this article ran in the New Vision of 24th September, 2023
By Kalungi Kabuye
According to legend, the steep hills around Isingiro are the main reason why the then-nascent kingdom of Ankole managed to survive, and even thrive. Whenever armies from its larger neighbours Buganda and Bunyoro invaded, the Ankole regiments would just take to the hills.
There they would hold off the invaders till they retreated back to their homes, then the Ankole would come back down and carry on with their lives. Till the next invasion.
They also tell of the ancient king Ruhinda, descendant of the Bachwezi, who founded Kaaro karungi, which later became the separate kingdoms of Nkore and Karagwe. Ruhinda was the son of Wamara, supposedly the last of the Bachwezi kings.
Wamara is said to have fled from the invading Babiito, and settled in Bigo/Ntusi, in present day Sembabule. But the Babiito followed him there and killed him, so Ruhinda fled further south and established himself around Isingiro.
This, then, is where the Mountain Slayers Uganda went hiking last month (otherwise referred to as a ‘slay’ by the guys). I had always been fascinated by Isingiro, and wondered about its history. I couldn’t find anything to back this up, but I think that a long time ago, maybe millions of years ago, Isingiro must have been a large lake, which eventually drained away. This left a large basin, with the lake shores now making up the hills which the Bachwezi used to dwell in.
The plan was to leave Kampala at 8 am that Friday and an easy drive should get us to Mbarara by 1 pm, and with Isingiro just another 30 minutes away, should be there in time for lunch. You can make plans, but Kampala service providers will ensure those are just yours, and they have their own.
The guys providing the coaster to take us assured our Chief Slayers (Shakira and Emma) that the coaster would be at the set-off point, the Uganda Museum, at 7 am. As anyone over 6 feet tall and a frequent traveller upcountry knows, it is important to get a seat where your legs can fit comfortably; so I was there before 7 am, one of the first three people to get there.
Shakira arrived soon after and started calling the coaster driver to find out where he was. For the first 30 minutes the dude’s phone was off, and when he finally answered, explained how he first had to get the coaster out of the ‘parking’. This was coming to 8 am, and almost everyone travelling was there (which was quite a surprise, going by past slays), but the coaster was still in the parking.
It finally showed up way after 8 am, and as we scrambled to get in, the driver explained they first had to clean the inside. And it turned out it had no boot, or roof rack, so the luggage (and hikers carry an enormous amount of luggage) took the 3 rows of seats at the back. Meaning it was a tight squeeze for the rest of us. Uganda service providers really know how to be wet blankets, so by the time we left after 9 am the excited bunch of travellers had become a surly bunch.
I have been to enough slays to know that one should not sweat the small things, whatever will happen will happen. I was getting out of Kampala for 3 days, off to hike the hills that had fascinated me for long; so I was cool. And soon so was everybody else, it would take an ocean-sized wet blanket to really keep these folks down for long. And Rhina and Irene from Mbarara were already at the camping grounds and posting pictures, so the weekend getaway spirit was well rekindled.
The Isingiro we found was very different from the one I remembered, mainly because they had not seen rain for a long time. Everything had a dry brown veneer, and the hundreds of acres of matooke looked really miserable. This was going to be one hot hike.
At the pre-hike briefing the next morning, a spot was pointed out as where we would be coming down from the hills. It looked ominous, and I imagined the Baganda and Banyoro invaders looking up at those forbidding hills and wondering how they were going to dislodge the Ankole warriors.
A short drive dropped us at our starting point, and we began climbing. No preamble, get out of the bus and climb. So we climbed, and climbed, and again climbed some more. The trail largely followed a motorable road, which wound around those hills like a large brown and dusty serpent.
And the hills just wouldn’t stop; you think you’ve done one hill, turn a corner and there’s another hill. That’s right, these hills also had hills. And the sun was so bright it was difficult to see very far, but what we saw was quite a spectacular sight. And Lake Nakivale was a sight for sore eyes when we finally got to see it from atop the hills.
It was an ‘easy’ hike, but no Chief Slayer worth their salt wouldn’t add some degree of ‘hardness’. So the second part of the trail was all stony and broken rocks, and many hikers got blisters in places they had never thought they could.
When we stopped at a shopping centre to wait for some eager hikers that had taken the wrong turning, I asked some locals about the Bachwezi. Were they still in the hills? One guy said yeah, they are. And if you walked those hills at night, you might meet some extremely tall people dressed all in white. Those are Bachwezi, he said.
I’m not sure if he was pulling my leg, but we did exit the hills at the designated spot, down a track of almost pure white marble. That night we had the requisite party at the Golden Crane Hotel where we camped, and were serenade by a local band, quite good for upcountry standards. No Bachwezi came down to join us, unfortunately; so guess I’ll have to wait to see my first Muchwezi.
kalungikabuye 