Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
times were looked back on fondly. English is still the first language of Uganda, though the
languages of the different tribes also proliferate, and perhaps it was this shared tongue that
made it seem an easier, simpler country to navigate.
The Uganda we walked through might have felt more peaceful than Tanzania or
Rwanda, but the truth is it is another piece of Africa with a violent, complex past. Unique
among African nations, Uganda is a country inside which several kingdoms still exist, and
perhaps it was this that meant it did not take to democracy easily after it gained inde-
pendence from Britain. Uganda had been a British protectorate for sixty six years when
independence came in 1962, and the first democratic elections saw an alliance between
the Uganda People's Congress and the Kabaka Yekka, a monarchist party primarily com-
prising ethnic Bugandans, who make up more than half of the population, come to power.
The alliance lasted only four years before the UPC forced out the Kabaka Yekka, forcibly
changed the constitution, and formally abolished the traditional kingdoms of Uganda. This
new situation couldn't last either and, in 1971, a military coup saw the UPC removed from
power, and Idi Amin - a name now synonymous with East African dictatorship - begin
his eight years of tyranny. This was a period marred by violence on a scale that came close
to matching what we had seen in Rwanda. To maintain his military rule, Amin murdered
more than 300,000 of his countrymen, drove the business-minded Indian minority out of
the country - a feat which destroyed a once-flourishing economy - and led the nation to
war by attempting to annex the Kagera region of Tanzania through which we had walked.
Nor was Amin's deposition, prompted by a mutiny in the army during that same war, to
bring peace back to Uganda; his legacy can be felt, even to this day, in the succession of
civil wars the country has endured.
On 23 January, the forty-fifth day of our journey, came the first truly seminal moment in
our expedition: Boston and I each took a single step and crossed from the southern to the
northern hemisphere. We were straddling the equator.
Fifteen kilometres south of the small town of Buwama, still two days' trek from the sub-
urbs of Kampala, there lies a nondescript, diagonal line in the road. At each end of the line
stands a clear circular monument, with the word EQUATOR etched into the concrete. As
Boston and I trudged up the Kampala road, the lake's shimmering vastness somewhere off
to our right, we could tell we were near. Tourists had gathered around the monuments and
there was a shop too, selling wooden shields and tacky key rings.
As we reached the line, I checked my GPS. According to the little contraption the line
itself was nine metres away from the actual equator, but, looking into the eyes of the
gathered journalists, I thought it prudent not to mention this. In the south, Boston and I
took one look at each other and, the next step, we were in the north. There was an element
