You Haven't Lived Until...

July 18, 2011


...you spend 8 hours on an African bus. 


Katie and I decided we wanted to spend 3 nights in Lake Bunyonyi.  And we would have to take a bus 8 hours to the Rwanda border.  


Here is how it works:


Show up to the bus park when you are told.  Which was 9am.  Just kidding- funny joke on the mzungus!  The bus doesn't leave until every seat is full - which was actually 11:30am.  

Luckily, we had some entertainment.  Men boarded the bus repeatedly to sell us things like broken radios and vasoline.  Which was great because I was short on vasoline. I was so thankful when the man in front of me bought a radio and boisterously scanned the frequencies over the next 8 hours. 


My personal favorite is Suit Man.  He wanders around the bus park wearing all 7 suits that he is selling.  If someone is interested in one of his suits he has to undress 7 suit coats.  I love him.

(He is the one in all the black suits)

The cross-country Ugandan bus is traditionally built in the 1980s.  Leg room is not the bus' specialty:

There are no rules for what you can bring on the bus.  Such as this live chicken under my seat:

Uganda has an entire economy of people selling things on the side of the road.  When on an Ugandan bus, one must buy fruit and maize through the windows (because God knows that you CANNOT get off the bus).

There are lots of great things to see out the window.  Like this lovely international hotel you may recognize:

The ride was horrible.  Katie was forced to sit with her shoulder in the arm pit of a man standing in the aisle wearing a t-shirt with the picture of her ex-boyfriend on it.  I guess that is what happens when you date a pop star.

Finally - 

Folks, I have always known that I have a lot in common with Britney Spears. 

And getting off the bus in Kabale reminded of what it feels like to be mobbed by a lot of people.  Fights ensued over which taxi driver would get to drive the mzungus getting off the bus.  People grabbed us.  People screamed in our faces.  I had a panic attack.  I just wished I had an umbrella - Britney was a genius with that one.