Kabale is a hill town at about nineteen hundred metres in the far south-west of Uganda, and the first thing you notice is how cool it is. After the heat of Kampala and the lowlands, evenings here call for a jumper. The surrounding countryside, known as Kigezi, is a tight patchwork of terraces, so steep and so carefully cultivated that early colonial visitors compared it to Switzerland, and the nickname has stuck. Potatoes, sorghum, beans and cabbages are grown on slopes that look too steep to stand on.
The town itself is a bustling market centre of some forty thousand people, with a busy main street, crowded minibuses, shops selling everything from hardware to mobile phones, and a good number of small hotels. It is close to the Rwandan border at Katuna, and the Kisoro area, near the Virunga volcanoes and the corner where Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo meet, lies about thirty-four kilometres away on the western side. A few kilometres outside town is Lake Bunyonyi, a deep, finger-shaped lake dotted with small islands, and a lovely place to spend an afternoon.
Riding in the highlands is quite different from the flat plains. The roads climb and drop in long loops, switchback after switchback, between hills and valleys, with sudden views of terraces and mist. Surfaces are patchy, with sealed roads between the main towns but red murram, a compacted laterite dirt, on many side routes. The murram turns slick as soap in the rain, which here can be heavy and sudden, so keep speed down and be careful in the corners. Boda-bodas, the motorcycle taxis, are everywhere and ride with great confidence, so keep a wide margin and watch for pedestrians, cattle and children.
Fuel is not an issue in town, with several stations, but fill up before you head into the more remote parts, since stations thin out quickly. Eat matoke, the steamed green banana, with groundnut sauce, or a rolex, an egg rolled in a chapati, from a street stall. The dry seasons, from June to August and from December to February, are the easiest for riding. At other times, expect mud and a good chance of a soaking, and carry waterproofs and a cloth for the visor.