On this motorcycle safari through Uganda we try to get as many experiences as possible for ourselves. To achieve that, we didn't stay a second night in Kisoro. Today we wanted to continue to Lake Bunyonyi in the early afternoon. A tight program, because we all had a lot planned for the day.
Except for me, everyone on the team left at sunrise to visit the gorilla families in the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in the border triangle of Uganda, Congo and Rwanda. On the other hand, I had planned something else and was able to sleep in peace. At nine o'clock the round and cheerful local Benjamin picked me up on his Bodaboda moped. Together we drove south out of Kisoro. The road quickly became a pothole and then a boulder field of volcanic rock. As his companion, Benjamin assured me that I shouldn't worry, he was very experienced on this path. In fact, he never stumbled. Leading the way on his motorbike was Omar, my guide and liaison. Because I wanted to visit the Ba-Twa. A pygmy tribe settled on the slopes of the Muhavura volcano after being expelled from the jungle in the 1990s to protect the more valuable gorillas. Apparently not many visitors came here, because the children, who were going about their young age's vague day's work along the way, were over the moon when they saw me. It's hard to understand how they perceived me as a foreign visitor at all, because I was wearing long trousers and a jacket and my helmet, so that only my hands revealed my white skin color. They ran after me with a ferocity that, even though they were only four-year-olds, I felt comfortable Benjamin could always outperform them.
Uganda 2022
When the Covid-19 pandemic finally reached an interim low in spring 2022, intercontinental travel become at least a little reliable again, even though a lot of paperwork was involved. It was just then, that a WhatsApp from my "old" motorcycle buddy Jonathan (he really is 70 years old) fluttered to my mobile phone display. Just three months ago I had crossed the Colombian Andes with him and now the travel fever was plaguing him again. Uganda, the pearl of East Africa, should be the scene of our next motorcycle adventure. For a while I looked for reasons not to go along, couldn't find any and a few weeks later we were sitting together on the shores of Lake Victoria in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, feverishly awaiting the start of Moto Safari Uganda 2022.
The exhaustion of the eventful day took away the opportunity to listen to the voices of nature at the paradisiacal Bunyonyi Lake yesterday before falling asleep. As soon as I closed the mosquito net and turned off the light, I was already in a deep sleep, from which I woke up just after sunrise this morning. The Bunyonyi Overland Resort, where we spent the night, has an amazing breakfast, considering its remoteness, after which we were able to start the seventh section of the tour over 200 kilometers into the Mburo National Park. The serpentine road, riddled with erosion grooves, didn't give us an opportunity to warm up, so our field of drivers tore wide apart. Dan and I drove a little ahead because there weren't any turnoffs to take a wrong turn anyway. So we took the time to stop at a quarry where the backbreaking work was done in a primeval way. The region that we drove through here is also notorious for its exploitative and inhumane mining. While there was no sign of proper safety gear or tools, this one didn't live up to the most dreadful descriptions of the area's mines.