Day 7 - Kilembe

The day started having breakfast with the Belgians and after their lively driver Busko. We figured out a possible plan for our final week in Uganda after our projects with them, great guys!

After they set off, we walked down into town along the main road to view the collapsed bridge, impressive work of the floods (pictured here). Basically, the valley flooded 3 months before we arrived, bringing down massive white boulders which litter the riverbed. These destroyed the bridge as well as houses, and took several locals' lives. Apparently floods of that size only happen every 50 years or so as well. It was all very impressive and terrifying. There's a tiny makeshift wooden bridge instead of the steel one now. When we got there, we ran into Joshua, our guide from yesterday, and thanked him again for brilliant trek! Then we headed back up through the idyllic town of Kilembe to the hostel to grab our bags and get a ride back to Kasese. All the children chased us yelling "Byeeee!"

Being a Sunday, the minibus station in Kasese was desolate, but luckily the one matatu there was going to Fort Portal so we hopped right in.

What followed was an epic journey to Fort. We had decent seats, but it didn't stop us getting squashed when there were 5-6 people sitting in our row. Bear in mind this is a minibus designed to hold 14 people plus driver (3 per row), but we were packing in 27 people at a time, despite regulations against doing so! Passengers kept jumping in and out of the matatu, while the conductor shouted the destination out the window. It was quite fun, although thank god the ride didn't last more than a couple hours. It was definitely better than the bus. We also saw the crew of another matatu battling it out with our crew for passengers.

Arriving at Fort taxi park, we hopped straight onto two boda-bodas (first ride) with our bags, headed for YES hostel. Fort Portal is definitely the nicest city we saw in Uganda, the busy streets blended with nature and a good atmosphere. The weather is a lot cooler though, and its not uncommon to see the boda drivers wearing ski jackets to protect from the cold. The Rwenzori mountains loom in the background, mostly covered in mist. At night, there is always storms and lightning, without fail, its impressive as hell!

YES hostel is a chill place, and we're set to stay there for three weeks. We expected others to be there already, but nope, just Kris and me playing ping pong all evening. A British traveler called Hugo showed up as well, and he had a couple interesting things to say about his travels.

Ali, Shreetik and Chiraag showed up around midnight, straight from their own unfortunate bus ride, but I was in a very sleepy haze!

peace