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Imagine exploring jungle caves steeped in tribal folklore, while monkeys crash through branches and lizards scuttle over rocks. Then after ten minutes walk to be atop a ridge, surrounded by perfect crater lakes and overlooked by imposing mountain ranges. These stunning environs welcomed me as I ended my 36 hour plane and bus marathon to the first stop on my recent three-week East African tour: Fort Portal in western Uganda.
However walking back to camp that evening, flashing fireflies marking our path like tiny beacons, I reflected on the real highlight of the day, which surpassed even the natural wonders we'd seen: the astounding warmth and kindness of the people that we'd met along the way.
Our friend and guide that day, Michael, is a native of Buhaara village, a few miles outside FP. He is an immensely bright and proactive community organiser, and founder of a small-scale NGO that supports his community with necessities such as materials and uniforms for children to attend school. As well as proudly showing us the environmental spectacles his home had to offer, he also took us on a tour of the village, introducing us to his neighbours and hosting an enormous lunch for us in his family home. Though the village itself is the visual embodiment of rural African poverty - small huts of thatched roofs and walls of wooden frames packed with mud; skinny chickens being chased by barefoot toddlers in torn clothes - the spirit of people we met was incredibly moving. It's hard to explain why, but our group all left Buhaara with a glowing sense of having seen and felt something beautiful in that community.
The idyllic atmosphere of the village was unique in its intensity, but the enormous physical beauty we saw there is common to the region. Uganda is an extremely exotic and verdant land. The staple food, grown and eaten everywhere, is banana. Also abundant, both farmed and wild, are pineapples, mangoes and papayas. The wildlife is also distinctive: Uganda is home to the Ankole Cow, famed for their enormous horns, and the Marabou Stork, whose huge hulking frames can be seen lurching across rural swamps and urban rubbish heaps alike. It feels very different to London.
If the country is beautiful, its politics certainly isn't. By most counts Uganda's President Musoveni, who's run the country for 23 years, is an autocrat. He wins elections by improbable margins and stifles dissent at every opportunity. However looking at what Musoveni took over in 1986 - a country brutalised by the Obote-Amin-Obote dictator sandwich, which ensured that the first 22 years of independence consisted largely of misery - he has done a good job. His record is far from perfect: human rights are often ignored, corruption is horrendously bad (Uganda recently came third last in Transparency International's corruption index) and half the population live under the poverty line of $1.25 a day. However on the whole Uganda is remarkably safe, stable, and boasts a growing economy.
Much of the economy still relies on international NGOs, one of which employs my friend and host, Nigel (author of this splendid blog). I stayed with him at his official residence in Kampala's 'posh slum' of Kansanga. It's posh because the houses feature luxuries such as electricity, flushing toilets, and more than four square metres per inhabitant. It's a slum because it's built without the faintest hint of town planning; houses built wherever possible, infrastructure an ad hoc free for all.
It was a great base to explore Kampala's much heralded nightlife, the many virtues of which were extolled to me to the point where I thought my expectations had no chance of being met. But amazingly they were. I only had two nights to revel there, but they both ended at dawn and took in an array of fantastic venues. The clubs took one of two forms: either glorious open air venues, or large, labyrinthine warrens with black walls and black carpets with flourescent splashes, all doused in ultra violet light. Everywhere the music perfectly balanced exciting and powerful beats with funky rhythms that enraptured a positive, energetic and euphorically dancing crowd. Or maybe that was just me. Either way, I can definitely recommend a night out in Kampala.
Though the capital has the biggest clubs, there are also great nightspots elsewhere in the country. I was lucky to be invited clubbing in FP by some local guys I met. I found those same black carpets with flourescent splashes, and those same excellent tunes. But what I remember most from my night out there was how my hosts described the towns two clubs in overtly elitist terms. One was a 'low class' club, where entry cost just 1000 Ugandan Shillings (about 30p), and was full of matatu (motorcycle taxi) drivers and cheap prostitutes. The other was a 'high class' club, costing 5,000 USh (£1.50), which the lowly matatu drivers could never afford. Therefore it was better. Though my friends felt otherwise, I found the high class club painfully dull, while the low class club people actually seemed to be having fun.
This growing class consciousness perturbed me a little. Coming from the UK, a bastion of classism, I was hoping to escape all that nonsense in rural Africa. But the next day I met some people that renewed my faith in the purity of the human spirit. A very kind young academic, having patiently explained to me his work on ageing in Uganda, agreed to let me practice riding his motorcycle. Having stalled and spluttered my way around the field a few times, I noticed a big pink box at its edge.
Going to explore, we discovered it was a dilapidated squash court, recently painted by a mobile phone network as a branding exercise. Inside we found a gang of teenagers milling around, idly kicking an under-inflated basketball. As their elders we received implicit respect, and when we asked what they were up to they sheepishly explained that they were making music. With a little prompting we learnt that they were Freakman and the Akamba Crew, who eventually agreed to give us a performance. Freakman launched into his rap: "I love to play with my basketball; every day I'm with my basketball; momma wants to give me my basketball; why don't you come and play basketball?"
I was stunned. These guys were smart, friendly, and content to compose odes to their favourite items of sporting equipment in their spare time. I can't imagine many youngsters in the UK doing this. I was definitely far too cool.
It may sound trite, but despite the enormous challenges facing Africa, and the huge moral compromises that leaders like Musoveni represent (and many feel are necessary), the innocence and optimism of guys like Freakman and the Akambda Crew, and the kindness of the people of Buhaara village, have the potential to change everything. And not just for Africa.
My last few trips had seen me fall for the effortless charms of Lisbon, vibrancy of Berlin, and progressiveness of Sweden's Gotlands island, and I was looking forward to going somewhere that would make me happy to come home. Kiev seemed perfect. I imagined a bleak city of depressed people and endless grey tower blocks, sure to make me love my home city again.
At first sights my stereotype held true: the post-Soviet bureaucracy was immense (having waited an hour at immigration and collected my luggage, I then had to pass it through a scanner before being released); the traffic barbaric (speed limits routinely ignored and often doubled, and under-taking was as popular as over-taking); and the tower blocks enormous, everywhere, and extremely ugly.
But as I strolled the quiet streets I saw beyond the depressing facade and began to notice the quiet contentment of those around me. Ukraine is a vast and very proud country, and Kiev is in many ways a beautiful and impressive city. The centre of town is surrounded by parks and an enormous river, the Dniestr, runs through the city, dotted with green islands. And it's dotted with a number of magnificent Orthodox churches.
The scale of Kiev and the intense nationalism, combined with the lack of English speakers and use of the Cyrillic alphabet, made it an awesome and daunting host.
I was only there for three nights, in order to plan a new project with our Ukrainian and Moldovan partners - which consumed my first day, lasting 12 hours - and to meet with potential stakeholders (a schedule of six meetings on my second day). This required quite a bit of travelling around Kiev, and I can safely say it is the hardest city to navigate I have ever visited.
The main challenge is that it's almost impossible to know where you are, either on the metro or on foot, because all signs are only in Cyrillic. In addition the distances between places are deceptively great, and almost nobody that I asked could speak any English. I am normally punctual, but in Kiev I arrived for every meeting late, dishevelled and exhausted.
Though I must admit part of the delay was due to me marvelling at the stunning Metro stations, the most stunning of which is Teatrina, famed for it's intricate mosaics...
... and imposing Lenin bust
Luckily I did meet one Ukrainian who spoke English. Like a disconcertingly high proportion of Ukrainian women, Olga was beautiful, though she was unusual because she speaks not only English, but perfect Spanish, which she was teaching to local businessmen. She described the widespread political apathy she and much of the country felt, following the broken promises of 2004's much heralded Orange Revolution. Everyone I spoke to repeated that nothing had changed: politics was still corrupt and in the thrall of business interests.
Whilst surprised at the political disaffection - like many naive westerners I too had believed the hype promoted by our media in 2004 - I was also pleasantly surprised by how friendly people were. Ukrainians are known for smiling rarely, and this my experience, but on the whole the people I asked for help (which I was forced to do often) went to great lengths to assist me, despite us not being able to speak a single word of a common language. I was much relieved when, arriving at my final meeting of my final day, I was greeted with a colleague's birthday banquet and a never ending glass of Ukrainian vodka. Many toasts were made, and my hosts were extremely kind. I have never drunk so much in an office before.
So in a strange way I also fell in love with Kiev. I started to feel an affinity with the people of Kiev, and their proud culture. I also revelled in the fact I got so lost, as not only was it challenging and exciting, but it also made me realise and rely on the kindness of strangers, which is often the most life-affirming lesson of travel.
Ukraine will host the European football championships in 2012, and I suspect that the metro stations will finally be translated into Latin script. It will be a great shame.
In the middle of the Baltic Sea lies a large island, which this week especially may be one of the most progressive places on earth. Connected to the mainland by a creaking propellered cigar tube, Gotlands belongs to Sweden, and is famed for being the warmest part of the country, as well as hosting an annual political festival, Almedalens.
Combining all the political party conferences, Almedalens is a week long bastion of open political debate and discussion on topics as wide ranging as climate change, inner-city poverty and the future of Kosovo. Political leaders stroll the cobbled streets of Gotland's medieval capital, Visby, in chinos and polo necks, ever ready to respond to greetings and polite questions from their citizens. Security is barely to be seen.
I was there with colleagues to launch an informal network of civil society leaders covering 'northern Europe': the countries around the Baltic sea, plus Belarus, Russia and Iceland. We were hosted by the Governor of the island in her beautiful residence, a homage to tasteful artwork, modest opulance and pastel colours.
Following the meetings our hostess held a gathering of Swedish civil society leaders in her spacious garden. Of the many charming people there, the most interesting was a guy in a baseball cap wearing a sandwich board declaring his ability to rap in five languages (Swedish, English, Persian, Spanish and Portuguese), on receipt of a donation. We discussed hip hop and social activism, before he gave me a display of his impressive lyrical talents (in English).
Sweden is of course famous for its enlightened social model and beautiful blond people. But it's also quite pious. I spoke with many young and attractive volunteers of a large tee-totallers' association, referred to as a 'temperance organisation'. They have 48,000 members, each of whom have taken the vow not to drink alcohol. I was stunned to hear of the movement's popularity, though upon reflection realised that this highlighted my origins in a binge-drinking culture. Alcohol is responsible for the majority of violence in rich countries, and yet in the UK there are no recognised popular movements against it, whilst there are for similar common scourges such as fatty foods or CO2. I toyed with the idea of not drinking for a while myself, but before I'd made up my mind someone had bought me a beer.
My second revelation came in the unlikely form of Max Hamburgare, Sweden's answer to McDonalds. It was clean and tastefully decorated; its smiling staff suffered none of the chronic acne typical of their British counterparts; bean salads and fruit were given equal prominence to chips on the menu; and most impressively of all, each choice of burger clearly showed how much CO2 it was responsible for. I went for a 'green burger', which weighed in at a modest 0.2 grams; Carlo tucked into the standard beef burger, costing a whopping 1.6 grams of the evil stuff. Probably equal to one hundredth of a second of my flight home.
