Before moving to Uganda and living in
London I considered myself a walker. Not
a woolly hated cagoule wearing rambler like you find in the British
countryside, but one who wouldn’t mind if the bus broke down and he was forced
onto the pavement . Someone who’d prefer
to walk home from the pub in the cold winter nights, than wave down a black cab
and steal a lift in the relative warmth.
In London, however there are pavements and traffic lights and there
definitely wasn’t the staring.
Just before Christmas I finally got organised
and signed myself up to trek in the Rwenzori Mountains. Even before I arrived in Africa I had spotted
the potential to break my mountaineering duck and tick off a five thousand
meter peak during our stay. However
Easter 2013 presented me with a time window, so the deposit was paid and the
race to get fit started. Unless you are
Decathlete, wear a moustache and have a name that rhymes with Haley Sompson,
Christmas isn’t usually a time for training.
Christmas in the Ethiopian foothills however could maybe classed as my
precursor to the Mountains of the Moon.
At 3,200m they certainly weren’t to be sniffed at and I feel that by
living at 1,200m in Kampala, my body is partially prepared for the altitude.
So as it’s very difficult to train any
harder for the altitude I think that’s one box ticked. The second however is more strenuous; plenty
of miles under the belt and as many hills as possible. Thankfully Kampala, well at least the
original city, is a capital of seven hills that are certainly far more imposing
than Rome’s and this gave me an idea. As
I touched on above, walking in Kampala is an interesting and sometimes hairy
affair. With very few safe stretches of
asphalt and far too much traffic on the main roads even driving a car can be
dangerous. Plus the sight of a Muzungu
strolling along the road can bring you no end of innocent yet invasive stares
which make an Englishman rather uncomfortable…introduce a pet dog into the
equation and you can forget the idea of a nice Sunday stroll. Therefore back roads are your best friend and
with a trawl of an old city map and more modern search engines I drew up a 12km
circuit and called up some friends to join our inaugural Kampala Ramblers
Associational [that doesn't exist!]
wander.
We all met up in a local shopping centre
car park early on a Sunday and with Maggie leading the way set off up and down
the largest two hills of Kampala.
Sticking to the back roads proved fairly easy and was certainly a
welcome relief to the inquisitive locals and SIP’s (Self Important People)
trying to run us over with their hazard lights blinking away in an un-designed
role. After an hour Naguru Hill at
4,310ft had been conquered and we set off in search of Kololo (4,280ft). At this point the sun had started to beat down
fiercely on us as if to exact some punishment for discovering a way of avoiding
the urban motorways and its erratic operators.
However with a backpack full of water, sun cream and doggy treats we
pushed on relentlessly and with minutes to the summit passed the North Korean
Embassy. A few inquisitive stares of our
own through the open gate followed as we glimpsed the shiny and frankly rather anti-communist
Mercedes’s in the driveway. But we
couldn’t hang around and after rounding ‘Fascist Corner’ (home to the Italian,
German and Austrian Embassies) we summited with Maggie weaving across the road
in search of shade, tail between her legs.
Not bad for starters, plenty more to come before Easter but hopefully
all as refreshingly enjoyable as this.
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