their reflection in the dark van, it could be the first time they see themselves reflected in anything.

Obviously we don't speak Karamojong, but one of the friends of Óscar speaks Swahili, and a man living in the village also speaks Swahili, and so we were visiting the village with him as a interpreter.

We explained the man in the village that we didn't want anything special, we only wanted to know if it is possible to visit the village, if they could tell us about their life and if it is possible to take some pictures.

He told us that it was OK, no problem at all... And so we entered the manyata through the small gate.

The man was explaining us how the structure of a manyata is and why it is structured in that way, he was showing the small compounds where families live and we were also visiting the interior one of the huts.

When we entered in one of the huts and I saw the light inside, coming from the door, I thought that the light was really beautiful and that, somehow, there was a photograph waiting to be taken there. A bit later, that hut would be the place where I had one of my best experiences as a photographer. But if you don't mind I will tell you that story other day.

At the beginning we wanted to be respectful and we were not taking photographs, we didn't want to be the typical tourist coming out of the car taking pictures of everybody all around the village. After all they were opening the door of their home. And so, when we got out of the compound where that family was living we decided to ask the man if they wouldn't mind if took some pictures. But the man said that in fact everybody was asking him why we were not taking pictures.

And so we took our cameras and everything became crazy.

At the beginning you take a photograph, and the people look at you, and you take another one... and then another one... until you decide to show them the picture in the camera... That is the moment when a swarm of smiley children leap on you looking at the picture while all them point at it and shout continuously and at the same time something in Karamojong that I guess must be something like "that's me, that's me, that's me...".

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

The situation becomes uncontrollable, very funny, but absolutely crazy. Everybody asks you to take pictures of them, alone, then with their children, then the children want to stand in front of everybody and they are pushed away however they can... the chaos.

After a couple of hours in the manyata, showing us different parts of it and taking some photographs, we decided to continue our trip. We were really enjoying and it was very interesting, but we still had a long way ahead.

We told them that we had to leave and headed to the van, half of the village came with us to the van and so we couldn't stop taking pictures, of course.

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

After a while we managed to say goodbye and we continued our way through Karamoja.

From there we drove all the way to Moroto, the main town in Karamoja. We stopped there for a while, but we wanted to reach Kampala the next day and we decided to continue the trip to Soroti, already out of Karamoja, where we arrived in the evening.

After having a shower and another enjoyable dinner in the garden of the hostel, together with another nice talk with friends remembering all we had done in the trip and how much we enjoyed the visit to the Karamojong manyata, we went to sleep.


Day 16.

The last day of the trip we just decided to arrive home as soon as possible. We had time enough to stop anywhere in the way, but we decided to drive straight forward to Kampala.

We left Soroti in the morning, we passed Mbale, after some hours we drove over the Nile in the city of Jinja, and in the afternoon we were in Kampala after travelling almost 3.000 km around Uganda.

It has been a great trip and I am really looking forward to repeat it, but with a lot more time... as much as possible... and enjoy every corner of the country as it should be.

If any of you want to join, you are more than welcome. 

You have just read the fourth part of the trip. You can also read:

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part I.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part II.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part III.

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part IV.

Around Uganda in 16 days (IV): North of Uganda - Kidepo Valley National Park

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A) Kitgum 

B) Kidepo Valley National Park

Day 12.

The day before we asked an Irish, owner of a hostel in Kitgum, if he knew some decent place where we could have the brakes fixed. He told us that there was a foreign company which makes boreholes and he gave us their contact. We spoke to someone from that company in the evening and he told us to take the van the following morning to their compound because they had a muzungu mechanic and he would have a look at the brakes (in case you haven't read it yet, maybe you want to know what happened with the brakes).

And so while Óscar went to re-re-re-re-re-re-repair the brakes, we went to do the shopping for the next days. 

Kitgum felt like a very pleasant town, with less hassle than other towns we had been before, and even though you are still an exotic element and people look at you, in our experience, you can walk on the street without people calling you muzungu every two metres.  

When we met again with Óscar he told us that apparently the problem with the brake was that the spring in the right brake was a bit longer than the left one, which is why adjusting the little wheel we had seen so many times before was not enough. The mechanic had cut the spring shorter and then welded the rest again together. Great!

At mid-morning we were leaving to Kidepo, with about 140 km ahead of us on a road which wasn’t a tarmac road but wasn’t as bad as those we took before. 

On the way we passed several areas with rounded huts with grass-thatched roofs, which seemed to be small villages, though in reality most of them were remains of IDP camps – camps for internally displaced persons. 

IDPs are like refugees, but they are displaced within their own country. As they are still in their country, they are not considered as refugees and don’t have refugee rights, but in any case, they are all the same they are people who were forced to leave their homes, their villages and their lands, often because of armed conflict or violence. 

I imagine you have heard about that famous video on the Internet about the child soldiers in the north of Uganda. These IDP camps we are seeing all around are from the car are the result of that conflict. The north of Uganda is an area which, since 1986 until 2006, has suffered an incredible horrible time. Thousands of people had to leave their homes because of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is basically an army of psychopaths led by Joseph Kony, who has the "honour" of been object of the first warrant of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court of The Hague. 

Kony raised the LRA from the remains of another army, the Holy Spirit Movement, which had been led by a woman, Alice Lakwena (apparently a relative of Kony), whose name was Alice Auma but she changed it to Alice Lakwena when she was possessed by the spirit of the Italian soldier Lakwena. Some years later, it will be Kony who would say that he had inherited the spirit of the soldier Lakwena. So I guess you can imagine what kind of army these people can lead. Although, especially at the beginning, the LRA claimed that the aim of the conflict was to overthrow Museveni, the President of Uganda, the fact that nowadays they are still committing atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic shows that their motivation is far away from that and that their acts are only motivated by a twisted mind. 

During the 20 years that the LRA was active in Uganda, perpetrating all kind of barbaric brutalities, many people left their villages and were resettle in these IDP camps along the roads in an attempt to give them more security. 

In 2006 Joseph Kony was finally expulsed from Uganda, and even if it doesn't mean that the problem is over (it just moved to another area), at least since then the north of Uganda is a place where people can live and in which is possible to travel. 

Fortunately, with time, people are slowly going back to their villages and many of those huts that we can see from the road are empty. The north of Uganda is back to the normal life and stopping by anywhere in the region means finding nice people and a lot of smiling children. 

And so, crossing all these half empty "villages" where children wave as soon as they see the van "Bye muzungu!!!", we continued our trip through the north of Uganda towards Kidepo National Park. 

Since our plan for the next two nights was to camp in the park, we stop in the way there to buy some charcoal to cook. The charcoal is something very important in Uganda, because most of the people don't have a kitchen at home, and they cook in small stoves with charcoal. So, finding somebody selling charcoal next to the road is something very common. 

While we were buying the charcoal, one of the typical local means of transport full of people overtook us. I know it doesn't sound very exciting, but I though you could find it interesting. 

In this area the matatu are not so common, and people usually move in these trucks in between villages and cities. Obviously, it passed at full speed. 

After securing the sack of charcoal on the roof rack of the van, we continued our trip to Kidepo, we were almost there. 

At this point, we already know that the problem wasn't that the string in the right brake was too long. 

At midday we arrived to Kidepo Valley National Park, one of the best National Parks in Uganda, and the most remote of them, just at the Northeastern corner of the country, bordering with Kenya and South Sudan. 

It is a vast extension of Savannah surrounded by mountain ranges, no very high ones, but making the landscape of the park unforgettable. The park covers the valleys of the rivers Kidepo and Narus, and it only has one rainy season, from April to September (while in other parts of Uganda there are two rainy seasons along the year). This gives Kidepo an especially dry climate, and makes it probably the best place in Uganda to see wildlife during its long dry season. 

Even if we came in July, already in the way from the gate to the offices of the park we already saw some buffaloes and elephants. 

When we arrived to Apoka, the area with the services in the park, we registered in the offices of the park and we chose one of the camping areas of the park. When camping in Kidepo it is compulsory having a ranger with you, who takes care that there is no problem with the animals. The ranger is also compulsory for the game drives or walking safaris. 

We headed to the camping area, which is a flat area with basic facilities and a banda without walls so you can seat in the shade. We put up the tents and started to cook de dinner. 

After having dinner and spending some time talking around the campfire we went to sleep, we wanted to wake up early in the morning to go for the game drive. So we just only had to kill around 300 mosquitoes (with a torch), while Óscar was wondering himself if that noise out there were hyenas around the campsite looking for the rests from the dinner. 

Day 13.

You wake up in the morning... and slowly (in my case a "long" slowly) your head start putting things in place... you look around and you see that you are in a tent... mmm... yes... things start to make sense and you remember that you are in Kidepo. 

We slept with the mosquito net closed but with the door open, so I could see through the door. 

You start moving and getting ready to get out of the tent. You open the mosquito net, you get your head through the door and, behind the rest of the campfire, still hot, the savannah stretches in front of you. You have a new day in Africa waiting for you. 

As soon as we had breakfast we got into the van and started to move looking for the animals.

Definitely, the rainy season is not the best season to see wildlife because of two reasons. One is that in the rainy season the water is available for the animals all around the park, and even out of it, so the animals are spread all around and it is more difficult to find them. In the dry season, the valley of the river Kidepo is completely dry and the only area where animals can find water is in the area of Narus valley, and so all the animals come to drink there, where it is relatively easy to find them. 

The other reason is that with all the rain, the grass grows incredibly high, in some areas the grass was even as high as the van, so it is very difficult to find the animals. 

At one point we decided to pass by the other camping area of the park, because of course, it is the best area to go to the toilet. That day there were nobody camping there, and when we looked into the banda of the camping area we found a big surprise. 

There was a lion in it. It must have been fighting with another lion because it had a wound in the upper part of the back, close to the head. And so the ranger radioed to the head quarters of the park so they could inform the veterinary department of the Uganda Wildlife Authority. 

Even if was an injured lion inside a banda, it is impressive seeing the king from so close. 

After going to toilet, while keeping an eye in the banda, we continued with the game drive. 

As I told you in the first part of the trip, Kidepo is one of the two national parks in Uganda where you can see zebras. And since we were not lucky enough in Lake Mburo, we wanted to see them here. 

In Kidepo we were a bit luckier and we found a group of zebras, but... it was just that, "a bit luckier". We found a small group of zebras in an area of high grass. As far as I am concern, I still haven't seen zebras at all. 

As you can see, when we say high grass, we mean it. And that was not the area with the tallest grass we saw.  It is amazing how plants grow here when it rains. 

A bit later we stopped for lunch, we left the van in one of the roads on the park and we walked in between grass more than two metres high towards a small rocky hill where we sat to have lunch and enjoy the views.

For the afternoon we had planned a special activity: a visit to the ruins of Katurum lodge. 

Katurum Lodge is a hotel which was built by Idi Amin in the 70s, it was close to be finished but it never got to be open. After the fall of Idi Amin in 1979, the hotel was vandalised, and later what was left of it was burnt in a bush fire, which left it as it is nowadays. 

I don't like the building, but one thing is true, the view of the savannah which can be seen from there is really impressive. 

In the way back we had another interesting experience with one of the kings of the savannah: A male lone elephant. 

Travelling with Óscar is very interesting, apart than being a nice guy or having a lot of experience travelling in Africa, he is also a biologist and studied animal behaviour. And it is really nice that, for example, when you see an elephant like this one, he explains how the society of the elephants is organised and why there is a lone male wondering alone in the savannah. Or why it is usually the case that the lionesses hunt and not the lions, when it doesn't have anything to do with sexism. 

The elephant we met was a young male, probably around 20 years old, which, as it happens with all the males, had been expulsed from the herd when he began puberty. 

You should be careful when meeting elephants, it is an animal you should have respect for. It is not usual that an elephant attacks, the normal thing is that they are paying attention to their business, they might look at you, scent you, and continue with whatever they were doing. But don't try to go too far, because an elephant can start running towards you, and it is a lot of kilograms running towards you. 

This time it was an interesting encounter. We saw the elephant, not very far from the road, and we started getting closer very slowly and carefully. As it is normal, the elephant saw us and this time, instead of continuing with what it was doing it decided to let us know that we should be careful. It is very strange that an elephant attacks straight forward, first it would warn you. The elephant stops, gets a bit closer... we go back... Then it stares directly at you, rises the head, shows you the tusks and spreads its ears...

...it shakes the head moving the ears and the trunk... it is telling you to be careful and that you are not in the right place. 

But if you are careful nothing should happen at all. We were moving back with the van every time the elephant was suggesting us to do so, and at one point the elephant crossed the road in front of us and left. 

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

The truth is that I never felt threatened, just warned. And I liked it. I liked that an elephant told me the right place for me to be, and made me understand where he was and where we were, that we were at its home and that we should respect its rules. 

Back to the camping area we started to prepare the dinner and I was taking some photographs. I went up on some rocks to see a bit better the camping area and I saw far in the distance a herd of buffaloes. 

So I jumped into the van with Emmanuel and the ranger and we headed towards them to see them from closer. 

It is impossible to show in a photograph what I saw there. It is not that there were millions of buffaloes, but there was one moment when wherever I looked there were buffaloes around the van, not very close, of course, but all them staring at you, scenting us... Having hundreds of buffalos staring at you is also a very interesting feeling. 

Back in the camping area, I went up again on the rocks to see where the buffaloes were, and I saw that they were coming closer to the camping area. By the time the dinner was ready, the buffaloes were at around 50 or 100 metres from the camping area. 

We had dinner around the fire and with the camp lit with small lanterns that Óscar had set all around the area, it was really beautiful. Having dinner in the middle of the savannah, just you, under the moonlight... that really makes you feel that you are in a safari in Africa. And if the ambient is also so nice... 

After the dinner, taking advantage of the full moon light, we decide to go close to the border of the camping area. We could hear the buffaloes moving in between the grass, we could even see some groups of buffaloes which had entered the camping area and they were once again staring at us and scenting us... 

From far away, we could hear other sounds... lions... Again Óscar was telling us how lions communicate in between them and that many times they hunt at night. And you are just there, listening, in the savannah, in the middle of all that. 

We went back some metres to an area closer to the tents. We knew that the buffaloes were there, in the camping area, behind the trees, we couldn’t see them but we knew they were there and we were just listening to the sounds. After a short time, something made the buffaloes start running, and suddenly, we could feel like thousands of footsteps running away from us while we could feel a thunder under our feet. 

We went back to the fire and sat there talking about it and with that feeling you have after experiencing pure and unspoilt nature. 

We stayed there talking around the fire for a while and slowly we were going to our tents. 

What a great experience.

You have just read the fourth part of the trip. You can also read:

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part I.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part II.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part III.

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part V.

Around Uganda in 16 days (III): Journey to Crater Lakes and Kitgum

View Around Uganda in 16 days - Part III. as a larger map

A) Simba Safari Camp
B) Crater Lakes
C) Kibale National Park
D) Hoima
E) Masindi
F) Gulu
G) Kitgum

Day 9.

This was the day we were going to meet with Óscar, the Spaniard who has a touroperator here in Uganda, and with whom we were going to do the rest of the trip. This was the day when travelling in public transport would end, from then on we would travel in a comfortable 4WD safari van, with our own seat for each of us!

But before that there was one more bus left, the one that would take us from Simba Safari Camp to the crossing where we would meet with Óscar. We were told what time the bus usually passes by the entrance of the hostel (even though they also told us that it could come earlier or later), and how long it normally takes to reach that crossing. We imagined the bus would be late, of course, but we thought it was better not to take any risks and before the supposed arrival time we were already waiting at the gate.

As expected, the bus arrived 20 minutes after the time we had been told, and after all the experience we had accumulated in Uganda, I called Óscar to tell him that we were already a bit delayed, and that we would probably arrive about an hour and half late.

Experience certainly helps: after a smooth journey, sharing the seat from time to time, we arrived at the crossing indeed one and half hours after the planned time.

We got off the bus, and Óscar was already there waiting for us with his splendid new 4WD van. We put in out bags, made ourselves comfortable and continued our journey like kings in our new transport.

We left behind the main road and turned onto small paths in the area of the crater lakes. This is a small region in the west of Uganda, close to a town called Fort Portal, which is full of hills of volcanic origin with several small lakes that fill what had once been craters of volcanoes from the formation of the Great Rift Valley.

We stopped in a few quiet places close to two lakes to have a beer and enjoy the view, take photos, talk...

Someone has seen the butterflies?

We would have liked to take a walk around, but it was getting late, and there was a chance we could still do it the following day.

We continued across the area of crater lakes, crossing first big plantations of matooke (a variety of banana very common in Uganda, about which I’ll tell you some other time), and afterwards large tea plantations. Finally, the path lead into Kibale forest, in the Kibale National Park, a home to more than 1200 chimpanzees.

But there aren’t just chimpanzees in Kibale. You can also enjoy the baboons.

Those don’t need to be habituated like the chimps, they already get used to the presence of humans by themselves. Obviously, they are not shy.

We arrived to Primate Lodge, and it was nice after the journey to be received with a fresh juice and a towel to clean your hands while they check your reservation.

The Primate Lodge Kibale is a higher-standard place, perfect for those who want to be in the middle of a rainforest without sacrificing being comfortable. You can sleep in cottages or in tents. We were going to try the tents, I had seen them during another trip and I was curious to check them out.

Sleeping in a tent in the middle of a rainforest has the advantage of feeling more in the middle of the nature than if you are in a cottage between four walls. You can hear better the birds, the insects and in Kibale, if you are lucky, you can even hear the chimps calling. It is understandable that not everyone feels like camping during their holidays, which makes this type of lodges a good option: you sleep in a tent, but as I told you before, with all the comfort.

And when I say with all the comfort, I mean it: even with your own bathroom (with warm water, of course) at the back of the tent.

Besides, in this lodge the tents are far enough from the common area and from each other, so that you don’t see your neighbours, and you can feel like the king of the jungle.

After having a shower, during the dinner, I mean, during a nice dinner at candlelight, we started planning with Óscar the rest of the trip. We had a reservation in the lodge for two nights, but the main activity around was chimpanzee tracking, and Zuzana and I had already seen them and Tomáš wasn’t particularly interested. The other options were a forest walk or hiking around the crater lakes, which is nice and pretty, you can swim in some of them... but the problem was the huge amount of kilometres which we had ahead. And so finally we decided to cut out one night in Kibale and continue our trip the following morning.

Before we went to bed, Óscar, who is a nice guy, had prepared a surprise for us. He had talked to the director of the lodge and arranged for a choir of local children to come and do a small performance of traditional songs and dances from the region. Thank you for the touch.

And so, after the dinner we went to our tents, taking a short walk on the path leading towards them, illuminated with small lanterns, while enjoying the sounds of the rainforest.

Day 10.

Again an early breakfast and we hit the road.

We left Kibale National Park and we took a small road between the tea plantations, where we stopped for a while: inevitably to take a few pictures.

And also to answer questions of the curious locals.

We continued the journey and, after a few kilometres on the road connecting Fort Portal and Kampala, we turned north in the direction of Hoima, on what is without a doubt one of the first "roads" that the Ugandan government should repair to help tourism. It is 145 kilometres, most of it on a perfectly irregular dirt road. But well, the journey is also part of the African experience, so here we go.

Óscar told us that close to Hoima there is a point from where you can see an impressive view of the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the Great Rift Valley, and he proposed we go could there, then take a road leading down to the valley and spend the night camping at the shore of the Lake Albert, close to a nice lodge which is there. We had ahead of us a long day on the road to reach the viewpoint close to Hoima, but with friends, the journeys aren’t all that long. Let’s enjoy Africa.

But the African experience had prepared a surprise for us. After a few kilometres of endless bumps and potholes, from time to time we started to smell something burning, and Óscar said he felt as if the brakes didn’t work completely well. We stopped and saw that the rear right wheel was hot, and decided to stop in the next village to look for a garage to repair the brakes.

As soon as we reached the first village, which fortunately wasn’t one of those with only four houses along the road, we asked and quickly found the garage. Óscar told the mechanic what was the problem and he immediately started working on it.

It seems that the brake shoes were a bit loose and were touching the drum, so it was only a question of adjusting a small wheel to tighten them a bit.

In half an hour the wheel was again in its place. The mechanic asked us to take a picture with him...

...we put the jack back, we jumped into the van and continued ahead, everything solved. In the end it was not so bad.

Until a few kilometres further... the same smell of something burning, Óscar with the same feeling in the brakes... and we checked that the wheel was again very hot.

We stopped in the next village to re-repair the brakes, but this time it really was the four houses along the road. As soon as we stopped, someone came saying "I am the engineer here". What? "The engineer"? What do you mean, the engineer? Finally we figured out that he wanted to say he was the village mechanic.

We took out again the jack and the engineer started to take apart the wheel and repair the brakes. This time the engineer also dismantled the rear left wheel to check that both were the same. Very professional.

Immediately everybody understood that the best place to control the situation was where Tomáš was sitting.

Zuzana and I decided to sit a bit further to observe the surrealistic scene in front of us.

After a while we started to talk with one man from the village about the differences between Uganda and Europe, about who has more or less, about who needs more and who needs less, and, all in all, who is happier in life.

Photo: © Tomáš Kazda

Photo: © Tomáš Kazda

In the meanwhile, the rest of the village, especially the children, came closer to watch the event of the month: the muzungus.

I don’t know how many of these children had seen themselves on a photo before, but it was quite funny taking pictures of them...

...and showing them to them.

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

 Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

We had a good time. It was quite funny.

Photo: © Zuzana Kazdová

After a while the engineer finished repairing the brakes and, after trying them, he gave Óscar a guarantee of 6 months. All this of course with the whole village watching carefully.

We got again into the van, said goodbye to everybody and continued our way to Hoima.

We were a little bit tight on time but still had time to reach the viewpoint and going down to the lodge to camp and sleep by the lake.

After a while we though that, maybe, what the engineer told Óscar wasn’t 6 months of guarantee, but 6 MILES of guarantee, because Óscar started to feel again that the brakes weren’t working properly.

A few minutes later we stopped to find out that the engineer not only didn’t fix the right brakes, but also managed to achieve that the left wheel also started to overheat and the handbrake stopped working. A wonder of the engineering profession. Now you know, if you stop in a village and someone comes saying that he’s the engineer, you run away.

Since the "highway" we were on didn’t in reality permit speed above 40 km/h and the brakes were more or less working, we decided to go slowly and reach Hoima to find a real garage. Of course, accepting that we would leave the viewpoint and the lodge for the next visit, what can we do.

We arrived to Hoima just in time to look for a place to spend the night, and another one to take the van. We found a hotel and then we went to a garage to re-re-re-repair the van.

In the garage in Hoima, which is a bigger town, they seemed to know more what they were doing. A good thing is that here nearly all the matatus are the same (or a very similar) model of a van, and many safari vans are the same as the taxis (just that they are well maintained and not falling apart), and so it’s normal that nearly anywhere they can repair them.

After a day of African experience we took a well-deserved shower, a well-deserved dinner, and went to bed.


Día 11.

Our journey continued north, towards the Kidepo Valley National Park (also known as Kidepo National Park), where we wanted arrive in the evening. On our way we would stop in Gulu, the most important city in the north of Uganda, to pick up Steven and Emmanuel, two friends of Óscar who would join us during the rest of the trip.

A bit later we left Hoima we realised that even if in the garage in Hoima seemed more professional and seed to know what they were doing, in reality they didn’t have much idea about what was wrong with the brakes. At least now the handbrake was working and the left wheel wasn’t heating up, but the right wheel was still the same.

On the way to Gulu we passed through Masindi, another relatively big town, and we stopped there to re-re-re-repair the brakes.

We stopped in a garage on the main road, and after removing the wheel the group of engineers that had gathered around wasn’t able to do anything, and we decided to continue and ask for a different garage. Somebody pointed us to another place to re-re-re-re-repair the brakes. In a few minutes we found it, but shortly after they removed the wheel it was clear to us that we came across probably the worst garage in the whole of Uganda. The man had no idea at all. After a short while we told him to leave it and put back the wheel, but he was so useless, and who knows what he did, that he couldn’t even put the wheel back in its place.

Fortunately Masindi is close to the Murchison Falls National Park, and practically all the travel agencies pass through there with their cars, and so Óscar made a few phone calls and after a while got a name of a reliable garage.

We told the useless mechanic not to touch anything again, and Óscar took a boda-boda to fetch a mechanic from the other garage, a young guy with dreadlocks who moved quickly, something not common in this part of the world. After a while the wheel was back in its place and we could take the car to his garage.

That garage looked much better, I mean, within the African standards, it was much bigger than a small shed with piles of oxidised spare parts outside, which is what is a standard garage in Africa. It seemed that this time finally they would really re-re-re-re-re-repair the brakes.

After a good while there we left towards Gulu, finally on a normal road again and with a van freshly out from the garage… wonderful.

We stopped in Gulu to pick up Steven and Emmanuel and we continued towards Kidepo. After Gulu the road is again just a dirt road, not as bad as the one going to Hoima, but you have to go slowly. Besides… You wouldn’t guess... Again that burnt aroma on the right side... Ah well, we assumed we wouldn’t reach Kidepo on that day, and we were glad we decided to stay only one night in Kibale and that the African experience wouldn’t ruin our trip.

We reached Kitgum where we had a cold beer in a hotel, and then we looked for a decent place to stay for the night. Kitgum is a small town in the north of Uganda, and the accommodation offer is limited. There are places which are nice, but you have to pay for them. Fortunately we were told about another place which we found quite appropriated: decent, good price and it was clean. It is called Timbo Hotel, even though I would better call it a hostel. If you ever come this far and you need a place to stay at a reasonable price you can stay here (to know how to reach there, just take a closer look on the map at the beginning).

It seems that after all, the trip is not being exactly as we planned, but... relax, it doesn't matter... hakuna matata, enjoy your journey through Áfica.

Hakuna matata - "no problem" in swahili.

You have just read the third part of the trip. You can also read:

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part I.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part II.
Around Uganda in 16 days - Part IV.

Around Uganda in 16 days - Part V.