THERE is a building, now a hotel, as you swing around the corner to start journeying along the banks of the picturesque Lake Bunyonyi which used to belong to the Dean of Kampala University.
Right up to the point it caught the eye of Idi Amin.
One of the big bad bogeymen on the news during my childhood, the then Ugandan president (dictator, despot, butcher who oversaw the deaths of around 300,000 of his people during the 1970s… take your pick what you call him) set his sights on the property.
The Dean was never seen again.
Just one of the many stories about Amin’s years in charge and one which is hard to tally with the welcome and comforts we have received since arriving in Uganda.
Certainly it is a far cry from the idyllic, almost Alpine, scene as the lake sweeps off to my left under the watchful eye of the surrounding hills and our temporary base, just around the lake from Amin’s much-coveted spot.
As well as soaking up the surroundings, we are steeling ourselves for the first of two uphill treks which dominate our thoughts – particularly those of us nursing the odd injury (my knee has chosen the last 48 hours to start playing up) and distinct lack of fitness – and the days ahead.
The first is relatively short and sharp up the hillside over the lake to spend the afternoon and night at a school set up by the local village for children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.
The second, after the relatively short trip over the Rwandan border, has been looming large for much of the trip for those who booked it before the off – the trek through the mountains to spend an hour with gorillas.
A former colleague recounted tales of people returning in tears after their experience with the gorillas, which put it top of my to-do list, despite his tales of how tough the trek to see them can be.
It is the last part which has taken precedence in my thoughts over the last week.
As the next few days promise to be one of the most physically demanding of the trip, the last week (the 32nd of the trip) has been one of the toughest in other ways.
Not that we (well, me anyway) have done that much, with a fair amount of sitting around the campsite – particularly the bars – and some long days on the bus dominating the last few days, with the odd equator crossing and daily downpour to break up the ennui.
Nothing in particular set it off (other than perhaps a bit of a come down after the big-ticket items in Zanzibar and the Serengeti on the back of Zimbabwe and Malawi, while marking time ahead of the gorillas and final push north), but for the first time, the sheer length of this trip has started to take its toll.
There have been no thoughts of cutting the trip short, but for the first time, the count has been on the days left (approximately 52) rather than days gone (225) and the little things which drive you nuts have been increasingly hard to ignore.
Maybe all this kicked off as we headed out of Tanzania – via a final few hours of charitable giving at the Snake Park bar – and to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, where we waved farewell to four of our number.
Hisako and Helena joined in Accra and were always due to end their trips in Nairobi, but Linda and Jiro were among the bleary-eyed strangers who first came together at Gatwick Airport all those months ago.
Jiro decided some time ago it was time to call it quits in Nairobi and head back to Japan, having left his own individual stamp on the last seven months (topped by him managing to procure two night’s free accommodation in Botswana when all he actually wanted was a late-night drink), while Linda was scheduled to end her trip early to return to work in the Netherlands.
Their departures sparked much reminiscing and the odd tear and it is hard to fathom Linda is already back in the real world of work (the nascent search for which looms large at the front of my mind and is possibly contributing to my mood), while we remain in our sheltered cocoon of life on the truck.
While we waved farewell to four of the truck family, we welcomed three more (plus Martyn, back from a few extra days of relaxation in Zanzibar) – Paisley and Saskia finally joining us officially after travelling on the other truck as far as Cape Town and being part of the extended Nala family with Vicky becoming the latest fresh meat passenger.
Their first port of call on the truck was the banks of Lake Naivasha, where we shared our campsite with grazing hippos – thankfully happy to stay on their side of the electric fence – and vervet monkeys, who were less willing to keep their distance and did their best to hoover up any scraps of food we had dumped in the bin.
Opting out of the bike ride through Hell’s Gate National Park, my less energetic excursion took us down the lake to Elsamere, the former home of Joy Adamson, conservationist, author of the book Born Free and an echo of a world long gone.
Born Free – the tale of Elsa the lioness, who was raised and finally released into the wild by Joy and her husband George, both of whom met violent ends – was one of those movies which always seemed to be on every Bank Holiday or wet Sunday growing up. Sort of The Great Escape with fur.
So it was fascinating to watch the dated film on her life and peruse the rather limited museum on the couple before retiring to the lawn overlooking the lake for a rather splendid high tea. All very colonial.
Our stay in Naivasha was also notable for the first of the almost daily, short-lived storms which have cropped up as we have bounced back and forwards across the equator in the last few days.
This downpour was notable for the fact it arrived with me still in the shower and forced to don a towel and dirty clothes to race back to throw my mosquito tent and its contents into the rather more waterproof surrounds of the tent which is my back-up when the rain comes down.
The next day’s rainfall sparked another retreat on arrival at our overnight halt in Turbo, this time to the safety of a room. More accurately, a cell which, even at just $5 a night (which Michael owed me anyway) was probably a little bit overpriced.
It at least made surfacing for an early start on the road to Kampala rather easier, the long day crossing the border and clocking up the miles broken up by the first sighting of a Ugandan speciality – roadside stalls and vendors fighting over the chance to sell us meat on a stick and chapatis.
A new experience we have embraced to the full more than once and have already pencilled in a stop when we return down the same route post gorillas.
By contrast, our base in Kampala was up there among the most salubrious we have had – hot water in the showers (sometimes), a pool, wi-fi, a bar serving cold beer and decent food and oodles of televised football.
It was rather harder to tear ourselves away even earlier to beat the notorious Kampala rush hour traffic, but our reward was our current base on the banks of Lake Bunyonyi.
Things are looking up…
