Another Year in Africa: UGANDA

Steve is very placid and even-tempered (other than a tendency to be a Grumpy Old Man which is quite common in 53 year old males) but driving in Tanzania and Uganda has brought forth a vocabulary I didn’t know he knew!

Marabou Stork

Let me explain about roads in the third world – they are narrow, potholed and often have a large ‘drop’ at the edge where rain has washed away the dirt. They are a challenge! Towns and villages have all manner of traffic calming devices mostly designed to wreck your suspension or put dents in your sump. They need to be approached with caution. (See a previous blog post for more details on roads.)

Buffalo

Other drivers also make driving here a challenge. Steve blames the churches/mosques/temples – He reasons that they make the next world seem so attractive that people aren’t too fussed about lives in this world! Many vehicles are dedicated to a deity – Allah, Yesu, Mungu, Manchester United, etc. Driving schools don’t help – my favourite has the slogan “If God says yes who can say no”.

Big horned cattle

So, last Saturday, at 6 am, we set off in the semi-darkness for Uganda. The road from here to the border did not hold too many challenges apart from an unexplained and un-manned barrier across half the road 20 km north of Bukoba, but that was at least lit by a single kerosene lamp and was easily negotiated.

Zebra

We arrived at the border town of Mutukula at 7.30 am. It was crowded with people, congested with trucks, cars and buses and confusing! There was a barrier across the road, heavily padlocked, and no signs or officials to tell us what to do. One helpful local told us someone would be there at 2 o’clock. (That’s 8 o’clock to the rest of us – Swahili time runs 6 hours behind or in front depending how you look at it.) Another helpful local told us just to drive around it up through the market and back down to the road. We did that which put us behind another locked barrier. An official at this one asked had we been to Customs yet. No we hadn’t so we went there and surrendered our car registration certificate, swapping it for a photocopy and a form in triplicate saying we were temporarily exporting our car to Uganda (We hadn’t though of it that way – we just had a long weekend drive planned!) Next we went to immigration and had our passports stamped as leaving the country. We went back to the car where we’d left it at the locked barrier. A different official asked had we been to customs and immigration. Yes we said. He didn’t look at the forms and passports, he just unlocked the barrier so we could drive to the next one. Now we had to import our car – up some stairs to swap the photocopied registration form and the Tanzanian export form for a Ugandan import form and receipt. The official explained on the way back we’d just do it all again in reverse and we’d have our original registration form to take home for which Steve was grateful as he didn’t fancy braving the Police and TRA again! Ugandan immigration was pleased to stamp our passports with entry visas, another barrier was unlocked upon our assurance that, yes, we’d done the paperwork (no check thought necessary) and one hour and $US50 each later we were on our way north.

Wart Hog

Uganda is a whole other country! The signs in the towns and along the roads are in English. There are no pictures of Kikwete (the Tz president who expects to be re-elected later this month) plastered everywhere, the cars on the road are slightly more road-worthy and the roads and drivers are worse than in Tz – something we hadn’t thought possible!

Drivers in Uganda ( and in Tz ) use their horns, lights and indicators in many and varied ways – as a greeting, as an invitation to overtake (or perhaps as a warning not to overtake – it’s hard to tell) as a greeting and/or warning to pedestrians or cyclists and to tell you your headlights are on in case you didn’t know and were worried about the wear and tear on the globes (very noble spirited). Steve keeps up a monologue directed at these drivers, peppered with expletives, but basically explaining to them the correct use of indicators, lights and horns. He also explains to them that pushing other vehicles off the road is not polite and that the speed they are doing is possibly excessive. Drivers who do not know how to properly drive when livestock are on the road get detailed instruction too. Unfortunately I am the only one who hears all this valuable advice.

Mihingo Lodge

We arrived at the National Park gate, slightly frazzled but otherwise intact, at 12 noon. We hadn’t been able to get more US dollars in Mutakula because of the Ugandan Independence Day holiday but we thought we had enough – we’d reckoned without the extra charge for bringing a foreign registered 4WD into the park! We were able to talk the official on the gate into letting us drive through to the Lodge where we exchanged Tz shillings for Ugandan shillings then drove back to settle our account. Our luxury long weekend had nearly been halted at the park gate but pleading foreigner ignorance did the trick and we were set!

Birdwatching from the balcony

The Mihingo Lodge was all the web had promised – fabulous setting, great food and wonderful accommodation! (I had two hot showers each day just because I could!) Lake Mburo NP provided all the birds Steve could hope for, the little 4WD performed impeccably on some challenging tracks and Lake Mburo NP’s zebras, hippos, wart hogs and the many antelopes and birds were obliging about being photographed.

Dining room with a view

My highlight was the Grey Crowned Crane – understandable why it is the avian emblem of Uganda – and how could you not love hippos!

African fish eagle

Hippos

Coming home was the mirror image of the trip there except that we were now experts at the border crossing procedure to the extent that we ‘rescued’ a pair of Australian twins who were on their way to Bukoba to a volunteering stint at Katoke Secondary School, and negotiated for them (in kiSwahili) a fairer taxi fare.