A Trip within a Trip: The Good German, Part 3

So, as I finished my “007”, I pondered the next leg of our journey. Arriving at the park proved to be quit simple, as we were driven by Solomon and his private vehicle. Owning one’s own vehicle is a luxury not many Ugandan’s, and even more so for Bududan’s in my experience, have the means to afford. We felt quit privileged ourselves to be able to travel with such comfort and convenience. We would soon learn, and more intimately than ever before, how convenient and comfortable we truly had it.
When we parted with Solomon and his family, we didn’t just say goodbye to good friends; we also said goodbye to our means of transportation. There is no town to speak of in the Park. There are lodges. Guest arrive, usually in rugged Safari Land Rovers, chartered through tour companies based in Kampala. They shuttle their clients, almost all of which are muzungus, from airport to hotel and from there…anywhere their money wants to go. A few adventurous souls drive their own vehicles, Solomon being one. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of visitors arrive, and leave, by the paved road to Kampala, or roughly SE. A small few may come from the East or the North where there is a fair amount of NGO’s operating. Even fewer still, choose to leave from the SW. Especially without their own vehicle. Except us. Our plan was to continue traveling SW to Ft. Portal.
As I sat at the bar, continuing to sip my whiskey, shake off my hippo encounter, and inquire about the possibility of such a trip with the bartender James, I observed a patron sitting alone. He was in his early 40’s; tall, stern, dirty and sunburned. At first I thought maybe he worked at the camp, a guide or driver perhaps. He was completely uninterested in interacting with the other guests, who loudly tried to one-up each another with their safari stories of the day. One large group was actually in a heated game of “Asshole” with a deck of cards. This man sat, uninterested, with three empty Niles in front of him.
I slide over to the empty bar stool next to him and introduced myself. He was polite enough, but clearly thought I was of the same crowd as the others behind us. I asked him how long he planned to spend in the park, to which he replied with a shrug and a thick German accent: “Don’t know?” I asked him where he was headed after he left (somewhat hoping he might be heading our direction) and he replied with the same gesture and response, then sipped his beer. Despite the small disappointment that he was not traveling my direction, I immediately liked him. I asked him where he came from, as I was almost sure he was not from a Kampala tour company. To my excitement, he explained how he had arrived by public transport (boda-boda) from the south-west!
I informed him of our intention to leave via that route, and that any info he could pass on would be greatly appreciated. He went on to elaborate on his travels a bit, starting from Kampala, where he took a bus to Ft. Portal, our intended destination. He spent several days there climbing in the fabled “Mountains of the Moon”, the Rwenzori Mountains. My heart began to sink a little when he described how the trip from Ft. Portal to Murchison had taken him 4 days and was some of the roughest traveling he had encountered. We were hoping to travel the distance in a single day. Most of these challenges and delays he attributed to the condition of the road and the heavy rains.
I took out my map and he showed me his route, which was similar to the one Therese and I intended. He said that securing transport was no problem from Bulisa, the closest town outside the park to the west, as there were many boda-boda men waiting for passengers. The ride, he reported, was somewhat perilous, on account of the animals present, and took over an hour.When I informed him of our intention to travel the route in a single day, he chucked and took a large gulp of his beer. He smiled and said, with absolute sincerity: “Good luck!”
We had found the information we needed but we still had one problem. There were no boda-boda men in the park. James, who had been listening on intently, announced that he had a friend who was a boda driver in Bulisa. He arranged a phone call, and within minutes I was negotiating the price for transport. He agreed to meet us at the camp at 7 am sharp. I finished my whiskey, shook the hands of James and the good German, before retiring for the night. I had a suspicion that tomorrow would be a long eventful day, and a good night sleep could prove essential.