Mount Sabinyo

Three weeks ago, we traveled west to the intersection of the Rwanda, Uganda, DRC borders to hike Mt. Sabinyo. It was an eight hour hike and the only thing that I've done that really compares in difficulty is the south sister. This was the first time our group had been back together since training and it was really good to see everybody. They really have started to feel like family. I may not like everybody and some people can get on my nerves but they are all I've got, the only Americans ill be seeing anytime soon. To get out west from our sites in the east, Carolin, Bethany, and myself decided to take a bus. We also decided to do the journey in one day which wasn't the smartest decision. When we got to Kampala we discovered that the only bus going where we needed to go didn't leave until 4pm, which would have us arriving around 1am and leaving for the hike at 8am. We didn't have much of a choice though so we paid the ridiculously high 40,000 ush ticket price, less than $15 but I'm used to thinking in ush now, and loaded up on snacks. This would turn out to be the worst transport decision yet in Uganda. Wanting to get some rest for long day ahead of me I decided to drug myself, and popped a few tylenol pm but unfortunately tylenol doesn't help with constant stops, overcrowding, and mysteriously powerful bo. Although I guess I cant complain too much, I saw an overturned taxi on side of the road on the way there and another group had to wait for a new taxi after theirs caught on fire... We finally rolled into the town at the base of the mountain a little after 3am, by 3:30 we had found a place to sleep and passed out. Three hours later we're up and waiting for the car to meet up with the rest of the group. By the time we get there, all the sack lunches were gone. Three hours of sleep, one bottle of water, and a banana. Everything I need for an eight hour hike.

The last hour of the hike was spent on ladders, and with slopes ranges from 45-90 degrees they were pretty much necessary. When we reached the top we were in the clouds and so didn't get much of a view but I did manage to pee off a cliff onto the DRC, take that democracy! The hike down wasn't nearly as much fun because it started to rain and the ladders were slippery. Some of us were moving faster than others and my group made it down pretty quickly but the guides that came with us made us wait for the rest of the group at the bottom of the slopes. They wanted us to go through the last stretch of the hike as a group because it had been raining and so water buffalo were more likely to be out. I can only assume that he wanted us to be in a large group when the water buffalo charge to help decrease the chances of he himself getting trampled. Both the guides that came with us were carrying AK-47s, in case we ran into water buffalo or mountain gorillas, but alas, neither made an appearance. We arrived back at the camp cold, hungry, and exhausted. I did surprisingly well considering my lack of sleep, but the amount of goat i ate for dinner was obscene.