Christmas in Uganda!

We had a really lovely three weeks in Uganda with our dear friends Micah and Betsy DeKorne and their sweet family. We ate really well, and it was refreshing to be around kids a lot because you just can’t take everything seriously with kids! They say the funniest things!

We were, of course, doing work from a distance while we were with them, but we did take some time to have fun, such as Mark’s camping trip to the gate of the Rwenzori Mountains! (He just posted on that below)

I, Karen, spent a week at a conference in Kampala that I had attended last year. This year, we went with the whole Seed team to the Great Lakes Initiative Leadership Institute on Reconciliation. It was again a great experience, and I really enjoyed participating with the Seeders and not being in charge! A highlight for me was meeting an internet acquaintance and hearing a testimony about an organization I’ve come to admire – the Congo Initiative, part of which is the Universite Chretienne Bilingue du Congo (UCBC – Christian Bilingual University of Congo). They’re doing great things in a difficult area.

Nonetheless, it was good to come back to Bukavu and to our home. The weather here is SOOO wonderful! Not hot, just a bit cool at night, some rain but not too much… We did really miss playing Frisbee when we were gone to Uganda! Our team here is really great.

Ruwenzoris

So, a few weeks ago I (Mark) had the great pleasure to go up into the Ruwenzori mountains. They're the tallest chain of mountains in all of Africa, topping out with Mt. Stanely at 16, 762 ft. above sea level, and with more than 4 other peaks above 15,000 feet. It runs along part of the shared border between Congo and Uganda, about 300 miles of where I live in Bukavu. Each country has its own national park governing the park of the range that falls on its side. Since I was in Uganda, and since it's more secure, I visited the Ugandan side, though I'm sure the Congolese side is also beautiful. On both sides, the surrounding plain is around 3000 ft above sea level, so it's got some pretty outstanding prominence.

It was a 3 hour drive away form Mbarara, where I was staying with Micah and Betsy Dekorne. I had been planning to just go on my own because I've wanted to see them for some time now, but it turns out that one of Micah's friends was given "a camping trip" as a Christian gift from his wife. This mostly meant that she agreed to let him get away for a little bit while she watched their 3 young children. So that guy then invited his other friends in Mbarara, including Micah. Since I was visiting Micah, I got invited too. 

I'd also toyed with the idea of borrowing someone's motorcycle and driving out there myself, or with another friend of Micah's. I'm glad now that we decided against that, because: 1. it was actually a pretty long drive, and dusty, so you couldn't really see much during the drive. 2. the road doens't actually go that far up into the mountains. 

This second point was something I was just not expected, and hadn't really appreciated from looking at maps. This mountain range, and the forest that covers it up to treeline (around 10,000 ft), is just really remote. The range itself is maybe 60-80 miles long, and probably 20-30 across. And the roads don't go more than 3-5 miles up any of its canyons. After that it's just all national park, and you can't get in unless you pay and have rangers with you, and even then you have to walk everywhere. I've seen many places that the "classic" way to hike the Ruwenzori's is an 8-10 day backpacking trip. And I understood why that is being there. The road just ends waaaaay before you really even get to the high mountains. And you literally have to walk a really long way to get to them. 

Since going into the park is super expensive (for me it would have cost around $65 to do a 3 hour hike), my friends and I decided to instead do some hiking on land that bordered the park. All the pictures I have below are from those hikes. That's why there's some farm land in these photos. The park itself is virgin jungle, and as dense as it can be. 

I went on 2 different hikes, both about 3 hours long, and both pretty great in different ways. The first one went along a river coming out of the mountains (see pics) and also through a stretch of reclaimed forest that an organization of local women as bought and conserved. The second went basically straight up, 2,000 feet to the top of one of the foothills and gave a great view. It was REALLY exhausting, but also fantastic. By the time we got to the very top of it the clouds had settled over the highest mountains, and a haze had also set in (bc it was not rainy season in Uganda, though it still is in Bukavu!). So I never got to see the very very highest peaks. But the ones I saw were still super impressive and I had a great time. 

Here's some pictures!!

This water is actually snow melt. It's VERY cold and clear and beautiful. Because of the loose, red soil, it's really rare around here to find running water that clear, so it was a special treat.

We started the hike at the bottom of that valley.

This is the second hike. Obviously.

We were very tough.

Close up of the same chameleon I have in my hand in the picture above. He has 3 horns. SUPER cool.

This was the furthest we went into the park. About 10 yards beyond that "Karibu" sign in the picture above, but to the right side.