How to become a gypsy in 3 simple steps
Trip Start
Dec 07, 2009
1
62
88
Trip End
Sep 26, 2010
Where I stayed
Little Ritz in Africa
Kabale, Uganda
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
During my time in Rwanda I went through a career change and left the country as a "Rollercoaster Tycoon" No problems there, quite standard stuff to be honest.
Now for a quick and easy lesson in how to become a gypsy in 3 steps.
Step 1: Travel around the world for an extended period of time without ever going to a barber to get your hair cut.
Step 2: Wear out your last pair of flip-flops, consequently refuse to wear shoes, then proceed to wander barefoot around the dusty roads of Africa.
Step 3: Write "gypsy" on your customs entrance form for Uganda.
Presto, you are now officially a barefooted gypsy.
After customs we made it to Kabale fairly quickly and set up camp. I wandered around town a bit to check out what was there. Turns out not too much except a lot of red dust and Dubai electronics huts selling obsolete items. Had some dinner, went to bed.
The next day was a full day outing to Lake Bunyonyi, so yes, everyone was up early again (it is becoming a trend, I know!) Made it there fairly quickly via matatu and took a boat to an island resort where we would base ourselves for the day. Lake Bunyonyi is very beautiful, it is 25 km long and has about 30 islands of varying sizes. After dropping our stuff off at the resort we jumped back in the boat and cruised for an hour to the other end of the lake. From there we got off and trekked for an hour down a road that was cut into the hillside. All the kids yelled at us as we walked past, alternating between "How are you? How are you?" and "Give me your bottle!" Good fun. Eventually we arrived at our destination, which was a Pygmy village. They welcomed us with many different dances and most of us even got up and joined in at one point or another. It was quite a wonderful experience just interacting with these people and getting a small glimpse into their lives. We only had about 30 minutes with them before we retraced our steps all the way back to our resort island. I spent the afternoon swimming (read: showering) in the lake, and then playing some poker with the group. We had a nice dinner of local fresh crayfish as well. All in all an interesting and entertaining day.
Tomorrow is another early start as we have a long travel day to get to Jinja. I'm excited to get back there as it has been one of my favorite places so far!
-js the gypsy
