It began like any other day in East Africa, a painfully early morning cab ride to the intercity bus station (in this case inter-country) for our scheduled 10 hour trip from Nairobi to Kampala, Uganda. This was well within our defined 12 hour bus trip limit we had set for ourselves and the coach even had reserved seating.
After being in Kenya for eight days, it seemed an oversight for us to just notice the street cages set aside for public smoking – Kenya seems to be among the first nations to ban such activities save for these defined enclaves. We were also remiss to notice that the bus route pretty much duplicated the first three hours of our return trip from Lake Nakura (which means we could have stayed there, avoided two three hour journeys and caught this bus at the civilized time of 11am).
Then things really started to degenerate. Our bus was stopped at, what had been up to then, one of a hundred perfunctory highway traffic stops, but this time the officer made us turn around and drive, with her aboard, back to the town police station. It seems corruption has not totally been eradicated, as the bus was to be fined for a broken windshield (we’re not sure, but we can’t remember seeing a bus without a broken windshield). Then the officers came on board to search for other potential safety violations in an effort to pad the offences into an even larger fine. How surprising when they found most seatbelts and many windows non-operational. Meanwhile, the indigenous passengers, most likely used to this sort of thing, taking it in stride and using the stoppage as an opportunity to relieve themselves – finding privacy behind the bent and mangled vehicles of the traffic accident compound.
A half hour’s worth of fine enhancements and we were back on our way, but the sinister signs were all there. Four hours later (total seven hours so far) – we reached the border. Just as we were to disembark for the Kenyan immigration exit extravaganza, the sky (which to this point was blazingly sunny) turned an ominous grey and torrential rains soaked the poorly draining area. All windows now closed on the non-air conditioned bus for the five minute drive to the Ugandan entry immigration post. Passengers scurried in the downpour, mud slapping at every turn, many slipping and falling, and then a power failure. We were the only Mzunga on the bus (a southern, central and eastern African slightly derogatory term for "person of foreign descent" - more recently coming to mean "language of the aimless wanderers" ), and we were therefore responsible for holding up departure awaiting our required entry Visas.
And we were off!? Well, not so fast. There was a line of about transport trucks five kilometers long now blocking our passage – eight hours and counting.
Our bus bobbed and weaved his way through in only an hour. So, why can’t we traverse the nearly 250 km left in one hour, it had only taken us only nine hours to come the 330 km so far?
We passed one unattractive rural town after another until sundown then streams of roadside stall and shop lighting emanating from lanterns and compact fluorescents for another eight hours. Some Sunday traffic entering Kampala slowed us a bit more (must be those folks returning from the cottage) and the finally tally was 17 hours for our 10 hour max. bus ride.
Arriving anywhere at 11pm to an inner city bus terminal is sub-optimal, but a third world capital is actually worse. Despite the hour, a throng of service providers (read touts, taxi drivers and all round “operators”) closed in on us. After 17 hours, courtesy was tossed aside and we donned our backpacks and bolted. After another hour of wandering through central Kampala (our new champion of ugliest world Capital visited, displacing previous co-leaders Vientiane, Laos and Asuncion, Paraguay), we managed to find an ATM and a hotel. Maybe a shower and some sleep will expunge today’s memorable journey…There has been a bus trip story from hell on every one of our extended travels; let’s just hope this is the “one”!
No comments:
Post a Comment