Musambwa Island

Once upon a time when I was skipping through an old East Africa lonely planet guide at my friend Rilke's house, I happened upon a short paragraph about an island in Lake Victoria on which snakes - mostly forest cobras - dwell in harmony with local fishermen. The islanders live a basic life of fishing, sharing their tiny island with a colony of waterbirds and a dense concentration of these cobras, but banning women from setting foot on the island. The name of this place: Musambwa Island. It means 'spirit island'. 

Getting there was tricky. We took a night bus from Kigali to Kampala, but told the driver to let us off at Masaka. At about one in the morning, I woke up accidentally and checked my GPS. We had just overshot Masaka by about 1km. I told the driver to stop and let us off, which led the passengers to believe we had reached Kampala. They were not pleased! 

There we were at a petrol station in the middle of the night, accompanied by a female security guard who helped us hail a passing motorbike. Hoping to not get robbed, we put our faith in him to take us to a hotel. 

In the morning, we found a taxi to take us to Kasensero Landing Site, which seemed to be the most logical way to get to Musambwa island according to my map, although getting information/directions from Ugandans or Rwandans is extremely difficult because you never get a straightforward answer. 

Jack and I were on our toes non-stop during this adventure. After a few minutes, my GPS showed our trajectory to be about 90 degrees off from our intended direction. We duly informed the driver, but he pretended not to understand us, saying he knew where we were going (funny, he spoke perfect english a few minutes ago!). We were pretty sure we were being robbed, so we devised a plan to ask for a bathroom break in the next town, where I would need to get toiled paper from my backpack then we'd make a run for it. As we were about to do this, we realized what was really going on - he was using our fare to pick up his friend and his son! We thought about charging them money, but in the end decided lets just get there and lose this guy. 

Once in Kasensero, things got a whole other level of strange. We walked to the docks to try and hitch a ride on a fishing boat to get to Musambwa Island, but a police chief and a border officer were asking us all sorts of questions and being very suspicious of our plans. We did not say we were after snakes, just 'wildlife photography.' They convinced us not to sleep on the island as it was not 'safe'. They also suggested that the fishermen would attempt to swindle us by charging a fair price to get there, but then threaten to strand us there unless we paid them a huge fee. Their suggestion: we hire the police to take us in their 'safer and faster' boat, which we bargained from 70 down to about 50 bucks. After much discussion, we decided in favour of certainty, so we would have to wait until morning to go. Meanwhile, we explored the town, encountering some interesting characters. First was the town mayor come to greet us, who told us some history of this story of this town over a rolex. 

I've been all over Uganda, and this was the best Rolex I've had

During the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's, Kasensero was one of the first towns in Uganda to be hit. This was because long-haul truckers brough cargo here to be shipped across Lake Victoria. At night, they blew off steam with local prostitutes. Now it made sense why women were banned from Musambwa island. Today, the people are quite educated on AIDS and prostitution has become rare, he said, although women are still banned from the islands. 

Then we met the town 'smuggler' who claimed to be able to smuggle anything for us. We told him his services would not be needed as we were 'biologists' interested in photographing cobras. He was actually a very friendly guy and wished us good luck. 

During this entire time, we'd been followed by 2 men in a white car. When we looked over at them, they stopped watching us and drove off, but kept coming back. This was really freaking us out so we decided to see our new friend Henry (the police chief) at his office. After some anticipation waiting for him and another sighting of the 2 men, he arrived to greet us. We did not need to worry, he assured us, as the 2 men were his employees! We could sleep in peace. 

In the morning, we found the police and after lots of waiting around and confusion (which seemed to be a typical theme in Rwanda and Uganda) we were finally speeding over to Musambwa island to look for cobras! 

One of the 'snake dens'

Two local guides had come with us and they requested a fairly substantial 'conservation fee' but they were extremely determined to help us find cobras! Henry and a couple of the police guys were also really interested in helping us and we scoured the entire island including the insides and outsides of shanties, the waterbird colony, some small caves inhabited by 'spirits' and even around the much neglected bathrooms. They told us many stories and we were having a great time but eventually we had to call it a day. 

We never found a single cobra. Since it was egg-laying season for the gray-headed gulls and the cormorants, the cobras had plenty of food and were probably all underground digesting, with no need to be out and about. We went back to town where they requested a 'docking fee' to compensate the local boys to pull the police boat up on shore. It was well worth the modest fee for the entertainment as they sang a silly call-and-respond song to haul the boat up the shore. 

We were glad we decided to visit this obscure corner of Uganda. It was a reminder of what 'real traveling' is like, which one tends to forget in today's day and age. Plus, we met some real interesting characters that's for sure! 

Our new friends

We by-passed some incredible lowland forest along the Masaka-Kyeebe road which I would be really keen to explore in the future. Too bad we didn't have time - Jack needed to be back for work. 

It was getting dark so we caught the last 'car' back to Kampala, crammed full with both of us and a  family. The driver seemed to be in a hurry, going about 60 km/h on the worst pothole-ridden road you can imagine, causing us worry he was going to bottom out (which he did many times). He clipped a child riding a bike with his side mirror, not stopping to inspect the damage. Then it got quite dark and the car slowed to a stop. We though it was mechanical problems. We couldn't understand what was going on because neither Jack nor I know any Luganda. So we were standing out there, dousing ourselves with bug spray as we were in moist lowland forest/farmland, basically a hotspot for malaria (in fact, Jackson was later diagnosed with it after the trip - don't worry he is fine now!). It turned out the idiot had just run out of fuel, so we had to wait for a motorcyclist to pass by so we could ask him to drive to the next town and return with fuel for us. His driving was so insane, it was THE SINGLE moment of my life when I was closest to death I think. Will we ever be back to this strange corner of Africa? 

Maybe.