Climate change in hours: a thousand meters it goes down to Uganda, it's getting green and tropical. High humidity, heat, sweat, sunscreen and road dirt – not only camp in the evening, but somewhere looking for a cold shower. In Kampala, we decide to take a cycling break, giving us a jeep with driver and go on safari. First, high in the northeast of the country, again out of the tropics to the border triangle of Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda. It's touch dry again, a sunburnt landscape that now, just before the rainy season longs for water. A few years ago the Kidepo Valley National Park was accessible only by charter flight, the land around a war zone. For twenty years the civil war lasted, in which the Lord's Resistance Army has terrorized northern Uganda. Now it's again possible to travel there by land. Neverthless, the park's still little visited. Good for us, because we've got what we've been looking for. No minivans or Safari jeeps, no camera-clicking, just us and the wildlife of Africa.
With the first rays of sun huge herds of buffalo are moving from the hill down to the water hole, massive, mud-animals, with their sweeping curved horns, droopy ears and wet noses. We observe a herd of giraffes, elephant families move past our camp. At noon lions are lying under a tree, panting exhausted in the heat, next to a freshly killed waterbuck. We're amazed, carried away by our first encounters with the "big" of this continent, in a picturesque landscape of undulating steppe grass and pale blue mountain ranges on the horizon.
This border area is also home to the Karamojong, an old pastoral people of Ethiopia, fraternizing with the Masai warriors in Kenya and the tribes on Lake Turkana. Generations ago, overpopulation had driven this semi-nomadic people from the Abyssinian highlands to the south.
While looking for enough water and pasture they splintered into countless ethnic groups. Families grew, adjusted their lives to the changed circumstances, formed new tribes. But one thing remained to them in common: They lived and died for their cattle. Friends became enemies in the battle for scarce resources. The civil war brought weapons into the region, brutal and bloody battles over water and grazing rights flared. Equally as brutal and bloody then the region was disarmed after the civil war by the Ugandan government. Today, the Karamojong are at a turning point in their history. The modern warriors in Karamoja no longer fight with a weapon in the hand against their neighbors, but against the faceless and boundless enemies of today who seem to catch them now after years of instability and isolation and to roll them over: climate change, hunger, lack of medical care and education. Young Karamojongs begin to get involved in aid organizations, help to build wells and schools and educate. We encounter such a Karamojong. Elijah grew up in a village on the outskirts of Kotido, in the "gun time" he himself carried a Kalashnikov. High cheekbones, wide flattened nose, ebony-black skin, open glance. Well, we can imagine him as a shepherd and fearless warrior. But no longer. Now he works as a voluntary at the Red Cross and is committed under their patronage as a cultural mediator. He has kept the open glance. Also the firm handshake as a welcome, a gesture that is important for the Karamojong, a sign of respect and trust.
The concept of the Red Cross is simple and sustainable. For a donation of $100 to the Regional Office in Kotido, Elijah will accompany us for two days. This way, no money is flowing between the Karamojong and us as visitors. The Red Cross is well anchored for years with its health projects, Elijah well respected by the village elders.
He brings us into his "Manyatta", a walled settlement with meters-thick mesh of branches around the mud huts. The heart of the village, surrounded again by broad protective fences, forms the cattle enclosure. When we now stand in it, it's silent and empty. Many of the men are drawn with the herds to water-rich regions. They'll come back to their Manyatta with the rainy season. The village elder greets us, introduces his family. Faces of men, women and children, often adorned with earrings, scarification and necklaces. In the early days those have been mark of social rank, awards for courage, strength and bravery, evidence that the clan member has entered into adult life. Today, as Elijah tells us, less and less connected with initiation rites or special acts. Today, young people may often decide for themselves whether they want to make the fine cut tattoos yet, and what jewelry they wear. It's evening. A group of young people's dancing. They practice several times a week, dreaming to get known outside of Karamoja. They too are on the way to leave the past as a warrior behind them without giving up their cultural identity. Bell wreaths on their feet, colored chains around the waist. Rhythmic pounding, high jumps, muffled horn bumps, songs that tell of peace. A new start? Elijah translates our words of thanks. It's also he who accompanies us the next morning to the cattle market just outside of Kotido. He's the link between the people who come together here every week and us that we would be out of place and strange without him. It's not a tourist event we're witnessing here.
Our presence needs to be explained, so that it's understood and accepted. Elijah shook hands, exchange words. The respect between him and his people, transfers to us. Strong handshake, friendly smiles. The men are haggling, testing the cattle, discussing prices, the women are chatting and exchanging news. Soon the situation's so relaxed that we can start taking pictures. Elijah translates our wishes and never is there even a hint of a question for money. Thus, the market day in Kotido becames the encounter with original African culture that we've longed for since the crossing of the Omo Valley.
The source of the world's longest river, the Nile, is in Uganda. In Egypt, we met it for the first time, in Sudan we've drunken its cool water from the clay pots in the shade of the Lokandas, then in Ethiopia we left the source of the Blue Nile behind us. Now we rock in a small boat on the waters of the young White Nile. A long journey lies before it. We know it. Hippos are bathing in the foam, which has been beaten up from the waterfall, elephants are taking a morning shower.
Screeching flocks of birds, sea eagles and even rare Shoebill storks nest here in the Delta of the Murchison Falls National Park, another stop on our bicycle break. It's an epic morning, as the sun rises slowly at the end of the silvery water belt and two cranes fly from the shore out into Lake Albert. When did we last see cranes? In Mongolia, it must have been last summer. But these are bigger, with fine plumes on their head, the emblem of Uganda.
Yet we spend a day with the chimpanzees in Budongo Forest. They've a fixed daily routine: eating, resting, eating, sleeping. In between there's some action when the alpha male runs off branch breaking and body drumming to chase an alleged intruder out of his paradise. Then everybody knows again who is the King and he lets a female groom him. So human. So we could imagine our lives too. But after ten days bicycle break our lazy life comes to an end.
We've gained a couple of Africa storybook adventures, but are also a valued double monthly travel budget poorer. If you want to experience the Africa of TV documentaries and glossy coffee-table books, then it takes a thick wallet. And that we have such a one, we can't impossibly bluff any longer. Soon we are back in the everyday African life, away from all the luxury lodges and the beautiful safari parks. Here again there's sweat and toil. The Africans for their survival and we for our progress.
It's the last beautiful day when we cross the equator. Sunshine and clear view of the Rwenzori Mountains. High they rise to our right, mountain ridges, in the distance a glacier. Clouds are drown overnight and then the rain begins. Every day there're now strong one- or two-hour storms. On the dirt road along Lake Buyoni we catch fortunately a dry phase and so we don't get stuck in the mud. As a blue eye surrounded by laughter lines, the lake's nestled between small fields that pull up the steep slopes. It's the beginning of the hills that accompany us on our journey through Rwanda and Burundi. Despite the crisp gradients that follow, we are moving fast. We've to catch a boat to take us across Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. It leaves in five days and runs only every two weeks. 590km and 10'200 meters of altitude - hard work in so little time, but it's worth it to make up ground as fast as possible and so escape the rainy season.
The MV Liemba. A ship from Germany which sails across Lake Tanganyika since the First World War. Twice it was already on the lake bottom, twice it was rescued, restored and now it moves on and on, on its endless journey, taking and bringing goods from the isolated villages on the lake shore, transporting passengers from Tanzania to Zambia. We cast off, the lake widens to a boundless sea. It seems that the sun sets hissing and steaming in the water, leaving towering clouds behind which are looming on the horizon. Surging and seething they quickly fill out the heavens, send a light show of lightning and thunder dry bursting over the stage. The final comes at the beginning, the end of the first act. The rain curtain falls.
Our first stop is at night. The clouds walls have disappeared, a clear starry sky, a bright moon. The ship's horn blaring, shouts are answering across the water. Soon we're boarded by large wooden boats, hawkers are bringing drinking water, fried fish, boiled bananas. The calls and people are lapping on board, the spotlight floods across the deck, the perfect open-air stage. Prelude to the second act. We've got front row seats at the railing of the first class and can closely watch the crowd. The loading crane hoists boxes off board, in a corner it comes to melee. The ship's bell rings, the horn's blaring over the water, hurriedly the traders climb in their boats, glide out of the cone of light back into the darkness.
Third and final act: the roles are reversed, we once again become the actors and the people around us, the audience. From the edge of the stage they call us their "how are you?", Zambia's welcome. We like to hear it after the silly "Muzungu, Muzungu give me ..." of the last countries. The setting, a straight road, lined with head-high, lush green elephant grass, elongated hill, monotone under the gray, dripping sky. The daily downpours are now extensive, the sun breaks through seldomly. Our role in the play is simple: pedaling as far as we can, day after day, across the country. The distances in Zambia are immense. One thousand kilometers on the Great North Road brings us to the capital Lusaka. Five hundred kilometers more it goes from here to the border at the Victoria Falls. Slowly, the grass gets brown again, the rain hours reduce and just before we reach Livingstone, we've the first sunny day: the clouds are blown away by a fresh southerly wind. A clear blue sky, sharpened colors. It remains dry twenty four hours. Exit of the rainy season. Standing ovations.
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