On Tuesday we took apart our beds, deflated our mattresses and said our farewell to Robert. It began to rain as we got on the bikes for our journey to Fort Portal, leg one of the trip to Budongo.
The rain only lasted for a little while but we kept our rain gear on all day as a wind breaker. The road took us through Queen Elizabeth National Park where we saw four different kinds of antelope plus buffalo. From Kasese on, the road was mostly under construction but we weren’t in much of a rush. The entire trip several hours and was 150km.
We spent the night at Rwenzori View, a pretty nice place in Fort Portal where Stephanie and Emma met us around 2:00pm. We had a drink and a snack with them and chatted all afternoon and I am beginning to get a bad feeling about Budongo. Our accommodations will be a double banda which I am sure will be dark. Worse, there is no room to cook or store our food. We have no fall back plan and JGI doesn’t have many resources. Maybe we will spend a few months at back at DeWildt in South Africa.
The other lodgers are all white, mostly noisy as far as I can tell and several are smokers. I guess I am just in a whinging mood. But the dinner was fantastic – two kinds of soup, salad, baked cauliflower, green beans, meat loaf, and strawberry pie.
On Wednesday we got a taste of Ugandan weather in all its forms on our 200 km trip, 150 on dirt (mud) roads. It started out cloudy, then dense fog which turned into heavy rain and lightning. We had to trundle the bikes past two stuck trucks (which we learned later held Steph and Emma up for two hours). Finally the rain stopped and we took a break to drain our boots and wring out the socks. Six hours and 200 km brought us to Hoima where we stayed at Kolping Guest House run by the Catholic Archdiocese. Nice rooms, blah food, hot showers.
Our ride today, Hoima to Masindi, was only 60km on a relatively smooth road and the weather was nice so the only problem I had was eating Connie’s dust. We arrived at the Court View Hotel late morning, checked-in, and while waiting for our rooms to be gotten ready we rode the bikes to the Shell station to be washed. The convenience store at Shell was better than the best store in Bushenyi. And later in the day we found the supermarket which has everything we could want.
After lunch, Chinese if you can believe it, Steph drove us to Busingiro to see our new digs. The education center needs a lot of work, but that’s what we are here for. And our worries about the banda were unfounded. It’s plenty large for our beds, shelving and cooking. It’s in a small clearing far removed from the center, quiet and much more what we expected than Kalinzu was. And the latrines have sit down thrones! Water comes from a pump and will have to be carried to the banda but no big deal. So now we’re happy campers!
On the way back to Masindi we stopped at the Kinyara Sugar Works. Their school is just outside the reasonable distance to transport their kids to the center, so Steph is hoping they will provide transport. They were having a meeting of all the organizations that impact the environment, unbeknownst to us. We were dressed like hobos but Steph made a good, impromptu presentation. And what a place they have; two clay tennis courts, a gym, a golf course and a social club. Richard and Paul are the big muzungus an have invited us back once we get settled. Could be a nice diversion.