Part Two: A Trip to Bwindiful

At 7:20 AM, Volcanoes Land Rover rolls into Red Chilli’s. I meet Matthias, a 67- year old gentleman who will be my driver for my trek. We load up with my
request to stop by a pharmacy in Kampala to get more Keflex, as the other pharmacy only had 2.5 days worth.

Off we go, past those gruesome storks, dust, schools, churches, mosques, I see an ad for Bareback Condoms.

Huh.

I’m surprised by how well maintained the roads are, and just kind of drink in the scenery as it rolls by. So many people pedaling & peddling bananas, fields of
papyrus looking very Horton Hears a Who, crowned cranes, hornbills, crossed the equator where they had a Corioulus effect demonstration, passed stalls
selling neat pyramids of mangoes, tomatoes, watermelon, potatoes, loofah, rolls of papyrus matting.

Around 11:00, I’m starting to feel famished as I missed last night’s dinner and left before breakfast. Matthias pulled over around 11:15, and our vehicle was immediately surrounded by people wielding skewers of meats and corn & bananas. I thought, “I'll worry about tapeworms later. Give me 300 skewers…”

Matthias shooed them away and bought two ears of corn. I like corn and thought
“Filling. Sweet. It’ll do.”

I’d never had roasted maize before.

So that you can enjoy the sensation at home, I’ve come up with a recipe for you to try. Experience it, too!

Here goes:

§ Get very very stoned.
§ Have someone blow dry the inside of your mouth.
§ Take the San Francisco White Pages and dice into 1/8 inch cubes.
§ Pop in mouth and chew.
§ While chewing, have someone eating Corn Nuts occasionally breathe in your general direction.

It took me 45 jaw-cramping minutes to finish an ear.

I was sure my mandibles rivaled ‘Nutcracker Man’ we learned about at Olduvai. It was kind of like having an ear of the ornamental corn you see in floral arrangements in the Fall. At least my stomach had some grist to mill.

My leg was very red throughout the drive, and I was wondering if the Keflex was causing a Custer’s Last Stand type reaction with the bacteria. It didn’t hurt at all—perhaps determination is a mighty opiate.

As we drove, we passed Lake Victoria and continued into green rolling hills. The more we drove, the more Middle Earth it became-all brown and green mosaic,
abrupt hills in every direction, terracing all around. As we neared Bwindi, the roads became dust and boulders, and we passed tea estates, bananas, maize.

Saw a black and white colobus monkey leap right in front of us, a strange cross of flying skunk and Sherman Helmsley.

We passed a group of about 10 people carrying a man on a stretcher. Matthias said they would walk him for nearly 10 hours to a hospital. The multitude of things we take for granted.

The last three hours before we reached Bwindi, the road of dust & rock took on a menacing quality, with boulders and trees pointing down into it like daggers.

By 7:00, we rolled into Bwindi, where I was to begin my gorilla adventure.