Where It Must Begin (Busia, Kenya)

Early on, when we were in Mwanza, I had told Scott we’d inevitably lose something on this trip and asked him what he thought that may be. I had thought maybe one of our cameras, perhaps even my ipod, maybe a piece of clothing. I never thought it would be my journal, my travelogue, my near-daily recordings of how many hours spent on a bus, my thoughts, the routes we’ve traveled. For the first time in many years, I wanted a really good record of my travels. I wanted to remember the sounds I woke up to – hippo calls on Robundo Island National Park, the flowing Nile at Bujagali Falls. Or the time I didn’t wake up to anything because I never went to sleep in Kabale due to the all-night dance club next door to our guest house. Little and big memories – from the small girl in the taxi ride between Kisoro and Mbale to the mountain gorillas that were within five feet – I wanted to remember it all. But my journal has slipped from my light grasp, probably kicked under the bed at the Crow’s Nest in Sipi Falls, our last stop in Uganda before rushing into Kenya. I discovered the loss last night in the dingy hotel room in Busia, a dingy border town of Uganda and Kenya.

I was trying to take it lightly but when I told Scott, I did cry a little, seeing the discovery as a loss of my travels and not in fact what it really was – a loss of words. Even now, I’m still saddened, but there is nothing I can do. Like most losses in my life, it’s just an item. I can just record the second half of our travels with Lake Victoria and Uganda behind us.

We arrived in Busia last night after a series of minibuses. We left Sipi Falls strapped into a bodoboda (motorcycle taxi) – Scott, I, and our two bags, and the driver of course – and rode the 12 kilometers down the hill to the minibus. About an hour later, we were in Mballe. After discovering we weren’t able to get a morning bus to Nairobi, we jumped in another minibus to Busia, a dirty, dusty, truck-filled border town, where we had to spend the night.

Sipi Falls was gorgeous. We spent the morning hiking through the falls area, through bomas and cornfields, past hunched-over old ladies and lines of young girls collecting firewood from the edges of Mt. Elgon National Park to get to three spectacular waterfalls. When we had arrived the evening before in the rain, cold and wet, my expectations had fallen. I wandered if the journey to the falls had been worth it. So when everything the next day was absolutely beautiful, I was just happy, giddy. It was hot and even muddy, but it was surprisingly okay.