Uganda

You may be surprised to learn that it was actually Winston Churchill that popularised the name ‘Pearl of Africa’. I’m sure Pepsi know. It was kind of them to welcome me and certainly warmer than my exchange with the health control officer, who explained to me that asthma made me weak and I should get a Yellow Fever vaccine anyway. I thought she was going to hit me with her clipboard when I produced my inhaler and took a puff for dramatic effect. In case you’re interested, Uganda is also one of those countries that obnoxiously uses a whole page of your passport for a visa.

I had arrived in Uganda to embark on a road trip with a group of friends. We would take in the whole of the country and embrace the primate ecosystem. To round it all off we’d finish with a music festival on the Nile. We elected to complete our road trip in a Hyundai minivan who had seen her best days some time between 2004 and 2006. We named her Fergie. Yes, after that Fergie. Inside she was spacious and the seats were surprisingly comfortable. Ominously, you couldn’t adjust the front seat. This left my legs in the kind of position that would make a head on collision fatal for my anus. Over the course of 5 days of driving, we had to replace two tyres and re-weld the oil tray. Whilst this slowed our progress, it meant we met hundreds of people in small towns and villages across the country, many of whom were wearing Premier League shirts and wanted to eat my sandwiches. When we finally dropped Fergie off at the end of the trip, the owner we’d rented it from refused to reimburse us for the many mechanic costs we’d had to pay. In spite, I reversed her at 30mph into the wall of the garage, much to the horror of the parking attendant who was waving me in.

Although not the sole reason for the trip, seeing the gorillas was high up the list of priorities. Fergie had just about got us to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, but our guides would take us the final stretch. Now I would forgive you for not knowing what an African Helicopter is. I certainly didn’t know. But you must first understand that seeing the gorillas costs more than 6 weeks worth of tuition at a UK university, so most of the clientele represent what my year 11 geography teacher referred to as the ‘grey pound’. The fine gentleman of the national park know this, and recognise that the 4-10km hike to see the gorillas would be insurmountable for most of the people that can afford to do it. Enter the African Helicopter. For an additional £1000, 4 men will carry you on a stretcher, from start to finish and back again, for this once in a lifetime experience. Over hills and dales, there is no terrain that can stop the African Helicopter. I thought the gorillas would be life changing, but seeing a 70-year-old and perfectly round woman from India be carried off into the impenetrable forest will live with me forever.

Who is Susan and why did she take such a relaxed approach to formatting her cafe’s sign? I would have liked to find out, but one of Fergie’s peculiarities was that she often struggled to turn off. It was therefore only in extremis that we risked a stop. Sad really. One should never turn down a delicious meal ⬅.

I was nervous and excited about attending one of Africa’s biggest music festivals. Was Reading festival in 2014 worthwhile preparation? Over 4 days I expected to fall in love with afrobeats and prove myself to be very interesting for choosing Nyege Nyege over Glastonbury. I was therefore disappointed when we arrived on the first day to find that very little of the festival had been built yet. Although there wasn’t any music, per se, I certainly ate a very nice chicken off of a stick. On the second night, more things were built, but sadly the chicken stand had run out of chicken. The approach to buying drinks was perplexing. There were supermarket-style stands, rather than bars. Cash only, but no ATMs. Once you’d purchased your 4 lagers you simply had to carry them until they’d been consumed, warm. By the third night, the music was in full swing, although several acts had cancelled when they heard lots of the festival hadn’t been built and we noticed the same DJs rotating around the 3 stages in an attempt to make it seem full. At this point the pickpocketing had got a bit out of hand. Roughly 50% of the group had had their phone stolen. But not me, I was too busy walking around trying to find the chicken on the stick again. Having watched a party boat full of revellers sink into the nile, we decided not to come back for the 4th night.

Safe from the trials of Nyege Nyege, we had very intelligently elected to stay in a beautiful sight overlooking the nile and not in tents by the festival. It meant a 1 hour minibus ride there and back, but that was a price worth paying. On one of the evenings, someone messed up the car booking and I had to ride a boda. I underestimated what a boda on Uganda’s clay roads would do to me. I arrived at the festival with a perfect spray tan and auburn teeth. It’s amazing to imagine the journey the water takes, from where we were standing as the sun set, to where Gamal Abdel Nasser soiled Anthony Eden’s premiership.