Uganda? Nah. U.K!

I’ve discovered that every emotional action – apart from introverted solitude – wants company to share this emotion with. Me, I have been hit by the travel bug and now I want everyone else to be similarly inoculated with this virus.

I was fortunate last year to have the opportunity to visit different parts of my country in the Northern and Western regions. As a consequence, I tell everyone I meet how domestic tourism ought to be the new thing y’all.

When I told someone once I was going to Kabale and couldn’t stop to talk to them because I was in a rush and didn’t want to have to buy another ticket, they were confused.

“Ticket?”, they said. “But I thought you were going to Kabale”.

“My bus ticket”, I wryly replied. She burst out laughing.

“We thought you were going somewhere ‘serious’ in a plane!”

Reader, I wept at this contempt for a country that’s hailed as one of the best touristic locations in the world. I wept some more when I asked a friend to plan an out of town trip for the upcoming Easter holidays. Their response went thus:

“It’s too far”; “Are you paying my fuel?”; “I can’t afford a hotel and I’m too old for this tent business”; “I hear that side is even cold!”; “What’s there to see again?”; “Bore!” Etc.

A few days later, I was having a conversation with this friend when she said – wait for it: “I’m SO excited. I’m going to London for Easter!”

“Abego?” I asked her, stunned. “You can’t go to Bunyonyi and feast your eyes on our yummy nature because it’s far and cold but you’re willing to travel further to a colder place?”

“Of course”, she defended herself. “It’s outside countries and I’m in a plane and not some dusty road. It’s way cooler!”

Maybe one day Ugandans will ask one another as a matter of course: “So which new district did you visit this year?”

A guide from Bunyonyi Safaris Lodge showing me Lake Bunyonyi