Fort Portal 9/22

Doreen and I killing time while Enoch met with someone at the school

We woke up early this morning and headed to Fort Portal.  Fort Portal is about an hour North of Kasese.  Our first stop once we arrived in Fort Portal was to ANOTHER school that Enoch has a connection to.  This time, the school was Enoch’s secondary/high school.  The school was very nice and well kept.  The campus was lively with students playing basketball, swimming, and getting ready for the Senior dance that would take place that evening. 

Some students playing basketball

Students swimming

Inside one of the caves

We then made our way to the Mabere caves.  We really didn’t know much about what we were doing; Enoch just said we could check out some caves with stalagmites and stalactites.  But of course, it ended up being quite the adventure.  Our guide mentioned to us before entering the jungle that they have worked hard to preserve its natural state, which at the time I didn’t think much of.  But as soon as we entered the jungle we were walking over, under, around, and through all sorts of plants, trees, branches, and vines.  It was awesome.  We were doing a lot of maneuvering, ducking, jumping, and stretching to get from one spot to the next, which made it all the more fun.  I should note that Enoch, our 65-year-old supervisor kept up just fine.  I was thoroughly impressed.  The hike lead us to a few caves.  In the caves we saw the stalagmites and stalactites.  The tour guide had some story about how they resembled a woman’s breasts and a legend that went along with it.  I wasn’t buying it, but he couldn’t stop laughing and smirking about it.  Probably my favorite part of the hike was when we reached the waterfall.  We were able to stand on both sides of the waterfall.  So first, we were behind it and then we walked further and were able to stand right in front of it, actually in the water.  It was amazingly beautiful. 

Behind the waterfall

In front of the waterfall

Climbing through the jungle

Excited! Doreen came with us too. It was her first time in Fort Portal

Beginning our walk on the green hills to the Crater Lakes

After our jungle walk our guide took us on the Crater Lake walk.  We walked up these beautiful hills on our way there.  Katie and I both said we felt like we were in Ireland surrounded by such beautiful green hills.  As we were walking the weather started to change.  The wind was picking up and the sky was turning grey. But our tour guide assured us if it rained it wouldn’t be heavy.  Well before we knew it we were walking the hills with hail pinging us.  The rain was heavy to say the least.  It was a torrential downpour in every sense.  And it seemed like we just kept walking and walking and walking.  We eventually stopped at a little home situated on the top of one of the hills.  Our guide had asked the people living in it if we could come in and wait until the rain stopped or at least calmed down.  The people were nice enough to let us come in and sit in our soaking wet clothes for about a half hour until the rain cleared up.  By this point we were kind of done with the tour.  We were freezing, wet, and already feeling satisfied after our jungle walk and seeing one of the crater lakes already.  We finally spoke up and told the guide we didn’t need to see another one and headed back.  At the time we were kind of miserable, but it was just another Uganda experience that I can look back on and smile. 

The view from the top of the first hill. Notice the clouds moving in. 

One of the Crater Lakes

Next we headed back to town (we were just outside of town for our walks).  We went to a pizza place, YES, PIZZA PLACE, and put our order in and then we walked around while it was being prepared.  There were some great craft shops in town where we purchased quite a few things.  After making some purchases we went back and ate our pizza.  We treated Enoch to pizza since he was our tour guide for the day, and he LOVED it! He couldn’t stop talking about how good it was and how the next time he is in Fort Portal he will be for sure getting some pizza!   We were so excited that he liked it, and we REALLY enjoyed it too.  We are already talking about coming back….

On our way home Enoch stopped to buy some potatoes and about 20 people stormed our car trying to sell us things.

Just some beautiful, green, scenery on the way home.

We were completely satisfied, from the pizza, to the jungle walk, to the shopping, so we headed home.  We relaxed the rest of the night and just Skyped with people back home.  The perfect ending to a great day.