Bumpy roads and spitting cobras - let the touring begin.

Kenn and I are now on the road. We decided that we would head to the Southwest of Uganda – a land packed with rolling hills, crater lakes, lowland rainforest, highland valleys, and sky-piercing mountain ranges. It is beautiful!

After our first days spent touring caves and lakes around Fort Portal (see Kenn’s post on this here), we decided that this would be a great opportunity to head into the Semliki Valley – a lowland rainforest that is continuous with the Congolese Uturi forest, the largest in Africa. There were two things I didn’t anticipate about this trip: 1) how incredibly beautiful the drive would be; 2) how absolutely terrifying the drive would be.

Myth: A matatu that drives full speed around blind corners on the edge of a 100 metre dropoff with only it’s blaring horn to protect you from any oncoming vehicles is really, really scary.

Fact: A matatu that drives full speed around blind corners on the edge of a 100 metre dropoff without blaring it’s horn to protect you from any oncoming vehicles is really, REALLY scary.

We took the 2 hour journey in a jam-packed rickety matatu with babies on our laps, flying around blind corners with enormous dropoffs only inches away (the tires definitely left the gravel a few times), all for the sake of getting to this rainforest.
We got to the rainforset – went for a walk – saw some monkeys and big trees – but otherwise it was truthfully a little bit disappointing. The highlight was probably seeing a 2.5 metre spitting cobra. We heared it before we saw it; it was hustling down a tree trunk trying to get out of sight as we approached and made a ruckus as it hit the ground.

After seeing the cobra, we walked on and soon looped back. As we were crossing the same point that the cobra was first seen, there was a loud rustling in the trees overhead. I turned to our guide, Moses, and asked, “What kind of monkeys are up there?” Moses looked at me, fear in his eyes, and responded with a thick accent, “spitting cobra.” The look on my face must have been quite rewarding because he burst into laughter and continued to laugh at his joke for a solid 5 minutes afterwards. I jumped at every rustling in the bush for a solid 45 minutes afterwards. Jokes about deadly snakes - not funny!

I'm now sitting in a cafe in Rwanda drinking the nicest coffee I've had in 2 months. We just arrived in Kigali and I'm really looking forward to exploring (and testing out my grade 10 French) - Internet seems to be more common around here, so I'll be sure to update a bit more often!

xoxo