Conclusions

There are some conclusions I have made on this month-long visit to East Africa. Just over a decade ago, after my very first sojourn in the region, I came away with glowing impressions of Kenya especially, and Nairobi in particular. Since then, I have visited this region several times, and subsequently included Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda into the itinerary. I decided later that Uganda was my favourite of all four countries, perhaps even of all the African countries I have had the privilege of seeing. 

Uganda delighted me in unexpected ways, the country's natural beauty is unmatched; the people whom I interacted with were pleasant, but at the present time, as this month-long experience approaches its conclusion, it is Kenya that has captured my imagination. There are undercurrents in Uganda that I had overlooked, depths that I had ignored, either wilfully or negligently.

I choose Kenya, never mind that Nairobi, the country's capital is now unrecognisable from how it was when I saw it for the first time. The photos here of a pleasant Nairobi are from that time. 

Nowadays the city is overrun with crowds, and with the rapid construction of highways, buildings, and flyovers, that it is nothing like what I experienced previously. Today I find the city somewhat unattractive, and rough. And while it is true that as with most large cities there were always some rough edges, that roughness seems to have overrun the city. I do not like it very much anymore. 

What I do like about Kenya though, is the Rift Valley region where I spent most of my time while in the country. I could picture myself having that peaceful life that I crave, living quietly somewhere on the highland plateaus of the Kenyan countryside, while at the same time having easy access to all the amenities for modern living. I find Kenya to be the more structured, and the most developed. I also appreciate the courteous, unintrusive nature of the locals in the Rift Valley area, although I might have to improve on my Swahili language skills. English is rarely spoken on the street in Kenya. 

I have returned to Kampala, Uganda in readiness for my return trip to Europe, which is routed though here. The journey yesterday from the Rift Valley to Nairobi, then on to Kampala, was tiring, so the planned trip this morning to the Murchison Falls National Park here in Uganda has been pushed forward to tomorrow. I hope to be able to write about that upcoming adventure as well. 

Postscript: This seems out of date beacause I had also previously shared it on Facebook. Peace. 

Visit to Fort Portal

The Uganda countryside is very beautiful. Scenic, picturesque, rolling hills carpeted in green with a few rock outcrops the closer one gets to the Rwenzori foothills. Most of the land is cultivated, or in some other form of use. Land that is not cultivated for agriculture is often covered by extensive stretches of purposely planted eucalyptus or pine trees. There is precious little virgin tropical forest, but encountering such forests often offers sightings of baboons and other wild fauna. 

It was quite an interesting road journey, really, between Kampala and Fort Portal. I am in this post attempting to put together my thoughts and observations of, and during, the journey itself when these are still fresh in my memory, so as not to lose them and to capture them for posterity.

The 296km highway itself was fairly good, but rough and uncomfortable on those stretches where the road surface had suffered neglect, and was undergoing maintenance at the same time. So it was a combination of smooth road for a while, massive potholes on different stretches, and then stretches with extensive roadworks disrupting the flow of traffic, with each scenario occurring one after the other. For these reasons the journey was more tedious and took longer than it might have taken otherwise. 

The traffic was composed of ordinary private vehicles like ours, numerous brand new pickup trucks and 4x4s with government numberplates darting at high speed in both directions, many Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs), large buses, and smaller commercial vehicles, and also the ubiquitous Uganda motorcycles performing various functions. The motorcycle in Uganda appears to be an institution of its own. To be found everywhere, the motorcycle is undoubtedly the most popular utility vehicle, used for the transport of everything; from mattresses, to roofing sheets; from crates of soft drinks (colloquially known as "sodas") to entire families; the motorcycle is a fixture on the Ugandan road. The sight of a 5,000 litre polyurethane water tank balanced precariously on the passenger seat of a motorcycle was a sight for the ages.

These photos are of breathtakingly beautiful tea plantations in Kabarole District that I shakingly managed to capture with my phone as we approached Fort Portal, photos from a moving vehicle that do not do justice to just how spectacularly scenic the views truly were. Kabarole District itself, which is part of the Tooro Kingdom, had Fort Portal as its main town before 1 July, 2020, when Fort Portal was elevated to a city, and separated from Kabarole District. In that year, Fort Portal Municipality constituency became the Fort Portal City with an independent local government. The trip from Kampala to Fort Portal had us pass through towns like Mityana and Mubende. 

Fort Portal is covered in bunting for the new king's coronation tomorrow. Yep, I caught sight of the Rwenzori Mountain Range from a distance, but we're hoping tomorrow to move closer to it to get a better look. We're hitched up for the night in some hotel, but tomorrow we won't be hanging around for the coronation. After viewing the mountains, we intend to visit some hot springs, then some caves, and then drive over to Bunyoro to visit the Murchison Falls National Park. 

The streets of Fort Portal are very busy, but it's not clear if the streets are so busy this evening because of tomorrow's coronation. We went to see the Omukama's Palace, which is located on the top of a hill, and with visions in my mind of the famous Princess of Tooro directing preparations for tomorrow's events. As I'm typing this while lying back in my hotel room, it's close to midnight. I realise that I was awoken from my sleep by a loud uproar across the city. I looked out of the window and on the street in front of me, in the darkness I saw a large procession of people singing and dancing in unison, moving in the direction of the palace. *I heard after I woke up in the morning that the procession was of the new king himself surrounded by supporters as he walked the four miles to the palace. So I inadvertently stumbled into a royal coronation in real life.*

Day's end tomorrow should see us back in Kampala. (It didn't, and it was not until two weeks later that I made it to Murchison).

Okay, so I woke in the middle of the night to type this. As I said, I did not want the thoughts to fade away. I have to go back to sleep now, tomorrow promises to be an even busier day, after which I shall have more to report. 

Postcript: I posted this contemporaneously on Facebook at the time, and then thought to share it again here on the blog.

Murchison Falls National Park, The Victoria Nile (Side note)

The Victoria Nile

At this point the Victoria Nile having flowed from Lake Victoria through Lake Kyoga and squeezed through the Murchison Falls (also known as Kabalega Falls), then flows onwards to Lake Albert approxiately 32 kilometres (20 miles) downriver. It then emerges as the Albert Nile when it flows out of the northern tip of Lake Albert as it travels north towards South Sudan. The Albert Nile and the Victoria Nile are part of the White Nile system.

I have now seen the rivers Nile, Niger, Congo and Zambezi up close. As children we learnt a song titled "The Rivers of Africa", a song that named the continent's main rivers—Nile, Niger, Senegal, Congo, Orange, Limpopo, Zambezi. I have also seen the Benue, Gambia, Volta, Chobe, Tana and Mara, the latter two in Kenya. 

As an aside, vertigo has become a recurring problem as I advance in age. It was apparent on this bridge again, just as it had been on the Kazungula Bridge over the Zambezi in Botswana last year. Vertigo is that false sensation that you or your surrounding environment is spinning, whirling, or moving when you are actually still. I almost lost my balance just from looking down at the river from on top of the bridge. 🙃

Murchison Falls National Park (Side note)

I captured this (and a few other shots) with my phone camera while seated in the car.

The Ugandan kob is a subspecies of the kob, and it is one of the most common species of antelope in Murchison. The coat of arms of Uganda features a Ugandan kob alongside a grey crowned crane.

At first glance, the Ugandan kob may be mistaken for the impala, but it is more heavily built. An average male weighs 94kg whilst an average female weighs 63kg.

In Murchison Falls National Park, lions prey on the plentiful supply of Ugandan kobs. We saw many of them, their unique, orangey colour stood out in the brush, even when just resting under a tree in the distance. 

We didn't see any large predators such as hyenas or any of the big cats, but I did explain to my friend that where there are a large number of prey animals, there must be large numbers of predators as well. We did see a herd of giraffes though, Rothschild's giraffes with their coats glowing, reflecting the soft sunlight, but they were too distant to capture properly on camera, although not for want of trying. We also saw a herd of elephants, African Savannah elephants, a family group, but also from a distance; and water buffalo mucking about in a mud pool. There were numerous impala too, and gazelles, and all manner of birds. 

The most striking feature for me, however, were the Borassus palm trees also known as palmyra palms that dominate the open savannah landscapes of the park's northern sector. The landscape's beauty was truly extraordinary, I had seen nothing like it before.

The Weight of the Closed Suitcase

The suitcase sits half-packed on the edge of the bed, a physical boundary between two entirely different states of existence. Outside the window, the sun is still warm, casting long, golden afternoon shadows across a landscape that has spent the last one month feeling effortless and slow. Inside the room, however, the psychological climate has already shifted. The holiday is not yet officially over, yet the mind has quietly abandoned the present, slipping ahead down the highway, past the airport gates, and straight into the grey, uncompromising machinery of everyday life.

There is a distinct, melancholic weight to this mental transition. During a holiday, time loses its sharp edges. Days are measured not by alarms or deadlines, but by the heat of the midday sun, the rhythm of your friends' moods, or the casual drift of an unplanned afternoon. Yet, as the final evening approaches, a subtle cognitive gravity takes over. The brain begins its defensive rehearsal for reality, pulling up unread email queues, doctor's appointments, and the domestic chores that have been left to gather dust in quiet defiance. The washing machine at home broke down before I made my escape, now I'm going to have to confront the reality of dealing with that problem the moment I return. Escapism is valid only for so long after all. 

Compounding this re-entry is the looming shadow of the season left behind—or rather, the season waiting ahead. To return from warmth and ease to the onset of winter, is a double displacement. It is the psychological shock of trading open horizons for sealed windows and the abrupt decent of pitch dark four-o'clock afternoons; the vibrant textures of travel for the muffled, monochromatic silence of cold months. The impending winter feels less like a natural change in the weather and more like a closing trapdoor. The mind projects forward into the chill, bracing itself for heavy coats, scraped windscreens, and the general hibernation of the human spirit.

And yet, this bittersweet ache is perhaps what gives a holiday its value in the first place. If leisure stretched out indefinitely without contrast, it would eventually lose its lustre; it is the impending return to the mundane that casts such a vivid, hyper-saturated glow over the final hours of escape. Standing in the quiet room with the zip half-pulled, one realises that the resistance to going back is proof of having been fully present.

The mundane tasks at home—the laundry, the mail, the early alarms—will inevitably be absorbed and conquered, just as they always are. For tonight, however, the mind lingers in the threshold, holding onto the warmth of the sun just a moment longer before turning towards the cold. 

Murchison Falls

A visit to Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park is an unforgettable journey into the heart of wild East Africa. Located in northwestern Uganda about 300 kilometres from Kampala, the 3,840-square-kilometre reserve is Uganda’s largest and oldest national park, offering a dramatic mix of sweeping savannahs, palm-dotted plains, and the mighty Victoria Nile.

The adventure begins long before you enter the park gates. Driving northwest from Kampala, the road passes through changing Ugandan landscapes—bustling small towns, green banana plantations. In my head I was travelling from Buganda to Bunyoro, two of Uganda's oldest and most influential traditional kingdoms. As you approach Masindi that served as a royal capital or stronghold for past kings of Bunyoro like Omukama Kabalega during the 19th century, and descend the Bunyoro escarpment, the air grows warm and smells of sun-baked earth and wild grass. The sheer scale of the park hits you immediately as you cross into the sprawling savannah.

The climax of the trip is the waterfall itself. Here, the entire Victoria Nile forces its way through a narrow rock gap just seven metres wide and plunges 43 metres down into the "Devil’s Cauldron". The roar is deafening, shaking the ground beneath your feet and throwing a cool, permanent rainbow mist into the air. Hiking to the top of the falls allows you to feel the raw, untamed energy of the planet's most powerful waterfall.

Leaving Murchison Falls leaves a lasting impression—a rare place where the rhythm of wild Africa continues largely untouched.