Idyllic islands, Rasta love, and the Nile!

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I came in and out of Uganda three times and will clump it all into this blog. The first time was mentioned in my Lamu entry, which accounted my rafting adventure at the source of the Nile with Chi... which was just awesome and one of the most exciting things I've ever experienced in my life. Part of the fun had to do with the fact that we had a great raft guide, a freelancer named Gram, who made sure we had plenty of outrageous, acrobatic flips.

Shortly after that, I went to the DRC to track the mountain gorillas and came back to Uganda and spent almost a week at Lake Bunyoni. Megan and I would have totally stayed there for weeks had it not been for our 7-day transit visa. Lake Bunyoni has to be one of my favorite places in my travels so far, and it's all because of the eco-friendly campsite we stayed at called Boonya Amagora (means "whole life" in the local language). I'll start off with some of its highlights:

:a: The best shower EVER... it's a wooden stall with an opening on top so you can look out onto Lake Bunyoni and the neighboring islands. The shower is a plastic case of water that is heated through solar energy, and lightly sprinkles on you as you gaze out into the beautiful scenery.
:b: Awesome food... there is a Dutch man who lives on a neighboring island who makes fresh Gouda cheese-- YUM! Plus the owner of the place is an American, and you know Americans and food! The menu has lots of delicious food like fresh tilapia (Nile fish... sort of like sea bass, white and flaky); avocado and crayfish (a fat half-avocado filled with fresh crayfish in a creamy/tomato-y sauce... to die for!), and this breakfast omelet that is a Spanish omelet covered with melted Gouda cheese and rolled into a chapatti. DROOL!!!
:c: All proceeds from this campsite goes straight to the community of neighboring islands to assist with education and sustainable community development. Jason (the owner) hosts computer classes on his island for the locals as well as sponsors the school on the island across from us, among other good deeds.
:d: There is an extensive library with plenty of decent and recent books.
:e: If there is enough solar energy from the sun, you can watch a DVD
:f: The scenery of the area is stunning. Lake Bunyoni is an irregularly shaped lake that houses many little islands with intensively cultivated fields that resembles a patchwork quilt
:g: composite toilets that separate urine from feces. When the toilets reaches its max capacity with the feces, they remove the toilet to another stall and cover the feces hole and leave it for months to fertilize into manure, which they then give away or sell to neighboring islands to use as fertilizer. It takes a little getting used to with the toilets b/c there is no flushing involved and it has an interesting (but not as digesting as you'd imagine) smell
:h: total peace and quiet, as we are our own island
:i: the GEODOME!!! There are four types of accommodations here: camping, bunk dorms, cabins and the fantastic geodomes. Geodomes are like quarter circle-domes that have an open wall looking out into the fields and lake. It makes waking up in the morning a treat!

I would highly recommend Byoona Amagara to anyone who is in the area (256(0)752-6527-88 or [e-mail]) looking for some RnR. We met lots of nice people at Lake Bunyoni, most of them being NGO volunteers... I've met so many at this point. Hanging out or conversing with NGOers takes a bit getting used to as they speak in acronyms all the time! "And the FIU went to the village to assist the IDP with their GPR so they could get some SWU." Groan...

After Megan and I managed to peel ourselves from Lake Bunyoni, we went to Rwanda for a week and came back to Uganda. We checked into Backpackers Hostel and bumped into Laura, a girl I met in Uganda and in Rwanda... well that was the start of chaos and all night parties. I'd been pretty mellow in my East African travels so far, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I got a taste of the night life here... all part of experiencing the culture. 😊

Megan left shortly after, and it was a sad goodbye. 😞 We had been traveling together for two and a half weeks, sharing beds, sharing boda boda rides, sharing fits and sharing stories (but not sharing chocolate-coconut Maryland cookies) so I had grown an attachment to her (gosh didn't Vipassana teach me anything??). Anyhow, that comes with the territory I guess.. meeting and splitting. I should get used to it by this point.

After Megan left, I fell apart into a party animal and hit the bars and clubs with Amanda, crazy Laura and Jen. Met lots of Rasta guys and had them profess their love, etc... hilarious. On Friday night, we hit up an Irish pub Bubbles O'Leary and an LA-esque lounge called Rouge, where lots of drinking and lots of dancing took place. Later that night as Amanda and I were on our way home on a boda boda, the driver got lost and it started to pour like crazy and we had to seek shelter underneath a tarp until the rain sort of calmed down. Our driver also ran out of gas... a minor annoyance, but no longer a surprise as this happens all the time here! We managed to get home, but were soaking wet with running mascara.

We did a repeat the next night as Laura was off to Rwanda to finish her fellowship, so we hit the bars and the clubs. One guy that was out with us (forgot his name) was absolutely nuts! He started making out with girl after girl after girl after girl. It was so disgusting, and Amanda pulled a paparazzi on him by snapping countless shots of him kissing some random girl. I swear, half the girls he made out with were prostitutes, but he thought he was a pimp. Ugh.. I had to share a boda boda with him on the ride back! I thought his drunk self would topple off the motorbike, but I couldn't let that happen and had to hold his body from falling off. I'm too nice sometimes.

For our last day in Kampala, Amanda and I headed to some local markets and did a bit of shopping. We bought some African print fabrics to get pajamas made, but they didn't turn out so nice... I think the lady didn’t measure us properly, so the pants ended up flooding to our ankles! I also picked up a bunch of gifts for family and friends. I hadn't been buying things in my travels b/c I didn't want to lug it around with me in my already heavy backpack, but I couldn't resist the beautiful handicrafts in Uganda.

That night, we went to the National Theater to watch a local jam session, which is held here every Monday. There was one drummer that I had met the first time I attended, and saw him around at some other shows. We took a picture together and I told him I'd send him the photo, and he responded with, "I'd like a photo of you naked." Uhh.. talk about losing a girl's interest in 0.001 seconds.

The next morning, Amanda and I headed off to Jinja to do another rafting trip down the Nile River. I had high hopes for it since my first go at it was so awesome. I knew something was wrong when we only had 5 people for our raft, including the guide. The cheer we came up with was "Fantastic Five!" which we say after we survive a class 5 rapid. The muscle-power of our raft was a bit lacking as one man was recovering from a dislocated shoulder, and another guy (Aly) was nice but completely useless and hardly paddled. So it was really up to Amanda, the guide and I to raft. We didn't flip once-- maybe because our raft was half deflated? 😞 Except on one big rapid, I fell out... the only one, again. I think the worst part was when our raft fell vertically off a 16-foot drop, causing Aly to fall on my face... actually, his helmet smacked me on my nose and lips, and his elbow jabbed my chest. Oww. The best parts of the rafting has to be all the arm exercise I got, the pretty Nile scenery, the avocados we had at lunch, and the beer at the end of the rafting trip.

Next, I'm off to Kenya with Amanda to visit the village where she has been doing lots of amazing community development work... more on that in my next entry.



PS. Happy birthday to my three lovely ladies, Pris, Joanne and Ann...

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Photos

Megan referred to this photo as "Asian Girls in Nature"
She was walking by the shower and I yelled "Megan is that you? Take a picture for me! This shower is awesome!"

old taxi park
Kampala

Comments

[Some kind of Animal]

Keep Rockin!
Still shaking my head in amazement and jealousy! Keep the energy sister...love your insight and purity of travel. I'm sure you are leaving an everlasting impression of kindness and generousity on those locals. Keep exchanging!