Loren’s last few weeks in Uganda’s paradise are drawing to a close. I am moved to write this guest post as Mitch and I were very fortunate to be able to spend an amazing four days in Uganada in early January. This was also the first stop on our first trip to Africa. Loren’s beautiful lodge was a kind and gentle introduction to a very different landscape.
After an overnight stay at a lovely innwhich was surprisingly close to the main airport at Entebbe, Loren, Mitch and I were lucky to have Fred, the lodge mechanic, meet us for the challenging, sometimes arduous six hour drive north and west to the lodge, of course in a sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle. The orange dust was omnipresent, even the palm trees growing close to the road were coated with it. It was difficult to tell if some of the one story buildings which line the road were painted a cell phone company orange or if it was more of the dust. We quickly learned that almost all the buildings, homes or small stores, sported the trademark paint of one or another of the major cell phone carriers. Free paint for free advertising we wonder?
The altitude climbed, and we began to see spectacular tea plantations stretching into the the distance. They looked incongruously lush amid the dry orange-dust roadbed. Tea, Loren explained, cannot grow in rich soil.
Stopping for a quick snack did not involve fast-food McDonalds but rather, fast street food. Fred seemed to just pull over at a random spot along the highway and the car was immediately thronged by an array of helpful vendors, young boys with boxes of bottled water, women with fresh cooked chicken and roasted plantains on skewers, baskets of beautiful mangos. Kampala mangos! We must buy, so much better than the Fort Portal variety. Loren and Fred quickly managed the transaction and we were off!
We had already seen many photos but we were still stunned when we turned off the highway, drove through one of the tea plantations, turned onto a series of smaller roads that finally just came to the roads end, we were there-it was paradise. The crater lakes,so beautiful that they grace the Ugandan twenty-thousand shilling note are spectacular, surrounded by unspoiled, lush foliage.
Loren’s home is a village of English cottage married to African architecture perched on the edge of the craters. Each guest quarters consist of a private cottage with patios, French doors, open air, private bath and thatched roofs. The porches are furnished with the heavy wooden furniture made locally including specially made coffee tables with a built in dog bed woven at the bottom. We came, of course, to love these 4 lodge dogs and counted ourselves “special” if one of the sisters chose to spend a night on our porch.
One of my most treasured memories from this short visit was our morning walk with Steven, the lodges all knowing, kind, low-key nature guide. Our destination was the vanilla plantation but along the way were introduced to the unbelievable array of birds, wild banana trees and cultivated vanilla. We were surprised to see a few cows wondering in the jungle as monkeys called overhead, incongruous to us, but typically Ugandan. Steven knew every English and Latin name for every plant and animal. Heading back to the lodge we climb up a steeply terraced hill and found the lodge’s kitchen garden. Some plants, beans and herbs were familiar, others were new and strange but a beautiful, Alice Water’s worthy endeavor. We arrive back just in time for a luxurious lunch.
