In typically brutal style, Amin backed up his ‘dispute’ with mortars and helicopters and drove the Sudanese back to the mountains. Our GPS showed that, long before we reached the foothills of those mountains, we were driving on what is still officially Sudanese soil.
For much of our month-long journey we travelled in convoy with another vehicle. The chances of getting stuck in a Land Rover Defender were slim but, although we effectively mapped alone most of the time, it was reassuring to know that at any point we had a reliable backup vehicle within less than a day’s drive. More importantly Uganda’s northern Karamajong territory still has a reputation as a lawless bandit area and it was considered unwise to drive alone through a country where armed Karamajong cattle-rustlers, Turkana raiding parties from northern Kenya and sundry Sudanese guerrilla factions are still sporadically active.
Uganda in general had been one of the friendliest countries any of us had ever travelled through, but the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the US Government still advise against travel in rural Karamajong. It seemed wise to adopt a convoy strategy that could potentially avoid disaster.
We drove at all times within sight of the other vehicle and stayed on the alert for roadblocks or suspicious obstacles in the road. If we ever had to stop unexpectedly, even for something supposedly ‘innocent’ (a broken-down vehicle, an accident or a fallen tree, for example), the second vehicle would always hang back to watch… from as far out of accurate Kalashnikov range as possible.
Nathan and I would approach in the Land Rover and if the situation developed into anything threatening we had agreed that our hazard warning lights would be their signal to hightail it to look for help.
But Ugandans in general may be the friendliest people in the world and even when we entered the Karamajong territory and started seeing armed hunters (frequently still with spears and bows) the happy smiles and greetings rarely ever faltered.
We often mapped right through the day and it would be late in the evening before we had finished filing the day’s route and waypoints, plus photos and a daily blog for the Mapa website.
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