Although my gorilla trekking expedition including transportation back to Kampala from Bwindi, I ask Aaron to drop me off in Kable. Kabale is a small town on the very South-western tip of Uganda. It lies right on the borders of Rwanda and the Congo. We run into a bit of bad luck on our journey out of Bwindi. The front axle on Aaron’s truck snaps in two. We are in the middle of nowhere and he doesn’t have a signal on his cell phone. A few people from the local village pass by and laugh at the severity of the problem. Aaron decides to keep walking until he can get a signal on his cell. So, I left in the middle of the dirt road, on the edge of a cliff. It was here that I saw the largest worm in my life. Shortly after my worm discovery, another safari vehicle came to my rescue. Unfortunately, Aaron needed to stay behind to tend to the vehicle. It was much longer that I was arrived in Kabale. I had read about a museum hostel several months ago and was determined to visit. The name is The Home of Endirisa. I’ve included their website at the bottom of my blog. It’s a great organization. As soon as I got out of the truck I met my first friend, Lillian. She’s a die-hard banana sales girl. Anyone need a sales person? I suggest recruiting Lillian. Very outgoing, friendly, knows her product builds relations. If she saw me around town, she would walk with me to my next destination just to talk about our day…. Always ending the conversation with a pitch for her lovely bananas. Meanwhile, she should have been in school. The Home of Endirisa was a place where people from all over the world would come to stay, people of all ages. It had a relaxed atmosphere. On top of the building there was a covered lounge called “The Nest”. It housed about six sofas and was a great place to read or just hang out. I had planned on catching up on my blog postings but their internet was not working. In town I found this great little shop that sold boot-leg movies. I bought one DVD titled “Nicole Kidman vs. Angelina Jolie”. Eighty movies for only $10. In reality there were only twenty movies, ten featuring Nicole Kidman and ten featuring Angelina, they were just featured in four different languages. Either way, what a bargain. So, if anyone wants to watch Mr. and Mrs. Smith in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish, come see me. After five days in Kable I was really missing the forest. I decided it was time to make a plan to reach Kibale National Park. Here I could obtain a permit to go Chimpanzee trekking. I could also go trekking in the park to see many of the other primates. Getting up North to Kibale from Kable was not as easy as I thought it would be. It looked as if my only option was a seven hour ride on the public bus. After purchasing my ticket, I was told to be at the bus station at 2:30am. The bus was scheduled to leave at 3am. I was not too happy about taking the public bus as I have read and heard many horror stories. When I arrive at the bus station, promptly at 2:30am, I’m pleased to see that the bus is a motor coach. The seats are very empty and there are only three or four people standing by the bus. This might not be so bad after all. I step onto the bus to select the perfect seat and that’s where the nightmare begins. The bus is full. Everyone is sleeping on the seats and on the floors. There are bags of potatoes, rice, suit cases, boxes piled everywhere. I want to cry. I want to check my bag in the boot so I wait outside for someone with authority to arrive and assist me. That happens around 3:30am… thirty minutes after we were scheduled to leave. Oh, and the person that helped me was there along. He was sleep on the bus and didn’t wake up until 3:30am. I find what I feel is a good seat at the front of the bus with decent leg room for a long ride. Wrong. The bus proceeds to stop every 20 minutes and pick up more people. Two men just board with a saw the full length of the aisle of the bus, another family squeezes on with chicken, the girl sitting next to me is sound asleep and has her whole head on my shoulder and someone has their bags sitting on my feet. To distract myself from the uncomfortable situation, I decide to call my friend Maria, who is in Botswana, to touch base on our upcoming plans to meet. In the middle of our conversation, the bus driver lays into the horn which resembles something from the “Dukes of Hazard” car only ten times louder. Maria laughs hysterically. This pattern is repeated several times before we decide to give up. Even though there are no seats left on the bus, we stop to pick-up more passengers. It is at this time that a bus from a competing company passes. The four employees on our bus become outranged. I don’t know what they are saying, but they are not happy. All of a sudden we take off. The four employees begin shouting back and forth, searching ahead for what I assume is the bus that passed us. The bus is now going extremely fast, we are a high mountain road (and it’s a long way down!) and it’s raining. This is the most frighten I have been on my journey so far. We spot the other bus, change into the opposite lane, and pass. The employees all jump with joy and cheer loudly. I’m just glad it’s over. We stop at the next town and finally some people get off; however, the bus aisles become flooded with venders selling everything from mystery meat on a stick, bottles of water, bananas, shoes, watches, socks, meds, anything you can think of. I look at my watch and realize the seven hour journey is just about over and we are nowhere near my end destination. When I ask the bus driver what time we are expected to arrive the time I am now given is 2pm, making this total ride from hell eleven hours!!! Eventually I do reach my bus stop of Fort Portal and as quickly as I can find a taxi to take me Kibale National Park. As soon as see the forest I am put at ease. Finally I’m back… back in the forest.
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