Into Uganda

The Night Boat

From Zanzibar, we chose to return to Dar Es Salaam via the night boat, a ferry that leaves the island at 10pm, sits offshore for a few hours and then sails overnight to Dar Es Salaam for a 6am arrival. In theory, this meant we could sleep during the voyage and save on a night's accommodation. Our seats were comfortable enough, but due to several factors, it didn't go as planned.

Firstly, there is the issue of air-conditioning. I am perplexed about how the bodies of Africans work. Seeing as they stroll around in dress pants and sweaters in the kind of heat us Canadians can barely endure in shorts and tshirts, I would assume their systems are accustomed to warmer temperatures. But whenever there is an opportunity for air-conditioning, they really crank it, and seem to delight in icy-cold air that Alanna and I, again with our minimal clothing, find it hard to fall asleep in.

Secondly, Africans will happily fall asleep anywhere, irrespective of comfort level or surrounding distractions. (This is easy to explain, once you've seen the conditions under they're expected to take their naps as toddlers – Africa babies spend much of their day strapped to their mothers' backs with an expertly knotted sheet or blanket, and we've seen children dozing peacefully in this manner while their mothers hoe patches of soil on a hillside.) As we were getting settled, a TV at the front of the ferry treated us to a martial arts film, and we assumed once it ended bedtime would officially roll around. But they kept coming, at substantial volume, one after another (one of which, for those who care, featuring the gratuitous toplessness from a former high school classmate), throughout almost the entire night. And everyone slumbered on regardless.

Finally, it was a very rocky journey. Alanna and I both have fairly sturdy stomachs, but even I was feeling the quease. Alanna had to visit the bathroom, and in the morning described it rather nightmarishly as this chaotic, vomit-coated chamber full of angry squatting women.

So anyways, we arrived in Dar Es Salaam at sunrise with barely any sleep at all, which was too bad.


Uganda

The crowned crane, Uganda's national bird.

From Dar Es Salaam we caught a plane (again with the frigid air) to Entebbe, Uganda, bypassing what we saw as a week spent in iffy busses over bad roads. Entebbe is notable as the site of the 1976 hostage-rescue raid by the Israeli army during Idi Amin's reign, dramatized in The Last King of Scotland. It was therefore a historically poignant introduction to a country, but not surprisingly the airport was a pretty standard airport – though apparently there are still a spray of bullet holes in the command tower.

Prior to guidebook blurbs, our knowledge of Uganda amounted to its depiction in Last King of Scotland (the book of which Alanna and I have since read) and the excellent documentary War Dance, exploring the lives of refugee-camp children as they prepare for a national dance competition. And this is Uganda for most people – if your mind doesn't immediately come to rest on the horrors of Idi Amin regime, then you may instead think of the more recent bloody civil conflicts, such as the atrocities committed by the super-evil Lord's Resistance Army. Or the AIDS epidemic, or the general hunger, poverty and malaise associated with much of the continent. 'Tourist Mecca!' does not rank high on the list.

But the country has been stable and relatively peaceful since the 80's, and our airport shuttle led us through trim suburban greenery on our way to the hostel, past roadside flowerbeds and within view of Lake Victoria's sparkly shores. A far cry from the smog and grit of Dar Es Salaam – not to mention whatever pitiful dustbowl I'd had in mind. (One would think we'd have moved beyond the whole 'exceeded expectations' schtick, but apparently not.) Most African countries have a bigger middle-class than one would imagine, and Entebbe came across as a clean, comfortable town, quiet and cool. On our walk into town we passed a squad of jogging soldiers – public singing in Africa, whether it comes out of a church or from a mass of buff sweaty army dudes, always inspires a potent envy – and were introduced to Uganda's healthy population of marabou storks, teenager-sized and pretty disgusting.

We also became acquainted with a new (questionable) mode of transportation, the motorcycle taxi, or boda-boda. At African borders, the two countries' respective posts are often separated by a wide no-man's land, and the name comes from their origin shuttling passengers between the two posts, border-to-border. Like minibusses, boda-bodas are often painted bright colours and decorated with Christian or Muslim (or nonsense) expressions. Also like minibusses, they appear in varying states of roadworthiness. The accident rates for these things are appalling, but everyone uses them: businessmen, the elderly, and many mothers, who use them as a school-bus system. Women always ride in dignified side-saddle fashion, although we read an amusing newspaper article recently about 'hot-blooded' drivers blaming the wandering hands of their female passengers as a leading cause of collisions. Helmets for both driver and rider are supposedly the law.


In Entebbe we visited the Wildlife Education Center, a facility the locals call a 'zoo' though it is in fact a rehabilitation center and sanctuary for injured or rescued animals (the difference amounting mainly to the quantity of guilt one feels in attending). While it wasn't cheap – twenty bucks a pop – it was a most gratifying animal experience. We were able to gaze at most of the creatures you'd hope to see in Africa, including lions, rhinos, crocs, deadly snakes, and a ton of monkeys and chimps. And while one's typical zoo experience involves staring at a bored, lonely, motionless animal, these primates were active. They put on a show. We watched a group of red-tailed monkeys, and then an island of rescued chimps, for the better part of two hours. We were so, so happy. As icing on the cake, a troupe of vervet monkeys – a species we're almost not excited about anymore – wanders freely about the property, and are more comfortable with human presence than we're used to, letting us get very close.

red-tailed monkeys

Vervet monkey, chimps in the background.

At the WEC we went on a 'nature walk', basically a short dark tunnel through the hugest, creepy spiderwebs, populated by equivalently huge and creepy spiders.

Camels!

This group of Australopithecus were rescued in Mombasa. They're allowed to hunt certain kinds of protected antelope because "it's part of their culture" and "they've been doing it for literally millions of years."

Our plan after Entebbe was to visit the Ssesse archipelago in Lake Victoria, hoping for a similar experience from we'd had on Likoma in Malawi. We made it all the way onto the boat before turning back. We'd wanted to get to a specific place – Banda Island – and the men in charge of the boat headed there were dubiously vague about departure time, price, and trip length. The first quote was a ten-hour voyage, but once hearing we weren't interested, the man somehow let us barter him down to two hours, and then an hour and a half. If only it were always that easy. Not to mention the route has an unconvincing safety record – Phillip Briggs, our most trusted guidebook author, says he straps himself to a big plastic jerrycan every time he makes the trip. Plus there was a guy hassling us for money after carrying us both into the boat unsolicited. It just seemed like an all-round bad idea. We'd already created our share of not-fun boat memories for the trip, so we relocated all our valuables and electronics into chest pockets, waded to shore, and gave Banda Island a pass.


Which was fine, because someone else told us later the place was crap anyway.