A Trip Within A Trip, Part 4: 99 Jeri-cans on top of the bus

It is hard to describe what it is like to travel in an African country by public transport. It is kind of like Forrest Gump’s quote “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get” but times 1000 and the opposite of sweet. Finding a bus that is going to where you want to go in Uganda is actually not that hard. If you ask someone they will point you to the right direction, but the ride is no where near comfortable.

The day we traveled from Murchison to Fort Portal was by far the longest and most epic day of traveling of our trip and possibly of my life. If you took 100 snapshots of me from that day, in 40 of them I would be praying, in 50 of them I would be nervous, uncomfortable or terrified, in 9 I would be calm and accepting and in 1 I would be pushing a coach bus up a muddy hill that resembled a road. We were able to live through that day without a nervous break down because before we even left we accepted the fact that we had no idea what was going to happen or where we would end up. Having each other has a traveling companion made it possible for us to have serenity in the face of such craziness and uncertainty.

The 250 mile trip took us roughly 16 and1/2 hours and consisted of 2 piki rides, 2 minibus rides and one coach bus ride. To give you an idea of how muddy the roads were and how crazy the drivers are if Mike drove the same route with his Jeep he would have done it in the same amount of time. The first piki ride was like picking a piece of refreshing milk chocolate with a strong hint of danger in it. The ride took over an hour but we didn’t mind since the morning breeze and rising sun felt good on our faces. But this ride was probably the most dangerous part of the day even though it wasn’t nearly as terrifying or uncomfortable as the rest of the trip. The danger factor was that the majority of the piki ride was inside the park, the same park that has elephants, hippos and buffalo, all of which could easily outrun an overloaded piki carrying three people and two backpacks. The closest we got to seeing any wildlife on the ride though was seeing lots of hippo tracks in the road from the night before.

The first piki took us to Bulisa, a small village at the northern tip of Lake Albert that is a fraction of the size of Bududa. Somehow finding our next bus was much easier than finding something to eat for breakfast in the village of Bulisa. The bus ride from Bulisa to Hoima was the most spectacular leg of the trip. It was also the shortest of all the bus rides, being only a 3.5 hours trip. One really interesting and ironic thing I saw during the ride was a giant cell phone tower in the middle of a village that consisted of about 100 mud and thatched roof huts. As a whole Africa is developing at a slower rate compared to the U.S. or any other first world country. But what happens in countries, such as Uganda, is that their technology is so far behind that when new technology is introduced it skips whole stages in development. 15 years ago no one in a village in Uganda had a phone, today I bet half of the population has cell phones and that includes in the villages.

The road passed through some plains and rolling hills that ran along the eastern shore of Lake Albert. From there the road started to gain elevation. It went up and up and up and we were able to see great views of Lake Albert and the Congo on the other side. We were lost in the beauty and vastness of the country and before we knew it we were in Hoima. We did not spend any time exploring Hoima because we were still hopefully to end the day in Fort Portal and we didn’t want to waste any time. We spent over an hour there and for the majority of that time was spent in the bus waiting for it to leave. Buses here only leave when they are full, and this one filled up in about 30 minutes. Then we waited another 45 minutes for them to fit all the luggage in, get the back door closed, fill up on gas, put air in the tires and strap another 40 jeri-cans to the top of the bus. (Jeri cans are 20 liter jugs that are used for carrying anything from water to gasoline.) All of this proved to be challenging including getting gas because the bus ran out of gas and staled about two hundred meters away from the gas station. As if things weren’t ridiculous enough it also poured rain for the whole time we were there. It was like going into the box of chocolates and having a sea of chocolate fondue spill into your lap. I was literally rained on while in the bus because it rained so hard and the seal between the frame and the window nonexistent.

The chocolate fondue flowed into the roads and tripled the number of potholes, mud puddles and rivers that the driver had to navigate around. The roads were so bad they made Deer Hill Road look like the yellow brick road. Twice in the first hour of the ride we hit ruts big enough to cause the back door to fly open and have luggage spill out. One of the times a jeri-can filled with gasoline also fell out and somehow got a hole was punched into the top of it. So for the better part of the next four hours Mike and I and the rest of the passengers were inhaling gasoline fumes. Occasionally I stuck my head out of the window to get some fresh air and my nose and mouth rejoiced when ever a new scent hit them. Never before have I been so happy when the smell of shit hit my nose.

The most eventful and comic part (looking back on it) of the trip was when the bus got stuck in the mud. The first time the Ugandan plus Mike made quick work of pushing it up the hill and out of the mud. I didn’t have time to get my camera out. Their energy was high and the stubbornness fierce; there was no way they were going to let a little bit of mud stop them from getting to where they wanted to go. I enjoyed watching them push because I had total faith that they could do it and because I was happy to be out of the bus for a little while. Fortunately the rains stopped but the road continued to get worse as the waters drained down from the hills. The bus jostled from sides to side, fell in ruts and slid all over the place. Slowly my serenity began to wane and I held Mike’s hand tightly in mine and I started to wonder if we were still going to make it to Ft. Portal. When the bus got stuck in the mud a second time I almost lost it because I did not feel safe anymore but I was neither surprised nor upset. I was extremely grateful to get out of the bus and stretch my legs. This time I captured the epicness on camera, although at the chagrin of the driver and conductor. On a good day the bus ride from Hoima to Kagadi only takes about 3 hours, that day it took us 5.5 hours (6.5 if you count the 1 hour we waited before we left).

When we got to Kagadi there was no waiting around to start the next and last leg of our trip. Within minutes we were sitting in the relatively comfortable seats in the second row of a coach bus. Our hope had been revived because Fort Portal was the final destination for this bus and only a third of the road there was unpaved. For the first 30 minutes of the ride I couldn’t stop thinking how grateful I am to be alive and amazed that our bus only got stuck twice (don’t think happen in 3s). Little did I know my mind had the power to jinx the whole bus… it got stuck in the mud again. So there I was in a coach bus raging as fast as it could up a slipper muddy slope and even though we were fortunate enough to have the best drive in the world there was no way…there was no way. Instantly the driver started to scream and everyone rushed out of the bus slightly amused, perturbed and perplexed. How does one go about getting a coach bus out of a 12 inch muddy rut and then 100 yards up the rest of the hill? Like I said the stubbornness of African is fierce and every time they pushed they didn’t stop until it moved. And every time it moved a couple of inches their spirits went up and their stubbornness just got more intense. An hour went by with very little progress and I was becoming more and more pessimistic. Mike on the other hand was trilled to watch such an epic scene unfold and he was optimistic that their stubbornness would make them triumphant. One of our fellow passengers said this is an historic trip, it was indeed. After the sun had set and the stars came out there was a sudden roar in the crowd as the bus gained traction and moved several feet. The driver put the pedal to the metal and everyone kept pushing and soon the bus was safely waiting for its passengers at the top of the hill.

Three hours later the bus came to a stop, our journey has come to an end. It was 11:15pm and we were exhausted. We had lived through one of the longest, uncomfortable and most epic days of our lives. But we accomplished something that many Uganda doubted was possible; we made it to Fort Portal from Murchison in one day. All we had left was a quick piki ride to our hostel before we slumbered into our warm, cozy beds and called it a night.