Two weeks ago I had probably one of the best mornings I’ve had in Africa. After going to bed at nine the night before, Natalie, Megan, Joshua, and I woke up at 4:45am, got dressed, made a thermos of tea, and packed up a backpack. Twenty minutes later we left, in the pitch black (all set with our solar lanterns and a head lamp!) to walk to and climb up Kibaale Hill to see the sunrise.
We nearly turned back when we reached the campus front gate, and realized that only was it locked, with the guard patrolling somewhere else, but there was also a dog who seemed intent on barking us down. Thankfully we realized that we really didn’t need a gate, when there was so much barbed wire around the rest of the campus; we simply slipping through the fence and we were on our way.
It was completely black as we walked towards the base of the hill (a good fifteen-twenty minutes from the Centre) but by the time we approached the climb, it was already getting lighter, and once our eyes had adjusted we could walk without a light. We decided to use the light in the grass anyway- just in case of snakes!
When we finally reached the top, the sun was just beginning to rise, casting amazing colours across the sky. We sat on our big beach mat for ages, listening to The Beatles (Here Comes the Sun, very fitting!), drinking tea, and eating leftover birthday cake while we looked at the view.
We stayed up on the hill for a good 2 ½ hours, just admiring the scenery, singing, and taking pictures; everywhere we turned we found another amazing picture opportunity. Even the walk down was fun; we videoed the entire way, as we slipped, tripped, and skipped down the sometimes rocky, sometimes overgrown slope.
It was such an amazing few hours to just drink in the beauty of Uganda, and we were all thoroughly glad we had done it. J
