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20th november - 8th december

Overlanding across Afica in our Land Rover Defender: Uganda

Andy Lees
2006-05-14 18:47:09

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why uganda? if the images of sweeping plains and snow-capped mountains epitomise kenya and tanzania, then the one image i had of uganda was of lush, tropical vegetation and red dirt roads. neither of us knew much about uganda; some overlanders visit, some don't, depending on whether the primates are a big enough draw to warrant a 'detour' off the cape to cairo 'highway'. visiting either requires some backtracking or circling through rwanda to get back down into tanzania - a less travelled route. but we were keen to go - it promised a little of west africa (even though it's east), the ruwenzori massif (mountains of the moon) and provided a route through to rwanda where we wanted to track the mountain gorillas. there has been much media coverage recently of the atrocities happening in the north-east of the country and the fco warns against travel to this area, but when visting uganda you can see just how specific these activities are to just one part of this country.

jinja - 20th november

it wasn't long after the border that the good tarmac road started to become littered with the biggest, fiercest pot holes we've ever seen. a bad dirt road is one thing, but when smooth, fast bitumen suddenly gives way to wheel swallowing craters, it can get quite dangerous. we quickly realised these continuing obstructions were slowing us down to the extent that we'd do well to reach jinja by sunset, as planned. night driving in africa is never a good idea and we felt particularly uncomfortable about it in a new and unfamiliar country. we pressed on as fast as possible; swerving, using the wrong side of the road, putting two, or all, of the wheels in the dirt beside the tarmac, whatever it took to get through.

in front of us, huge clouds towered upwards. stormheads billowing large on the horizon caught the pinks and oranges of the setting sun. it was perhaps the most dramatic african sunset we'd ...