Ok. I thought our shed was going to slide off the cliff last night during the heavy rainfall. Poor Claudia had to sleep on half her bunk bed since the tin roof was leaking. Heading back to Kampala today and resting a night at Red Chili is definitely needed, especially after my neck and collarbone was eaten alive by some insect while sleeping at Crow's Nest. I don't even want to think about what kind of bug did that to me. Freaks me right out. Its a good thing our expressionless driver James drove in the pouring rain WITHOUT windsheild wipers! When we asked him to put them on, he clicked them on once then shut them off again. O-Kaaaaaaaay...
Yay! We're alive and its pizza night tonight at Red Chili! Sooo gooooooooood!
We left early this morning (again) for a nine hour drive to Lake Bunyonyi. Now this was an adventure in itself- truly an African experience as we broke down on the side of the road twice! The first breakdown occured near the equator marking of Musaka. The driver pulled the van onto the side of the road where there were small shops. No mechanic shops around that any of us could see but our driver saw something we didn't...old car parts thrown around on the ground in one spot which "clearly" indicated that it was where you get your vehicle fixed. An hour or so later, with a "new" belt in place and the air conditioner still not working, we headed off again towards Kabale hoping the car would take us that far. However, this was not meant to be as we started to smell smoke about 2 hours later and pulled over to the side of the road once again, in the middle of nowhere. Midday, with sun beating down on us we couldn't help but laugh at our dilemma. With no town in sight and with some youngsters from school hanging around to see why these muzungus were hanging out on the side of the road, our driver Thomas, flagged down a truck driver to take him to the next town so he could bring a mechanic back with him. Its times like this u wish Uganda had its own version of CAA. An hour later, our driver appeared with a mechanic and some tools on a boda-boda(a motorbike which is a common yet very unsafe way to travel around). Once again the timing belt was replaced but now the battery was dead too. I still can't wrap my brain around this but our driver flagged down another vehicle and removed their car battery into our van. Once the van started up(and remained running) they removed the battery and put it back into the good samaritans car. Apparently, sharing batteries is a common occurrence here, but how the car remains running with no battery in it, is still a puzzle to me. Finally, we were on the road again- behind schedule and arriving late to Mbarare where the car again broke down. We decided not to chance finding another driver until early morninng since driving through the mountains to the lake is very dangerous at night. Luckily, we found a relatively nice hotel to stay at...or so I thought! Close to midnight and exhausted, as I unpacked some of my things I saw a bed bug crawling around on my bed!!!! Seriously!!! I know what they look like and there was no way I was going to sleep there this night. However, since it was late and searching for another place to stay was out of the question with the rest of my travel partners, I switched rooms instead and spent the night covered from head to toe in my clothes on top of the bed sheets with my towel wrapped around my head leaving only a breathing hole for my nose. I even left the lights on in the room and lay like a mummy as if that would make a difference- but in my mind, at the time it did. It was torture but I made it through the night without suffocating and without a single bite. I do have to mention a common reaction among many Ugandans here when they don't know something or are surprised with something -for instance, when telling the hotel clerk there were bugs on my bed, or that there's no water in the rooms, etc, in a high pitched voice they would say "hmpf...are you sure?!" "Hmmm....sure?!" Its quite comical really. Needless to say though, the people here are really great and super friendly!
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