Two weeks on and the end of the trip looms large. I have yet to calculate the number of kilometres travelled (for the next post) but we have completed what we set out to do and have enjoyed the time bumbling about the continent. It’s raining now as I have a coffee in a beautiful garden overlooking Lake Victoria, filled with the sounds and sights of dozens of tropical birds. But back a few days …
After Nairobi, we opted for an Uber + driver to get us to Naivasha, a lake town in the Great Rift Valley. I remember the route from decades ago, only improved slightly with the rerouting of the heavy trucks, and the expansive views of the valley as the car comes round a corner at the top of the escarpment and the land drops away below. Still awe-inspiring. The town itself is of limited interest, but I’d found a comfortable little guest house from where we could start a number of the ‘tours’ on offer - a boat trip on the lake to see animals and birds, and a drive into the Hell’s Gate National Park - another experience of the new Kenyan mass data gathering system for national sites which is intrusive, unnecessary in its complexity, and a guaranteed way to deter the tourists they want to visit.
From there it was a series of matatu trips to Eldoret and onwards to the Kenya/Uganda border, and then on to Tororo on the UG side the next day. The Kenyan vehicles, named ‘luxury shuttles’ for some reason, plied back and forth along these roads on a frequent basis and we had a seat each in several vans with one complete row less than their Ugandan cousins, which made them at least bearable if not exactly comfortable. Once across the border we were squeezed into a departing vehicle (luckily only half full) for the short drive into town, and thereafter chose a car and driver rather than be compressed into minivans with 23 or so others.
A night in Jinja enjoying the kind hospitality of Ken (former WFP Cambodia colleague) and Margarethe was delightful, in their little bit of paradise overlooking the Nile as it leaves Lake Victoria on its own journey northwards. Fifteen years ago when last here the view from their land would have taken in the Bujagali Falls, but since a dam was constructed downstream a few years ago the white water rapids are no more - and the dam itself is not delivering on the promises made!
On again to Kampala, to this wonderful house and garden overlooking Lake Victoria, to meet up with old friend Kathy - last seen in Cape Town a few weeks ago, but first met in Karamoja in 1980 during the major famine in the area where we were both working. Although we have met up often in the meantime, these final days of the journey were one of the main reasons to do the whole exercise - to return for a safari to Karamoja and particularly to the splendid Kidepo Valley National Park in the far north, and to see the changes over the last 44 years. The settlements of Moroto and Kaabong, where Save the Children had been based, are now much larger towns, and I recognised almost nothing beyond the spectacular mountain scenery around. The people, now clothed and disarmed, and in most cases without their cattle, still live a precarious existence in the semi-desert, but there are some jobs and agriculture these days, and many have solar-powered lights in their huts and solar chargers for their mobile phones even if not much else.
Kidepo was a delight, just as stunning as remembered, a far cry from the more developed parts of this country, with almost no tourists because of its remoteness (bordering South Sudan and Kenya). We saw masses of plains game herds, particularly hartebeest, buffalo, giraffe and zebra, and a large herd of about 50 elephants, but no cats - they have been AWOL for some months apparently. We stayed in a tented camp on a hillside overlooking the plains, where they managed to look after us well despite being miles from anywhere. Recently announced plans to build - for some unknown reason - a Qatari-funded international airport at Kidepo will, if it goes ahead, ruin this spectacle, so we can only hope the various authorities see sense and pull the plug on this crazy idea.
Next stop was the Murchison Falls National Park for a couple of nights, where we did see a number of young lions (and a leopard, too far away to photograph) as well as many other antelope species, giraffe, zebra, and birds, plus crocs and hippos in the Nile after it cascades through the falls themselves in - apparently - the most powerful falls in the world. All water levels, from Lake Victoria and downstream, are very high, up to two metres more than usual, and while people are all noting these changes and assuming it’s caused by global warming, in fact water level readings over past decades show a fairly cyclical rise and fall of levels every 10-15 years; but the mass of water trying to flow down the river is nevertheless impressive, and very different from the Victoria Falls in Zambia right now.
So with renewed thanks to Kathy, Ken and Margarethe for these great final days in Uganda, it’s time to pack and head out later this evening. The flight to London is via Kigali (Rwanda), a route that the last British government spectacularly failed to deliver despite years of threats/promises, and into the cold of the UK tomorrow morning for a few days.
