At the end of the last post we were saying goodbye to Kenya and heading towards country number two, Uganda. As we were nearing the border, we passed miles and miles of trucks lined up to cross, but luckily as a passenger vehicle we could take the fast lane past them directly to the border. We parked next to the immigration office and were the only ones there, so the whole process was very quick and smooth. First we had to line up to the Kenyan side where our fingerprints were taken, and we got the exit stamps in our passports. Then we had to fill out a one-page form to state our identity and the reason and duration of our stay in Uganda, then line up to the Ugandan side to have our fingerprints taken again, and getting our entry stamps, and we were good to go. The whole process only took a few minutes per person. We then proceeded to change money at the exchange desk, and off to Jinja we were.
In Jinja we had a very nice campsite owned by a South African rafting entrepreneur. We were briefed about all the possible optional activities, which were plentiful, from rafting to quad biking to horse riding to sup-boarding to sunset cruises to village walks. Most of these were really expensive, so I decided to do only the sunset cruise and the village walk, and spend the rest of the three nights here relaxing, updating my blog, transferring and publishing pictures and getting my laundry done. The camp site had a nice bar with comfortable couches to lounge on, and an absolutely beautiful view over the White Nile. Not to mention a reasonably reliable, yet sometimes slow, wi-fi, which I’ve now come to realise is a rarity in this part of the world! The only downside was that they didn’t sell cider in the bar! I ordered a double rum with coke which cost nearly five dollars, so it became clear that this was going to be a very sober few days!
There was food available at the bar as well, but we had been told about shops selling rolexes just outside the gate and decided to check those out. This turned out to be a wise decision, as the rolexes cost about one fifth of the bar prices, and were delicious! A ”rolex” is short of ”rolled eggs”, which it essentially was. They would make an omelette with your choice of veg, chips or avocado and roll it in a chapati (a flat bread tortilla). There were also sweet chapatis available, and a chapati with banana and honey quickly became my favourite choice for breakfast.
The next morning and afternoon I spent drinking coffee and updating social media on the bar sofas. Later the afternoon it was time for the sunset cruise or ”booze cruise” as we preferred to call it. It was a nice two-hour cruise down the White Nile with an open bar and a snack plate consisting of chicken wings, spring rolls, avocado and tomato bruschettas and carrots and cucumber with dipping sauces.
The next morning me and a couple of others went for a guided walk in the local village. We started with visiting a house of a local family, which was a simple three-room cottage made of clay, where they had electricity but no running water. Then we were shown around the vegetable gardens, where they were growing bananas, potatoes, chili and other things. The local children were very curious about us and wanted to hold our hands while walking with us, and were delighted to see pictures of themselves in our cameras. We walked to a local privately funded school, but there were no students there as it was the school holidays. Back at the house we first visited we were served lunch, which was absolutely delicious and consisted of plantain, sweet potato, spinach, coleslaw and peanut sauce. All the ingredients had been harvested in the vegetable garden around us, it couldn’t get any more local and organic than this! In the evening me and a few others decided to take a taxi to town to try out a recommended Indian restaurant. I had a paneer butter masala and garlic nan, and it was one of the best Indian meals I’ve ever had. We also walked around Jinja a bit while waiting for our ride back home, streets were very busy and the town was pretty cool!
On our final night I woke up around 3.30am, which has now become a reoccurring thing, I think the Lariam might be to blame. It was raining and the power was out (pretty much a given everytime there is thunder), so there was no wi-fi, and I was pretty bored lying in my tent waiting for sunrise. When I got out in the dark to go to the toilet, I nearly bumped into an armed guard standing quietly in a dark corner, nearly gave me a heart attack! 😄 After breakfast it was time to leave Jinja behind and head north-west towards Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. It was a pretty boring 7-hour drive, including a shopping stop in the busy Ugandan capital, Kampala, and after setting up camp we had a quick dinner and headed to bed. No wi-fi in this camp, and using gps was forbidden for the safety of the rhinos, as this is the only place in Uganda where rhinos can be seen in the wild, and they are vulnerable for poaching.
In the early hours of the morning I was again lying awake in my tent, when I heard a strange noise coming from outside. Too loud to be a bird, not constant enough for a generator. Nevermind, I proceeded to pack up my things when my tent partner Marie came in and said ”Hurry! There are rhinos sleeping next to the kitchen!” I got up, went out and found out what had been making that strange noise, it was a snoring rhino! There were four rhinos asleep right next to the fence surrounding the camp! It was a surreal moment watching these huge, rare creatures fast asleep so close to humans. About half an hour later as the sun was rising, they woke up and started eating grass before disappearing into the bushes. Rhinos have really been treating us on this trip! After breakfast we went for a guided rhino walk which we had paid 20$ for the previous day, seemed a bit of a waste now but it was nice anyway, we tracked two adult females and a baby for about an hour before returning back to camp.
We then drove back to Kampala, where we were staying at a pretty fancy camp site called Red Chilli’s, that had a bar, a pool and wi-fi. It would’ve been nice to stay another night as we arrived quite late and left early in the morning, so there was no time to explore Kampala, which seemed like a colourful, lively and modern town. We left the camp t 6am to get out before morning rush hour, and started our 10-hour drive to Kalinzu Forest Sanctuary. The camp site was the most basic we’ve had so far, with outside toilets, no hot water and no wi-fi. It was also riddled with baboons, as we noticed that the staff there were putting food scraps out for them, probably for our entertainment. I wasn’t too happy with this practice as I’m not a big fan of baboons, as they are big and scary. It was a rainy and pretty cold night, and the next morning was just sitting and waiting around for hours before leaving for the next place, because a part of the group went for a chimpanzee trek in surrounding forest. To me, the 50$ fee was a bit steep. I had a mild cold and had been up since 3.30am again, so it felt like the morning was just dragging on.
Our next stop was a couple of hours north, in Queen Elizabeth National Park. We did a game drive with the truck, but QE is no Masai Mara, and we barely saw any animals at all, apart from a family of elephants that had four tiny babies, one of them so small it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old! We also did a hippo cruise, which started as a very nice experience as there were plenty of crocodiles, birds, monitor lizards and of course, hippos, but ended up leaving me quite unhappy as we were getting VERY close to the hippos, and they were visibly distressed, waking up from their sleep and ushering their babies in the middle of the pack to protect them, as we hung around them for fifteen minutes or more, getting closer and closer and revving the boat engine. We also woke up a mother with a small baby in deep sleep on the riverbank and then chased them down a few hundred meters before them entering the safety of the water. Not cool, not cool at all, viewing wildlife should never cause them anxiety and stress, and these hippos were clearly scared! Not to mention that these cruises are being operated every hour during the day, every day. I wouldn’t do it again.
We camped in a nearby village, and while looking for a place for our tent I discovered large piles of poop and inquired, which animal did it. Hippos, was the answer. What? This far from the lake? Yes, apparently a whole bunch of them came up to the camp every night to graze on the grass, and it was actually quite risky to get out of your tent after dark. It was a bit cold also, the showers were quite dirty and there was no hot water and I was desperate to get clean as I hadn’t showered in a few days, so when I heard that you could upgrade to a private cabin with double bed, ensuite toilet and hot shower for 20$, I jumped on the offer! About an hour later, clean after a nice shower I was sitting on my comfy king size bed with a stupid, happy grin on my face. That night I didn’t sleep very well as I still had the cold, and as I was lying in my bed listening to the sound of hippos pulling grass outside, I was really happy that I was safely indoors! Money well spent!
In the morning we got up early to do another game drive in the national park before a long drive to Kisoro. If you asked me, I would’ve preferred to skip the game drive and instead sleep in and drive straight to Kisoro, because with the game drive included we ended up sitting in truck for twelve hours. Our departure was also delayed because the camp site manager was claiming that one cabin had not been paid for even though we had all paid in cash the night before. In the end he was unable to say which cabin had allegedly not been paid for, so he let us go. Lesson learned, ALWAYS ask for a receipt!
The drive was pretty slow as we crossed mountains zigzagging up and down, but at least the scenery was incredible. Uganda is incredibly green and the hillsides and mountains are very pretty to look at. There’s not much pristine nature though, every inch of the landscape all the way to the top of the hills has been turned into farmland. Towards the end it started raining heavily, it seems that this is what happens pretty much every day here. Nice weather in the morning, thunderstorm in the afternoon. There was no campground here, so we were all staying in hostel dorms for the next three nights. There was an option to upgrade to a private room for 10$ per night, but after seeing the room I decided it was not worth it and went into a dorm with the others instead. The hostel is pretty basic, with comfy chairs in the reception and a slow and unreliable wi-fi. Another thing that is unreliable is the electricity, and power cuts are frequent. They do have a generator, but they don’t run it during thunderstorms.
The next day ten of our group went gorilla trecking, a few went to see the golden monkeys, I’m not doing either because these are very expensive activities, about 700$ for the first and 120$ for the second. Instead I went to visit a local organic coffee plantation, where we were shown the whole process from seedling to cup, and treated to a vegetarian lunch of plantain, rice, spinach, potato and avocados, again all organic and as local as it gets. Yummy! Then we drove down to the lake and canoed in traditional dug-out canoes for an hour. There was a small island in the middle which our guide told us is called Punishment Island, the name dating back to a time when if a woman got pregnant out of wedlock, she would be taken to the island and left there to starve. Her only hope was that someone would agree to marry her despite her being pregnant and bring her back to shore. Any man in the village could just row a boat to the island a and pick a woman they desired, and no dowry would need to be paid for marrying her.
We then could see a storm coming and got back in the car just as it was starting to rain. The rain kept getting harder, thunder was rumbling very loudly and there were loud crashes as the lightning was striking. After a few minutes drive we had to stop the car to the side of the road, as the rain was coming so hard ut was impossible to see ahead. Big junks of hail was coming down, and it was all pretty epic!
I had planned to go for a crater walk the next morning, but it rained all night so I decided to skip it as I wasn’t in the mood for wallowing through mud. Instead I went for a lunch in a nearby café called Coffee Pot, where we had pizzas and lattes. Back at the hostel the power was gone again, and no power means no internet and no hot water. I spent the day writing and hoping that at some point there would be a chance to post the blog and add pictures.
Jenni's Africa 