It’s summer 2005, and I’m in a country along the Nile. The president has proposed an amendment to the constitution and rumor is rife that he will be standing for yet another term. There is much discussion in the press and disturbance on the streets, even speculation that his son is being groomed for power, a hereditary republic. Where am I? Wrong! This is Uganda — a central African country perhaps best known for the legendary excesses of its infamous dictator Idi Amin, a country that remains desperately poor but possessed of a very special vibrancy that somehow cuts through the deprivations of poverty, the assault of AIDS and the tentative steps towards multiparty democracy.

The gateway to Uganda for most visitors is Entebbe, its airport famous for the 1976 hijacking of an Air France plane from Israel and its subsequent storming by Israeli paratroopers. Today, it is a wealthy outlier of Kampala that retains a colonial air with a country club, golf course and a cannon captured from the Germans in the First World War and now worthy of its own plinth. Its real gems, though, are the fabulous Botanical Gardens that sweep down to the shores of Lake Victoria itself, Africa’s largest. Originally an area of native forest, the gardens are packed with exotics, tested there for suitability for cultivation in Uganda’s rich soils.

There is something of a faded glory about them, but they are a great introduction to the country’s flora and fauna. Forest birds are not easy to see as I was to find later but at Entebbe many of the residents are bold and loud. Great Blue Turacos in aquamarine, chestnut and yellow mingle in the canopy with their elegantly named relative, Lady Ross’s Violet Plaintain-eater. Vast Black and White-casqued Hornbills flap around in raucous pairs and the beach is patrolled by African Open-billed and Yellow-billed Storks. Perhaps the star attraction, and certainly my main reason for a visit, is the African Grey Parrot. Familiar to Cairenes as forlorn red-tailed individuals in pet shop cages citywide, once you have seen a flock in the wild you’ll never want to see them confined again. They are birds with character by the ton.

The other attraction in Entebbe is off-shore: The Ngamba Island Chimp Sanctuary was set up by a number of organizations including the Born Free Foundation and the Jane Goodall Institute to provide a home for chimpanzees rescued from the illegal pet trade or orphaned by the steadily growing bush meat market. There are two groups of chimps, one a young group in a large paddock, the other a mature group that lives in an area of fenced off native forest. Truly wild chimpanzees can be seen in western Uganda (I have seen them just across the border in the Congo —the Democratic Republic of the two), but for a more easily accessible primate experience this comes pretty close.

Access to Ngamba is by a large wooden canoe, and the morning of my visit Lake Victoria was deciding to do a passable impression of the Roaring Forties. The boat tossed up and down, launching itself over crests and plunging into troughs. Those of a more sensitive disposition, and more recent breakfasts, slunk, a delicate shade of green, to the marginally more stable rear where a bucket was thoughtfully provided.

The chimp experience was slightly underwhelming, but the work being done is admirable. An ecolodge is being built so that parties can stay overnight and perhaps wait for smoother waters. Afterward, I was chatting with some of the wardens they got round to asking what I do.

Richard Hoath The most reliable transportation is on foot. .

“I teach in Cairo.”

“And what do you teach?”

“Writing and a bit of literature.”

Broad grins: “Ah, so you know Okonkwo!”

I was taken aback for a second, but as it happened I had lectured on Chinua Achebe just the previous semester.

Richard Hoath River crossing made easy

“Of course! Things Fall Apart,” I said, and the ice really melted as we discussed my favorite sub-Saharan author until our boatman was ready to do battle with the ruffled lake waters once more.

I had heard great things about Uganda’s capital Kampala: “Visitors to Kampala often comment on the greenness of the city and its number of trees,” proclaimed my guide, and there are parts that do fit the description. But the overwhelming impression of downtown is a hectic, bustling city centre, grid-locked with traffic and people. It is pretty well impossible to avoid passing through Kampala in order to get anywhere else — and this involves the bendabenda and matatu experiences.

Bendabendas are motorcycle taxis that for a flat fare of 2,000 Ugandan shillings will take you at suicidal speed virtually anywhere you want to go in the inner city. Generally driven by youths graduating from the kamikazi school of motoring they weave through the Kampala traffic as nimbly as an Ahly forward through a Zamalek defense. They dropped me off at the main matatu stand, which transcended my own nightmares of sheer chaos. Hundreds upon hundreds of white minivans, devoid of labels and all looking identical, heading off to all corners of Uganda and I had to find the one to Jinja. It was surprisingly easy, largely because the Kampalans —indeed, the Ugandans — are, to use a cliché, so very friendly and helpful, helpful to the point that when they do not know something they will say so (Would that that were the case here!). Within minutes I was on a matatu (van) to Jinja with a vast mama jammed in next to me clutching seemingly a year’s supply of bananas. Matatus have no fixed schedule. Once the van is full (legally 14 passengers, often more, plus masses of luggage), the driver leaves.

So why Jinja? Jinja is a picturesque town some 120 kilometers east of Kampala that marks the point where the White Nile leaves Lake Victoria. The myriad streams that run into the lake from the surrounding hills apart, Jinja is effectively and certainly popularly the source of the Nile. I soon found myself settled in the Garden of the Timton Guesthouse watching sunbirds and butterflies flitting round various blossomed bushes and working out my next move. My next move was probably not the right one: I went to see the Bujagali Falls, where an angry Nile unleashed from the lake thunders in white water fury over a series of rapids. Up close, the crash of water on rock is awe inspiring. Someone with a sense of humor has put up a sign near the fiercest of the falls bearing the legend “The Bujagali Swimmers,” a club for those mad enough to have swum in there.

So why was this a possible mistake? Well, later that evening, having celebrated my arrival at the Nile’s source with a series of Castle Lagers, I was asked if I wanted to go white water rafting and, in a rather fuzzy state, I agreed.

Richard Hoath Shooting the rapids

The next morning I was picked up from Timton and driven north along the river to the rafting company’s headquarters, where I meet my fellow rafters, a group of missionaries from the US. We are kitted out with lifejackets, helmets, paddles and — after a snake had been evicted from one of our brace of boats — we hit the river. What followed was a series of capsize exercises, practice getting into and out of the boat, practice getting out from beneath it and various paddle drills.

There were two support kayaks, and we were told to hang onto the front or back if we fell in the water “by assuming the missionary position” — something that rather confused my fellow rafters. And then we set off downstream. The highlight of the trip, or the biggest thrills, were the four Grade 5 rapids we would hit, Silverback, G-spot (again, this confused the missionaries), Big Brother and, first, Bujagali. My heart met my mouth as I tried to equate the foaming torrents I had experienced the day before in a boat and a seemingly insubstantial inflatable actually going down there — and more to the point coming out the other end.

There was no going back, and it was exhilarating! You certainly appreciate the power of the water, and hitting a big wave can be akin to hurtling into concrete. Before we hit the big ones, our guide, Jomu, gets us to paddle hard and then yells “Step down!” and we all grab the side rope and dive to the floor of the boat. Thence we are hurtled, tossed, chucked and thrown like the proverbial cork.

I even find myself high-fiving once we come out the other end.

Rather more sedate is the source of the Nile itself. It drifts out of Lake Victoria rather than hurtles, the waters tamed by a dam downstream. There are signs, mostly sponsored by beer companies, that proclaim the source, there is even a plaque. There are plenty of stalls selling various tourist tat and a small restaurant. I had expected a lot of hassle and aggressive salesmanship, but no-one seems particularly bothered about selling anything. As dusk falls, the biggest noise comes from an immense colony of Straw-necked Fruit Bats and the wittering of Pied Kingfishers.

Richard Hoath Which way?

On the advice of a retired patent lawyer named Toby I met in Jinja, I head for the Mabira Forest Reserve for a spot of birding. Birdwatching is hard enough at the best of times. Birds are generally small, often plain and almost invariably active. Putting a name to a diminutive pack of feathers hopping around many meters away is hard enough at the best of times, but when that pack of feathers is hopping around way up in the forest canopy silhouetted by the sun it is infinitely harder. Forest birders bird first by ear, then by eye.

Toby has given me the name of a warden called Joseph, an athletic, shaven-headed man in his twenties who proves to have an astonishing ear for the forest birds. Birds I never dreamt of finding are ticked off: Purple-throated Cuckoo-shrike, Brown-throated Wattle-eye, White-chinned Prinia, Hairy-breasted Barbet, Blue-shouldered Robin Chat and a supporting cast of other forest specialties are all heard, then seen, then duly noted. Joseph even finds me a Red-headed Malimbe. He directs me to the crown of a particularly tall tree and finally to a dot that is hopping around in it.

“Red-headed Malimbe!” he pronounces. “Tiny black dot”, I think. But Joseph is not happy until I am convinced with what I see and so we stay with this particular black dot as it flits around in the canopy. Suddenly the sun hits it and the head is exposed as diagnostic bright crimson. Red-headed Malimbe, now we are fully sorted. The birds are the cake but Joseph has icing too. On our way back through the forest he points to a tree fork some 20 meters up. Nestled in the fork is what looks like a dark, short-eared rabbit. It is a Tree Hyrax, an animal that has been on my wish list for years.

For a taste of what it was really like on Lake Victoria, I escaped to the Ssese islands in the north western corner of the lake. This necessitated a marathon matatu trip, inevitably through the chaos of Kampala, to the town of Masaka on the western shore. Masaka, my guide promises, is the springboard to the Ssese Islands, a promise I find a much more stochastic and hit or miss affair. I stay at what is little more than a building site and awake to the screeches of Meyer’s Parrot. Then off to the inevitable matatu. The same theory works here as in Kampala: When the van is full the driver leaves. Except the van doesn’t fill and my time for the ferry (at this point I still think it is going to be a ferry) is getting tighter and tighter.

I do get there in time for the ferry — or at least what is called a ferry. It is in fact a vast canoe into which everything animate and inanimate is thrown. As the waves slap against the sides and water ominously appears through the floor, it crosses my mind that if something were to happen, and with not a life-jacket in sight I uncross my mind quickly.

Uganda caters to the wanderer.

I arrive in Kalangala and head straight for Hotel Andronica run by a character named Mzee Andronica. I am warned by the guide, an increasingly superfluous accoutrement, that it is “the sort of place that some people love and others hate.” The “hate” part of it relates to the hygiene and I am thus escorted straight away to the bathrooms. As far as ferns, mold and moss are concerned, they are wonderful, a thriving latrine of natural history’s best. As far as I am concerned, not being a fern, mold or moss, they suck. The kitchen is no better. It is piled up with used dishes and plates, and when this is pointed out, the excuse is that the cook has died.

Probably from eating there. I look elsewhere.

Thus begins an exploration for pastures new that ends with the idyllic Ssese Island Beach Hotel. It is clean, friendly and right on the lake shore. For the next few days it is bliss. I spend the days swimming in the lake, familiarizing myself with the various species of cichlids fish, some of which are found nowhere else but Victoria. I stroll through the surrounding forest, sometimes accompanied by the amiable but useless Joseph, a gardener elevated to the title of bird guide who cannot identify a thing himself but flushes plenty for me to. I commune with the resident Egyptian Geese and watch the cobalt flashes of Malachite Kingfishers as they streak across the water. I sit on my verandah and write in my diary to the wavering cries of a resident pair of Fish Eagles or move on to the jetty and read.

The tranquility is then shattered by the arrival of a gaggle of Irish expats and the news over the World Service of this summer’s bombs in London. They know me at the village now, and as I stroll over to try and find somewhere to change money, I’m asked if I had heard the news from London. I say I have.

“You are better off here!” comes the reply. Spot on.

Richard Hoath Boating

The Irish offer me a lift back to Entebbe in their boat, a very up-market affair that gets me to the mainland in 45 minutes whereas the local boat would have taken around six hours. I have a day left and wander down to the market for a bit of local color, of which there is plenty. Traders sit behind piles of plantains and manioc. Furniture makers and metalworkers ply their trade in the open and amidst all that one might expect from an African market are shops selling mobile phones and phone cards. In a country where a working landline is a diamond indeed, the mobile revolution has truly taken off.

Here the micro-trader reigns supreme. I settle down in a bottle shop to write up my diary over a Guinness. Uganda is very poor and faces enormous problems, economic, political and environmental. To the north, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is fighting a cruel campaign with no clear objective except terror. Uganda’s neighbors, such as Sudan, the DRC and Rwanda, are hardly icons of brotherly love. AIDS is widespread.

Yet despite this it is a country of enormous potential and if the sheer energy and entrepreneurship so clearly demonstrated on the small scale in the market at Entebbe can be channeled, nurtured and developed then the future of Uganda should be as rosy as sunset over Lake Victoria.  et