Annemarie:
Without the views of the Rwenzori Mountains (Mountains of the Moon) Fort Portal in North West Uganda won’t blow your socks off but it does have a great deal of charm with some Dutch and Asian influences and was the base for our New Year.
The mountains were shrouded in mist for most of our visit but on New Year’s Eve afternoon we didn’t care, we were headed for town in search of parts to help us repair our Land Rover’s water tank tap, which had developed a serious leak. From a standing start we tried the first hardware shop we came across. No joy, but the owner was a gem and directed us to another shop in the parallel street. OK, brilliant, he was right and one part of the jig-saw puzzle of our tap joint was solved but we needed some plumbers tape and another pipe. Across the street we found the tape and they knew exactly where we could get the pipe. This last port of call felt unpromising from the outside but once inside it was like an Aladdin’s cave, stacked from ceiling to floor with shelves overflowing with stock. The two young Asian lads behind the counter looked as though they were just minding the shop for their dad, but we were so wrong; they knew what we were asking for straight away and then when their first offered pipe wasn’t the right fit they sought out a metal flexi-pipe and a joint and cut it to size. Amazing service.
Next stop was a café, we needed a caffeine intake and we’d heard that a relatively new restaurant, the Dutchess was the best in town. Oh were we pleased with that coffee! The best cappuccino since Kigali and we were also offered some traditional Dutch New Year cakes, hmm, this New Year was shaping up in my kind of (cake-influenced) way. And then we met the bakers of these wonderful delicacies as they were beginning to make pizza dough and of course a story began to unfold. The restaurant was set up by a Dutch couple who had been travelling through Africa and decided Fort Portal was THE place to put down roots and set up a business. They source food as locally as possible, have trained the bakers with input from Italian expertise, set up their own dairy, trained and developed the staff and encouraged them to gain skills and qualifications and are supporting young people in their efforts to earn university fees by paying them good wages and selling art and craft work in the restaurant. It could have been a second ‘Heaven’. How wonderful to meet another like-minded team of people so soon after our wonderful Kigali experience. Heleen Meijer, the owner was such a generous hostess and talked to us with passion about what they are doing and want to achieve and her team was a testament to her belief in the business.
By complete coincidence we were staying for New Year’s Eve with another wonderfully hospitable Dutch woman – Ineke Jongorious at the Rwenzori View and when we got back from our outing we were offered a drink and …Oliebollen! One can never have too many in my newly converted eyes so here’s a link to Nigella’s recipe for Oliebollen - although in both instances we had raisins in ours which are a delicious addition so here’s an alternative from Jamie.
And to work it all off on New Year's Day we took an 18 km walk up to the crater lake outside Fort Portal.