I am hungry about 89 percent of the time.
Alex, on the other hand, rarely
admits to being hungry at all, unless his mom is currently cooking kung-pao
chicken. Halfway across the world from
any type of Black specialty, you can perhaps imagine my surprise when it was
Alex, and not me, who suggested that the first two items on our pre-wander
itinerary should be “find food” and “find a place to sleep.”
The first of those tasks was easy
enough, since there was a little restaurant with shaded outdoor tables just
across the street from the taxi stop. We
found it almost empty, but the tall, pretty proprietress was willing to serve
us after deliberation with her staff.
Only, there weren’t any actual options, just ‘lunch.’ Fine by us!
But, uh, any chance there are perhaps beer options…?
After enjoying
this first encounter with both traditional Ugandan lunch (rice, mushy green bananas,
and fish/beef in a thin broth) and English-dubbed Korean sitcoms (rice, mushy fake
sentiments, and domestic violence/sexism in a thin plot) we set out to find
accommodation free of lice, mushy floor residue and doors/windows with thin
locks. Our search led us first through
the northern corridor of Jinja’s downtown, which is a scale replica of Kampala’s
commercial districts: rambling rows of little cell-phone shops and tiny bars
and printer places, interspersed with packs of idling boda-boda drivers, and smelling
of half-garden landfill. Then the quest
turned us out of the center towards the river and into Jinja’s tourist
district, one of the mainstays of the city’s relative commercial success.
Billing itself as the “Adventure
Capital of Uganda,” Jinja attracts foreign travelers in large numbers every
year. These thrill-seekers come for adrenaline-pumping activities such as rafting, bungee jumping,
and competitive tanning, not to mention the heart-stopping action of tropical-cocktail-with-a-little-umbrella
sipping. Most of the resorts we passed were
well outfitted for this latter contest of livers, replete with
authentic thatched-roof huts (air-conditioning included, of course) and well-stocked
tiki-bars.
Alex and I did not go into these
places.
Instead we went into the cheapest
spot the internet could conjure up: a European-style
backpacker hostel with dorm beds for 7 bucks a night. It certainly wouldn’t be the most Ugandan of
experiences, but we haven’t met a Ugandan who does much travelling or
hotel-staying, so we felt justified in going for rock-bottom prices—the hunt
for best value constituting a totally authentic native practice.
The place
was well-hidden, tucked back into a neighborhood full of swank resorts and huge
gated houses, and it took us a full couple of hours to finally sweat up to the
front desk. We were immediately shown
the dorm (an entire bunkroom to ourselves) and just as immediately slapped down
our cash, eager to start out towards our real destination: The Mother of All
Rivers. Filling our Nalgenes with rich,
full-flavored Lake Victoria tap water (topnotes of rotting seaweed give way to lush tannins, with a distinctly arsenical finish...) we consulted the map we’d sketched off
Google Earth and left in what seemed a likely direction. We weren’t too worried, y’know—figure the
Nile stands out a bit.
The first public space we found in
all Africa looked like an accident. The
Jinja golf course rests on a plateau above the Nile, which river glides past to
its east; to its west lies a big chunk of undeveloped land, strewn about with
trees as though through the greenthumb of an 8th-grade gardener with
pretty severe unmedicated ADHD. The armed-guard-free
space was a pleasant surprise, and we marked it for a little future
Frisbee-throwing (some parts of our culture we’re not willing to give up just
yet). Eyes on the prize, however, we followed
the greater temptation through this de-facto park, carefully stepping over
turds of varying sizes (some grass-seed tiny, others about the volume of a
soccer ball), and then skirting the northern edge of hole 9 to stand finally on
a cliffside, towering over 6,650 kilometers of uninterrupted atomic motion.
I wish I could describe to you the
feeling of looking out across that glittering expanse, framed by hills and sky
that looked downright drab compared to its nuclear starscape surface, but the
sentences (like that last clause) would come out all preachy and full of
adjectives so I won’t try. Suffice it to
say that the most coherent sound in my head was a sort of slack-jawed garbling.
Without a word between us Alex and
I agreed to get closer to this juggernaut, to shake hands with a titanness. The route downhill was steep and loose,
constantly threatening to drop us down into the current and wash us through
Sudan, so we picked our way carefully along the scorched-red dirt and the rows
of crops. I was amazed at the tenacity
of farmers here, who will extend their fields down a 55-degree cliff if need be. I tried very hard not to disturb any of their
plants.
We had finally made it close to the
bottom when I spotted a tree that leaned out across the shoreline a bit,
promising a great view down into the water.
I knelt to tighten my laces and then started scaling, making it up to
the first thick branch before I noticed the blood starting to drip down my
wrist. We wondered, after I got back to
earth, exactly why this plant was so angry; is it really necessary to have enormous
thorns that start at 7 feet up and can’t be seen from ground level, dude? As we looked for a cool place to watch the
flow of water, and as I wrapped a clean bandana around my shredded palm, we
realized that every plant in the area was similarly adorned with festively
sharpened ornamentation.
Weaving our way through the barbed-wire
vines we found a little shaded grotto to sit in. By the time I cleared away the thorns, settled in, and took a real breath, I was realizing that I felt very much like an intruder. It overwhelmed me how strange it was to be
here, with my skin useless in this sun and my sweat too dehydrating for this
heat and my knowledge too small to name these birds and my presence so
unwelcome in this forest that shrieks of millennia of intruders with its
million outraged thorns—I felt out of place; I felt, for perhaps the first time
in Uganda, the weight of distance from my home.
Then again, all that might have just been the blood loss.
Then again, all that might have just been the blood loss.
Alex and I sat there quietly for
some time, just breathing. I cannot tell
you how long because I didn’t remember that I had a watch on. Then, without speaking much, we hiked back up
the hill, tossed my Frisbee among the public trees and turds, and started
towards town to find another meal.
To be continued...
To be continued...
Striking idea that you wouldn't miss the Nile at its source. I can't imagine finding that little stream to step across at Lake Itasca without a map and a sign- and the Mighty Mississippi is no slouch of a river.
ReplyDeleteIt was incredible, really. Easily as wide as the Mississippi at the Minnesota-Wisconsin border right at the source. The Nile makes any other river I've seen look like Minnehaha Creek...
Delete