Wajala Jackpot , 24 Feb 07
by Lianna
Driving
north from Kampala, you need to travel only a tiny distance before you well
and truly leave the tourist trail. Being so very Big and so very Red (and
now sporting new spitfire teeth on the cab) our truck draws crowds and attention
pretty much everywhere we go, but rattling at a rate of knots past tiny mud
houses in a place where tourists just don't go, people react differently.
They look at us with curious 
confusion
spreading across faces, before they break into wide smiles and laughter when
they see us waving. It's suddenly very hard to find people who speak any English,
which is great unless you're trying to find a cliff somewhere in quite a hilly
area with the aid of a guidebook written 43 years ago when there were no tarmac
roads and the Ugandan map looked very different to how is looks now.
But
we had a topo, and with this topo, with some knowledge of the crag names (and
our no doubt hopelessly inaccurate pronunciation of them - Wajala, Nakasangalo,
Nansambya) and wildly arm-waving attempts to mime 'crag' and 'big rock' and
'cliff,' we eventually, after much chaos and many about-turns, spotted a big
cliff only a few miles from where we were. And what a cliff it looked to be!!!
First we had to get there though. From the village of Nakasangalo (the cause of some confusion) we headed north and west until we came to a small barrier blocking our way. Expecting the worst of hassles and the usual attempts to extort bribes from us, we were pretty pleased when the uniform walked out of his shack, saluted us with utmost sincerity and a very straight back, lifted the barrier and allowed us on our way!
The
road we were on, dirt but good dirt, gave us little trouble (once we'd negotiated
some more low-hanging cables) and got us to within a km of the crag, but we
were still lacking somewhere decent to camp. Then Henry spotted a narrow track
that most people wouldn't consider taking a car up (mountain bike maybe...),
and decided that at the far end of that track lay our spot... past a few trees,
over a few potholes, then an obstacle... Sitting in the cab as Henry happily
revved the 11000cc engine of our behemoth truck, staring straight at a rather
large stony incline with a vertical section perhaps a foot or more high, dotted
with big holes for stray wheels to drop into and strewn with big rocks on
which to break axles, 
I
remember feeling a little scared. But Henry grinned manically and hit the
accelerator, BiRT lurched forwards, BiRT lurched back again, BiRTs wheel disappeared
into a big hole, BiRT wobbled a lot (little) and we yelped a little (lot)...
still, all in a day's work for our Henry, he pulled BiRT out again, executed
a perfect three point turn on the rough dirt track no more than 2 feet wider
than BiRT (we apologise to the few trees that lost their upright nature that
day...) and parked up. We pitched our tents in between the acacia thorns and
went climbing.
After the first recce, all was well in the world of Hot Rock. The crag was
close, the campsite was lovely, the rock promised to be very solid and clean,
and besides the big crag, the whole area was littered with smaller outcrops
and free standing boulders with perfectly flat landings. With such a great
deal of climbing potential, it looked like we could be camped here for a while.
A few villagers came and visited - not really to chat but rather to sit with
us or stand very close as we went about our daily business, chopping wood,
building the fire, preparing food, cracking open a beer. They simply stared,
wide-eyed and baffled - why are there 15 crazy 
Mzungus
camped between spiky trees and spending their waking hours making life hard
for themselves by taking the hardest routes to the top of a big rock? They
whispered and giggled amongst themselves until it was dark and time to go
home. While we were a little disconcerted at being the circus that had come
to town, we were glad of their company. They made no threats and demanded
nothing, they were just interested and very friendly. One man even brought
us a load of firewood and refused any sort of payment for his efforts.
So a very pleasant evening was had, and after the day's (very minor) tribulations,
I decided I was allowed an early night... only to be woken later on by a man
shining a torch into my tent asking me to get up. It felt like the middle
of the night (even though my watch told me it was 10:30) and this man was
waking me up, claiming he was a security gaurd in the area and telling us
we couldn't camp here because the land was jointly owned by the army and Celtel
- the biggest mobile communications network in East Africa - and we hadn't
sought permission from the chairman.
He refused to let it lie until morning, so I went and woke Henry (and Henry really hates being woken up) and this chap proceeded to drag us around lots of houses spread between several villages for an hour or two, waking people up asking whether they had the chairmans phone number. Now, I had my doubts about whether this guy could really phone, in the middle of the night, the chairman of one of the biggest companies around. It would be a little like finding someone asleep in a Tescos car park, then knocking on local doors to see if they had the CEO's mobile number! But, he had a spear and I was wearing my pyjamas, so I felt I ought to go along with it...
But as he knocked on more and more doors, and more and more people shouted at him, telling him to leave them alone at this ungodly hour, he had to concede defeat, and arranged instead for the chairman to visit us in the morning. We were escorted back to our tents and watched until morning.
And in the morning, the chairman arrived. It took about two seconds to realise that the 'chairman' was actually the village chief (something impossible to fathom in the dark hours of night, stumbling quickly along tiny paths, walking into branches and tripping over tree roots in my flip-flops, with my thoughts more trained on snakes and scorpions than anything else...), and in an attempt to 'develop' themselves, to progress (as they see it) towards western and privileged ways, they no longer call the chief the chief, they call him the chairman! and a very nice man he was too.
He
sat with us for a good while, chatting about his life and ours, watching ant-like
climbers make their way up the crag in perfect view of our camp, listening
to their calls of 'safe' and 'that's me' (no calls of 'BELOOOW' luckily!).
As is often the case, we at camp could hear their calls much more clearly
than the climbers on the crag could, and nothing amused the chairman more
than the increasing confusion and chaos, as messages were relayed and then
misunderstood between leaders and seconds, and between different climbing
pairs. He sat in his chair with a glass of water, practically wetting himself
each time the calls were echoed, carrying a greater hint of panic and bafflement
each time! So after a friendly chat, during which time he'd asked for nothing
but a little water, and given us permission to stay there as long as we wanted
to, he decided it was time to go. As he went, he looked at me and said 
'we normally go up there without all those ropes and metal things... is that dangerous?'
And all of a sudden I felt a little silly.
So while we'd been laughing at the echoes of chaos, the others had actually been climbing. And they all came back with reports of great routes, one and two pitches long on sound rock, pretty much all of them new routes too, between S and HVS. One pair even managed to find a line of bolts - how the hell they got there I have no idea - we're in touch with the entire Ugandan climbing scene (or so we thought...) and none of them had even heard of Wajala, let alone bolted a route there. Any ex hot rockers who know anything about this, please give Duncan a shout.
Over
the next five days, we put up about 20 routes, including what some people
think is the best route on the trip so far - Lay Back Arch Crack - imaginatively
named because to climb it, you must lay back up an arching crack, and what
the remaining people think is the best route so far - the Lords of Hot Rock
- a newly bolted 7a+ up a perfect shark-tooth shaped pinnacle. Plenty of other
trad routes, another bolted route, lots of high-quality boulder problems,
there would be enough here to keep you busy for a long long time... Loads
of us pushed our grades over those few days, some did their first 7a+, others
broke the E-grades, our novice from the start of the trip cleanly followed
an E1 and a 6b+, and everyone had a ball.
The locals, who had continued to visit each evening, had grown in confidence, and were occasionally trying to chat to us now. On the last day there, the teachers at the village primary school decided we'd be an educational school trip and brought all the kids to come and look at us, but as they stood and stared, silently, for what seemed like hours, their plan backfired a little when Dan, not having realised they were all there, jumped out of BiRT, surprised them a little and sent them, unintentionally, running away schrieking and scared! That same evening, a lot of the village men turned up and raced to the top of the crag (the easy route round the back I'd like to add) and then stood on the top shouting down at us, dancing and waving in friendly competition!
Great climbing, great people, stunning scenery (as always!)
Inevitably though, we ran out of time and water and food, and it was time to head back to Kampala for a much-needed shower and a cold drink, before hitting the road to Rwanda.
