2+2 in a 1x1 tent still =4

Darkness. I edited Wikipedia when i got back and it says No Light.  All i could think about was Dear Mrs. Skippy, a private art teacher i had once when i was about 15 or so. She had argued with me for hours about how there was no black, just a combination of all the colors on the color wheel, man am i going to have a field day with her theory when i get back. The old truck we got out of continues down the road as we pull out some headlights and look around. The land is banked up on both sides of the road in a semi-deserted road, total population of the area: 4, three white guys, one asian. Ten or so minutes pass by and we are found by an old who-knows-what-year yota with an even older tree trunk in the bed, but to us this truck was our ticket out. We hop in the bed and start making up ground. We come up behind the other truck that we had gotten off of but stop in the town right before we overcome it. Who knew this ticket wasn’t quite as long lasting as our salvation, the truck driver says “we're here.” A cool 7 km  - thats about all that ride was good for. A shake of a hand, 3 waves and the guys are all gone looking for bottles of coke and some chapatis or at least ben is, he has acquired a slight addiction which in my book is perfect. Chapatis are cheap, filling, and everywhere somewhere along the lines of taco bells in the US. I talk to a guy with a Ford Ranger that in africa’s kelly blue book is probably on the top of the resell list, and he’s totally down with taking us 120km to wherever that is. I round up the guys we get in the truck, drive 100 yards and stop. We forgot the bota driver, bota, and bags of sugar cane that we had found were now going to share the ride, still the ride was a gold mine. Its clean sailing, roads are nice and a few sips of a coke a bathroom stop at a creepy gas station and we're there. The police man who was stopping the truck for a checkpoint was determined to have us get on a bus that was supposed to come in just a few turns of the clock. But thats not going to fly in our book especially considering this guy was probably a dual major in bus booking and police duty so we start walking. We pass a sign that says something about wild game and beginning wilderness yada yada. We're not really interested, but stranded. It was dark there were no cars anywhere. We see one truck but it drives past us faster than Ricky Bobby. An old truck slows down and stops, cool. We had been walking for 30 or so minutes and seen 2 cars it was time to take what we can get. Besides i’ve never heard of a bunch of guys getting mauled by wild animals in a truck. 

This driver doesn’t talk just drives, makes it easy to explain that we arn’t paying him. Im in the front seat with Ben when i smell gas, and a lot of it. The water jug that was under his feet isn’t water. Thats 2 for 2 Ben. No more front seats for you. But we get out at Gulu before the driver figured out what had happened. It wasn’t leaking anymore after we turned it back right side up, not much we could do, i guess thats an African oops. Not totally proud of how that went down. But he did drop us off in the Gulu ghetto. Shady town, not tropical tan shade, Snoop Dog rap video shady. Jon leans down to tie his shoe and I inform him he can’t tie what he doesn’t have and we should keep moving at least over to the bank where there a security guard nearby. So maybe we arn’t as dumb as we look hu moms? Yeah... don’t worry we make up for that cautious moment later. We ask if we can pitch a tent outside the bank in the beautiful lawn half joking the other half hoping. I mean it is 2 am and we are all tired. But we are in Gulu, score. He says sorry but the management isn’t available at that hour to ask for permission, we're cool with that, besides it was just a joke right? He points us in the toward where all the hotels are and we leave walking. Four guys, one dark road, but we feel safe because there's no one around and we're guys who are built with a high tolerance from insecurity. We bang on a hotel until someone wakes up long enough to tell us they are full but at least she was kind enough to put her boots on and pick up her rifle and escort us to the next hotel down the road. We all pile into a room after fighting with the guards about the price. We get him down to 20,000 shillings for the room about $2.48 each, cool. So it wasn’t a holiday inn but it did have a bed a fan and toilet. Jeremiah picks the floor because supposedly he has thing against sleeping close to other guys. We shut off the lights. 

Its a big game of the human, only we are holding each others feet instead of hands. Its the only way that we could even come close to getting 4 guys in a 3 man tent. Jer’s theory against sleeping close to other guys, out the window. But surprisingly he is one of the only guys sleeping.  Don’t worry he’s sleeping all right, get the mic, he has to hear this. Best audio footage of Africa yet is a 20 something year old asian snoring to death in a matchbox size tent. Clarification on the matchbox, more like the size of the tear-off matches. Jon and I are the only ones who are even semi-awake Ben’s out too but he’s boring. He just sleeps, no symphony or anything. We do a little in- the- tent- update and lay down again to try attempt number 47 at sleeping. 

The next morning we get up, find some machetes, $2.50 each dull, $3.50 each sharpened, bingo. Ben and i pick up some Doxy, for some anti-malria action, not much for the Meds but we were kinda playing all of our risky cards all at once on this trip so we kinda had to even something out.  The side effects are however real. Its harder to find the main road out of town with a headache especially when “main” road doesn’t mean biggest. We jump in the back of a white flatbed with railing and a lawn chair against the bed which Jer claims right off. Im cool with that though im down for standing. First dirt roundabout i had ever seen, seemed more out of place than us in that area. And we get dropped off in the town that borders the long road to Bibia our last stop before we take off into the bush.                                                             --Andrew