Chased down a Jaguar

Jolly offered us to stay in her house in Kampala on our way home. We were all headed out the next day. Her and her husband Emmy were amazing to let us stay with them! I cant wait to see them again. Erin and I are the only ones who stayed one more night at Emmys and Jollys house because there wasn’t room on the 1 am bus the night before. To top off such a surreal trip to Uganda Erin and I went to catch the bus and ending up having to chase down a Jaguar!!

We were 15 min late to the bus leaving because of traffic and there was no way we could miss our bus back to Kigali. The bota-botas started grabbing our bags yelling at us to get on that we would catch the Jaguar Bus. Haha, yea, it wasn’t a real Jaguar but might as well have been! We sped down the Kampala roads at probably 80 miles per hour, no helmets, hopping curbs, ridding on side walks, holding on for dear life, catching air on speed bumps, ducking under sidewalk signs, swerving in between people and cars hoping our bags don’t catch a side mirror and let us down. Still no bus in sight. Erin called me frantically not knowing were I was, “Nelly!” “Girl I am 2 cars behind you…” and she looks back to say "Are we seriously doing this right now?" I stared her dead in the eyes and said, "We are SERIOUSLY doing this! I can see the Jaguar in the distance." She replied like a CHAMP "We’re doing this!" Erin and I both hang up our phones and we tell the bota that we are not paying him if we dont catch the bus. He lays on the throttle....yea, might not have been a good idea to tell him that. We are gaining on the bus when the botas honk...the bus driver sees us and opens the door but is NOT stopping. Erin tells the bota to go ahead of the bus so we can get off and catch the moving bus all at the same time. I have my camera bag, a backpack, and my purse all weighing me down. I jump off and Erin yells to me that she paid for both of us, but my bota driver snatches the 10,000 shilling note out of my hand and wouln’t give it back. So at this point I am going off at him to give me my money and bags… after what seemed like 10 minutes of fighting, he finally gives it back but at this point Erin has already thrown her bags to the man on the bus (all while running keep in mind!) jumped inside the bus and I am running alongside throwing her my heavy bags (yes the bus is still moving). One bag is in… two bags are in… finally I reach out my hand and Erin pulls me on. phew we made it. Like a movie, me and my partner in crime....we made it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME that that just happened! unreal. we grab a seat and take some deep breaths. Rwanda here we come…