uganda

this past weekend (october 6-9) a group of six msid students traveled to uganda. it was by far the best weekend i have had while in africa, full of new experiences and exciting adventures.

 

thursday after school, i packed my bags and prepared to leave. we decided to take the overnight bus from nairobi to kampala, uganda, the capital of that country. it is about a 13 hour bus ride. at 5:30, 4 of us met at school to take a bus to downtown nairobi. when we got downtown, we had to wait for the other 2 students to arrive. while waiting, we walked around the block, as businesses do not appreciate loitering. i had my cell phone in the outside zipped, mesh pocket of my suitcase. bad idea.

 

once all of us were together, we headed to the bus station, about a ten minute walk. one of the guys said something about the pocket being open. i checked the pocket, and my cell phone was gone. somebody had stolen it while we were walking around the block. in hindsight, i realize is should have been more careful about not having it so visible, but i thought it'd be safe since the pocket was zipped and we were always walking around. i guess that's why they call it nairobbery...

 

once we got to the bus station, we had to buy tickets, $23. it was around 6:30, and the bus wasn't scheduled to board until 8:00 and leave at 8:30. we decided to try to find a place to eat, as we knew we wouldn't have a chance to eat for awhile. we found a restaurant about a block away, and judging by the menu, it looked like a good place to eat. well when we started ordering, the waiter would often reply "sorry, we don't have that."

 

"do you have fruit salad?"
"no."
"how about pancakes?"
"pancakes? no."
"WHAT DO YOU HAVE?!?"

 

after this went on for awhile, we finally all ended up ordering something (an omelette for me-- it's always a safe bet to assume they have eggs here). we got our food, ate, and headed back to the bus station around 8:00. we waited outside... 8:15, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, 10:00... still no bus. this is what you call "kenyan time". the bus FINALLY arrived at 10:30, and by the time the pushing and shoving ceased, we got on the bus and it left right around 11:00.

 

we drove through the night. it was a bumpy, noisy ride, filled with limited amounts of sleep. the roads are very bad. around 7:00 friday morning, we made it to the kenya-uganda border, an interesting experience on its own.

 

everyone is required to get of the bus and walk across. we had to have our passports stamped to exit kenya, then walk about a half mile to get to uganda's immigration office to have our bags checked and buy our visas. we never had any idea where we were going, and there were no signs at all. we finally made it across and we were back on the road after 9:00.

 

we made it to kampala around 1:00, three hours past schedule. we met a pair of british men that were going to kampala for a business meeting. they had thought that the bus was going to arrive at 7:00 in the morning, and their flight back home left the following day, so they were going to have to make the 14 hour bus ride back to nairobi again that night. rough.

 

we found boda-bodas (what the piki-piki motorbikes are called in uganda) and they took us to red chillies, the hostel we stayed at for the night. we took amazing hot showers-- the first time i've actually been able to adjust the temperature of the shower since i've been in africa. afterwards, we took a matatu to downtown kampala, just to see what it was like. kampala has a population of about one million people, compared to nairobi's four million, so it's a much smaller city. there are not as many high rise buildings, and it seemed to cleaner and much less of an informal sector than in nairobi. we ate supper at a chinese restaurant, and walked around a bit more.

kampala, uganda

 

 

one of the girls has a friend in uganda, and she suggested we go to a cultural sing/dance performance at the ndere center, which was on the outskirts of town. traffic was awful and we knew the fastest way to get there would be by boda-bodas. it was CRAZY. we were weaving through traffic, getting way to close to other cars, driving down the middle of the road, and driving on sidewalks.

 

  boda bodas everywhere!

the performance was actually really cool, except for the fact that we felt like it was a VIP performance and we were uninvited guests. the show was supposed to start at 7:00, and there was no one else there until about 8:30, when 20-30 military colonels from all around africa showed up in their fancy suits, and the show finally began. we stayed until around 9:30, when we caught a cab back to red chillies.

 

 

the next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and then adrift, the rafting company, picked us up from the hostel. we had to take their bus to jinja, about 1 1/2 hours away. jinja is the source of the nile, where lake victoria flows out. (remember geography?... the nile river is the only river to flow north). we got to the rafting site, had more breakfast, put on our lifejackets and helmets, and headed out to the river. our guide showed us a few different important tips for going through the rapids, what to do if we flip, etc.

 

it was then time for our first rapids. we ended up flipping our raft, and all i remember is trying to get to the surface of the water. i ended up coming up underneath the raft, where there is a small pocket of air. we made it throught the rapids, got back on the raft, and headed down-river. there were three more rapids before our lunch stop,  and most of us fell out again on the last rapids.

 

after lunch there were four more rapids. we didn't flip, and didn't fall out, except for the last rapids, when our guide told us to jump out, so we just swam through the last rapids. how many people can say they've whitewater rafted and swam in the nile river? such an awesome experience.

 

we got to adrift camp, where we'd stay the night. the big soccer match-- kenya vs uganda was on. people are so crazy about soccer here, even more than for the super bowl. the final score of the game was 0-0, which meant that neither team would move on in the tournament. you could feel the disappoinment in the restaurant at the camp. the rest of the night we played cards and socialized, and went to bed after an exhausting day out in the sun (all of us had pretty good sunburns).

 

sunday, it was time to bungee jump. i woke up dreading the whole experience, but i knew this would be the only time i'd ever do it, so i might as well. we were weighed, signed waivers, and then it was time to jump. i was so nervous, but free-falling is one of the coolest feelings ever. the four of us all made it out alive, with plenty of pictures to prove our jumps.

 

nile high bungee

 

after everyone was done jumping, we rode boda-bodas to the city of jinja. we were dropped off at the tourist center, but of course, since it was sunday, it was closed. a man came up to us and we asked him where to get tickets, and at first he said it was "impossible and that we had to wait until monday" but he was just confused, and we had to walk across town (2-3 miles with my heavy suitcase-- i should have packed lighter) to get to the bus station. once there, we found out we had to pay in ugandan shillings, even though everyone only had kenyan shillings. two members of the group went back into town to exchange money, and then we bought our tickets.

 

 we still had about 4 hours before the bus would come, so we decided we wanted to go down by the lake. some of us hadn't eaten breakfast and it was almost 2:00, so we were starving and just wanted to find somewhere to eat. the boda-boda drivers took us to a private golf course with a restaurant, where we ate. the food took almost an hour to make, and some people ordered chips marsala, which was apparently a bad life choice, as they described it as "eating fire". good thing i stuck with an omelette again..

 

the bus was supposed to arrive in jinja at 4:30, but it didn't come until 5:45, but we expected this after the bus ride to uganda anyway. we loaded up, and it was a good ride back to nairobi. the border crossing went much smoother, and we made it back in nairobi around 6:00, then got a taxi home, and then had to go to class at 8:00. needless to say, it was a long day at school. i told my swahili teacher i was in class physically, but not mentally. good thing we ended class early.

 

the nile sunset