I have probably mentioned the gigantic potholes on the road in every post so far, so I will spare you another re-iteration of just how huge and all over the place they were. The potholes turned out to be the least of our car and traffic related problems anyway. So here’s just a brief summary of the car issues we had on one day - New Year’s Eve: First of all we ran out of power steering fluid. I have no idea what it does, why you need it and what happens if you don’t have it, but I know by now that it’s some kind of important and absolutely impossible to get in rural Uganda! Petrol stations are rare as it is and to find one that sells this fluid was a real mission.
Eventually we found some, stocked up and were back on the road for maybe twenty minutes, when we heard a “Pfff” - we had a puncture! None of us were quite sure how this happened as the road was actually reasonably good and the puncture looked like a fairly smooth cut… but I don’t wanna start any speculation. Surrounded by locals (where do they always come from in the middle of nowhere?), we changed the tyre in the midday heat. In Uganda it’s really important to have a spare tyre on you all the time, which meant that we had to get a new spare tyre. Same story as with the power steering fluid – Uganda’s country side is not terribly blessed with garages and trying to find a tyre that kind of matched the other three was simply impossible! Accompanied by a local, we drove to about ten different “shops” that sold dodgy second hand tyres – none of which looked anything like ours, but we eventually found one that kinda resembled the others… Ready to hit the road again!
At this point it was already afternoon, we had hardly covered a third of the distance and the roads weren’t exactly about to get better. In fact, they got worse and on one of the country roads rain had filled a massive pothole with water. The village kids were all gathered around the muddy pond and their first reaction was to shout “We’ll push, but only if you give us money!” – Capitalism in Africa! While I waited in the car – lots of kids looking through the window, I felt like a zoo animal – the boys examined the pond and decided to f*** it and dash! Completely covered in mud, Hamish took a deep breath and magically managed to race his car across the pond. The kids were annoyed – no money for them from us! 
At this point I seriously thought that things could not possibly get any worse, but Uganda is a country full or surprises and obviously there was more to come. Because we were already running late, Hamish put his foot down and we made some good progress. In one village another car was coming towards us - probably going at 120km/h! When going around a corner, the driver lost control of the car and on this tiny little country lane, the car started skidding and turning, We would have hit it full frontal, but fortunately the driver managed to turn the steering wheel in the last second and avoided a collision. Unfortunately he lost control over the car completely, flipped twice - flying right past my window - and landed somewhere in the country side. We stopped in shock. The entire population of the village was running towards the scene when we saw one of the doors opening – thank God, the passengers seemed to be okay! These situations are never easy, but in Africa they are particularly difficult: we were three white people in a 4x4 and as much as we wanted to get out and check that everything was okay, it is actually advised (especially for Westerners) to drive on as villagers often don’t wait for police to arrive and take justice into their own hands… So we decided to save ourselves, drove on and reported the accident in the next village. Fortunately that was the high- or low-light, but not the end of car stories for the day.
All day long I had been wondering how Ugandans would spend New Year’s Eve. The country is desperately poor and people would certainly not be able to afford fireworks or parties. Speaking to a few people in villages I realised that many of them would be in church, but that was in the country side where there was no electricity, no bars, no nothing! What did people in towns do?
We arrived in Fort Portal late, found some semi-dodgy accommodation and went out for something to eat - it was already close to midnight when the waitress served me some over-salted spaghetti bolognaise. Three Ugandan guys sat on the table next to us and when we got up to wish each other a Happy New Decade, they joined in. They went for a hug and I let them - after all, it was New Year’s Eve. But I realised very quickly that this was a mistake as they were less interested in a friendly New Year’s hug than in squeezing me and trying to touch my bum! So 2009 ended with salty pasta and 2010 started with physical abuse by Ugandans!
On the way back to the hotel my question about how Ugandans celebrated New Year’s finally got answered: There was a massive street race going on with motorcycles, cars, trucks, minibuses and some cyclists racing around the roundabout in the centre of town! Coming from all direction, hooting and flashing their lights - obviously all without helmets - the crowds were cheered them on and it really seemed like no guy who hadn’t gone round the roundabout at least once would get a girl in the next year …
After two days in Fort Portal, the boys continued their journey through Uganda and I caught a bus back to Kampala. Just like Rome, Kampala is built on seven hills and just like with Rome, all roads seemed to lead to Kampala; so finding a bus was easy - enduring the five hour trip to Kampala not quite so easy! For once this cannot be blamed on the fact that the bus was overcrowded, had more chicken than passengers or stopped every two minutes to drop off and pick up new passengers (and chicken), but was due to road improvement works that were taking place on the main road. To make sure that roads don’t get damaged during improvement works (someone please explain the logic to me…) Ugandans build loads of temporary speed bumps every hundred metres or so. This would have been annoying either way, but unfortunately I was sitting in the very corner of the bus – on the back wheel to be more specific! And now please picture three hours of speed bumps - and we’re definitely not talking about little ones - and me sitting right on top of the wheel! It was the most painful journey I have ever had and I will remember it for the rest of my life because I actually got rope burn, which left a beautiful scar on my back!
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