To Sipi Falls and back again

At one point on the way to Sipi I counted 25 people (including small children stuffed into gaps here and there) and 2 live chickens in the matatu, a small minivan that by law would only carry 12 back home. Squeezed against the window, somehow I even fell asleep. There is something oddly comforting about the total lack of personal space in Uganda, as if you are somehow less alone.

Along the way any momentary pause in a town resulted in masses of hucksters thrusting meats, fruits, newspapers, and grilled corn (delicious) through the windows. In some sections of road there were more potholes than asphalt. All the while the poetry of the Ugandan landscape rolled by. I leaned out the window, feeling a bit like I had finally arrived. Lush greenery against red dirt, thick jungle and then stretching plains, interrupted by small villages with brightly coloured buildings, mud huts and locals cooking, selling and loitering.

When we finally got to Sipi, I pointed out to Zou, my Morrocan traveling mate, that we had only traveled 250km in 8 hours. Zou shrugged his shoulders. “T.I.A.” TIA? Putting on his best Leonardo DiCaprio from Blood Diamond impression, he intoned “This Is Africa, mate.”

The next day, on the way back from Sipi, upon reaching the outskirts of Kampala we found out that the bridge we intended to cross was shutdown. We took a detour through a small village, only to get stuck in some thick mud and had to backtrack. We tried another way, but gridlock dictated otherwise. So we took another 2-hour detour, the sun fell, and the impatient matatu driver roared through the African night.

When I finally got home to Kampala, the power in our house was out. TIA!