So from the gorillas in the far South-West we decided to try and head North to Murchison Falls, another scenic highlight of Uganda. But first I decided it would be worth stopping off at a recommended lake which was only a few kilometers out of the way, and would serve to break up the very long journey north. So we got to Lake Bunyonyi after a bit of messing around with shuttle bus operators and taxi drivers, and bygod was it worth it. It really is a spectacular setting and we got a lovely place to stay with a self-contained little cottage on a hillside overlooking the lake itself.
We ended up staying here for three nights as it was just so relaxing, and had an incredible profusion of birdlife (and birdsong of course). We hired a dug out canoe one day and just headed out into the lake, stopping off at two little islands for a bit of exploring and a spot of light lunch (the second island had a lovely resort with an incredible setting for it's restaurant, so naturally a cool beer was supped there).
Another day I hired a motorbike (moped really), as I couldn't get a decent bicycle (all the bikes here are made of iron or something and regularly used to transport entire families or entire banana trees). Again I was a bit worried by a 'new' experience, as I haven't driven a motorbike of any description in years, and the roads there were pretty steep, badly rutted dirt tracks. But after a bit I was grand and we had a bit of an explore in the neighbouring town, Kabale which made a nice change from the lake.
The following day we hit the trail again and headed further North to the town of Mbarara, hoping to get from there to Murchison Falls (a direct line on our guidebook map), but of course that didn't quite work out.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Gorillas and stuff
We arrived in the nice town of Kisoro in the very South-Western corner of Uganda, about 60km from the Bwindi forest where our troop of gorillas live. The journey was mostly fine, on good tarmac roads, but the final 80km was on dirt road and extremely bumpy. This was more than made up for by the stunning scenery though. The Lonely Planet describes this section of road as the mostly scenically beautiful in all of Uganda, and lists it as one of the country's highlights. It's all gorgeous rolling volcanic hills, completely carpeted in lush green vegetation and terraced fields, really spectacular.
We checked-in to a lovely guesthouse and then had the entire next day to simply organise transport to the park headquarters. On this occasion I didn't want to risk getting a cowboy taxi driver, so I didn't bother to haggle much with the guy recommended by the UWA office in Kisoro (he did rip us off of course, but he was a nice guy and had a decent car, which was important given the state of the roads).
We arrived safe and sound at the park headquarters, after winding our way through the breaking dawn with an eerie mist shrouding the entire landscape (which is where 'Gorillas in the Mist' comes from I suppose). We were the first ones there, shortly followed by 6 other Dutch trekkers. After a brief briefing we headed off in search of the gorillas through the dense forest.
An hour and a half later we reached them and spent the next hour or so just walking around watching the group feed, play and laze about the place. Got lots of photos and one good video sequence, since you can get really close to the them, although of course you can't feed them or get too close. They basically just look at you in a bored sort of way and then move on into the undergrowth and then head off through the forest.
We've met a few people now who've seen various gorilla groups, and all say how amazing it is, with one guy saying it was the most amazing experience of his life! I have to say I think I was a bit under-whelmed by it all really. Probably all the hype plays a big part, I mean they really are quite awesome creatures alright, but once they get used to humans they are really peaceful and don't do much (i.e. we didn't get charged by a huge aggressive silverback or anything, so we were both a tad disappointed - it can happen apparently, though rarely of course). I guess I wanted to start playing directly with them or something (which you can do with the giraffes in Kenya for instance), and so without that direct personal contact it seemed a bit too remote, almost as if they were lounging around behind the plexi-glass of Dublin zoo. Maybe it had something to do with the group of us (8 Europeans and about 3 rangers) all milling about and cameras snapping all over the place (no flashes though of course).
Anyway, it was certainly still a great experience to see them acting so naturally in their native environment, I suppose I really just wanted the whole Dian Fossey experience of really getting to spend a lot of time with them. Maybe it was my natural repulsion at the whole 'tour-group' aspect of the experience, i.e. all of us being shepherded together and only having our alloted hour - but of course I understand it has to be managed that way to keep the gorillas 'wild', so I'm just being picky.
One interesting (to me anyway - although Sarah agreed with me on this one) aspect of the hike into and out of the park though was an nice example of 'The Machine' in action. Two of the Dutch trekkers had arranged porters to carry their small bags - obviously they feared a bit of a hike would be too much for them if they had to carry 2kg of extra weight (they were both in their early thirties I'd say). They also used the porters to help them down the 'steep' bits of the hike - literally holding the holds of the porters as they went. It was all a bit embarrassing really, as both these two fell to the back of the group (not that we were in any hurry or anything). Interestingly though, even though they didn't have to carry anything, and they were the most cautious of the entire group, and they had the helping hands of a porter each, only one person actually fell during the whole day, and you'll never guess who is was - yep, the overly cautious Dutch girl with the porter.
I would have laughed if it wasn't so sad, but you could see it coming right from the very beginning. She was the one worrying about the hike, saying she hoped it wouldn't be too long, and moaning about how 'steep' the descents were going to be (they weren't!), and how slippery it would be (it wasn't). She just oozed negativity and worry, and of course she was in bits physically when we got back, even though I'm sure none of the rest of the group were significantly stronger or fitter than her (she wasn't old, or overweight, or disabled in any way) - all her struggles, and pain, and difficulties (and her subsequent fall, which was really minor) were all purely due to her attitude and her poor self-image.
But another thing I heard from a number of people who did the trek was that the hike was 'worth it' - as if the hike part was some terrible ordeal that had to be suffered in order to get to see the gorillas. But for me the hiking was one of the best bits - the forest was fantastic, and I could have kept hiking all day (not because I was strong or anything, but because I had a positive mental attitude to the experience). But I suppose it's far more common than I realised for the epsilon semi-morons to regard any form of physical exercise as an 'ordeal', to be avoided at all costs by getting in their cars...
So apart from all that, the gorillas were cool! We just spent the next couple of days lazing about in Kisoro, getting bicycles one day to try to get to the headquarters of another national park, but getting a bit lost and ending up near the border of Congo I think!
P.S. I tried uploading a good video clip of the gorillas but the upload failed halfway through due to the connection being lost temporarily, ah well.
We checked-in to a lovely guesthouse and then had the entire next day to simply organise transport to the park headquarters. On this occasion I didn't want to risk getting a cowboy taxi driver, so I didn't bother to haggle much with the guy recommended by the UWA office in Kisoro (he did rip us off of course, but he was a nice guy and had a decent car, which was important given the state of the roads).
We arrived safe and sound at the park headquarters, after winding our way through the breaking dawn with an eerie mist shrouding the entire landscape (which is where 'Gorillas in the Mist' comes from I suppose). We were the first ones there, shortly followed by 6 other Dutch trekkers. After a brief briefing we headed off in search of the gorillas through the dense forest.
An hour and a half later we reached them and spent the next hour or so just walking around watching the group feed, play and laze about the place. Got lots of photos and one good video sequence, since you can get really close to the them, although of course you can't feed them or get too close. They basically just look at you in a bored sort of way and then move on into the undergrowth and then head off through the forest.
We've met a few people now who've seen various gorilla groups, and all say how amazing it is, with one guy saying it was the most amazing experience of his life! I have to say I think I was a bit under-whelmed by it all really. Probably all the hype plays a big part, I mean they really are quite awesome creatures alright, but once they get used to humans they are really peaceful and don't do much (i.e. we didn't get charged by a huge aggressive silverback or anything, so we were both a tad disappointed - it can happen apparently, though rarely of course). I guess I wanted to start playing directly with them or something (which you can do with the giraffes in Kenya for instance), and so without that direct personal contact it seemed a bit too remote, almost as if they were lounging around behind the plexi-glass of Dublin zoo. Maybe it had something to do with the group of us (8 Europeans and about 3 rangers) all milling about and cameras snapping all over the place (no flashes though of course).
Anyway, it was certainly still a great experience to see them acting so naturally in their native environment, I suppose I really just wanted the whole Dian Fossey experience of really getting to spend a lot of time with them. Maybe it was my natural repulsion at the whole 'tour-group' aspect of the experience, i.e. all of us being shepherded together and only having our alloted hour - but of course I understand it has to be managed that way to keep the gorillas 'wild', so I'm just being picky.
One interesting (to me anyway - although Sarah agreed with me on this one) aspect of the hike into and out of the park though was an nice example of 'The Machine' in action. Two of the Dutch trekkers had arranged porters to carry their small bags - obviously they feared a bit of a hike would be too much for them if they had to carry 2kg of extra weight (they were both in their early thirties I'd say). They also used the porters to help them down the 'steep' bits of the hike - literally holding the holds of the porters as they went. It was all a bit embarrassing really, as both these two fell to the back of the group (not that we were in any hurry or anything). Interestingly though, even though they didn't have to carry anything, and they were the most cautious of the entire group, and they had the helping hands of a porter each, only one person actually fell during the whole day, and you'll never guess who is was - yep, the overly cautious Dutch girl with the porter.
I would have laughed if it wasn't so sad, but you could see it coming right from the very beginning. She was the one worrying about the hike, saying she hoped it wouldn't be too long, and moaning about how 'steep' the descents were going to be (they weren't!), and how slippery it would be (it wasn't). She just oozed negativity and worry, and of course she was in bits physically when we got back, even though I'm sure none of the rest of the group were significantly stronger or fitter than her (she wasn't old, or overweight, or disabled in any way) - all her struggles, and pain, and difficulties (and her subsequent fall, which was really minor) were all purely due to her attitude and her poor self-image.
But another thing I heard from a number of people who did the trek was that the hike was 'worth it' - as if the hike part was some terrible ordeal that had to be suffered in order to get to see the gorillas. But for me the hiking was one of the best bits - the forest was fantastic, and I could have kept hiking all day (not because I was strong or anything, but because I had a positive mental attitude to the experience). But I suppose it's far more common than I realised for the epsilon semi-morons to regard any form of physical exercise as an 'ordeal', to be avoided at all costs by getting in their cars...
So apart from all that, the gorillas were cool! We just spent the next couple of days lazing about in Kisoro, getting bicycles one day to try to get to the headquarters of another national park, but getting a bit lost and ending up near the border of Congo I think!
P.S. I tried uploading a good video clip of the gorillas but the upload failed halfway through due to the connection being lost temporarily, ah well.
Patworld
So on Monday morning I get up early planning on getting to the UWA office at their opening time of 8am to try my luck at getting gorilla trekking permits. I'd scoped the place out, so I knew exactly where it was (about a 30 minute walk from where we were staying), and I was actually really confident that all would be well and I'd get everything organised and be back at the country club in time for a late breakfast and a leisurely swim before checking out at midday.
So I gets to the place just after 8am and I'm the only tourist there. I sit down and casually ask the ranger guy what the chances were of getting a permit to trek the mountain gorillas, preferably for that Thursday as that would give us plenty of time to get down to that part of the country. The ranger guy kinda looks at me funny and then laughs, reaches across his desk for an envelope and says that I'm a very lucky guy. He'd just happened to have received two permits, which were originally for two Swedes, but that they had had to cancel. Otherwise he said I'd have had to wait until September for permits, as they are always booked out for months in advance.
He said I could have them if I wanted - and of course they just happened to be for that Thursday. They were also for the best park for trekking (Bwindi), and also the best (or at least his personal favorite) group of gorillas (there are 4 Ugandan gorilla groups that you can visit). Apparently this group had two mature males (the silverbacks) and a number of cute and playful juveniles, and they were very peaceful and enjoyed the presence of humans (other groups tend to scatter or hide in undergrowth). Also our trekking date happened to be June 28th, and on July 1st the price of a permit went up from $375 to $500, so I had just saved $250 by getting the cancellations too.
Naturally I was delighted, and quite excited, and whipped out my credit card to pay when the ranger starts shaking his head and saying 'nope, cash only I'm afraid'. Whoops - I hadn't checked that part - I'd assumed because the permits were so expensive that they'd have to take credit cards, but I was wrong. So this meant I'd have to get to a bank to try and withdraw the cash for the permits. The ranger guy is really nice (or course, as is everyone we've met, except that pirate Captain Ali of course), and says no problem, the banks open at 9am and he'll hold the permits for me.
Of course, I'm now worried about the prospect of having to try and get all this cash but head off towards the bank. I only have to wait a few minutes at foreign exchange but then the cashier guy tells me there is a credit card withdrawal limit of 1.2M Ugandan schillings. I need 1.275M for the permits, but it just so happened that that morning I'd put about 90,000 schillings into my wallet from the room safe. I really don't know why I took that much, but it's all a bit uncanny how the combined total was just enough to cover the cost of the permits.
Also I had intended to take my passport as ID, but I'd forgotten it. While waiting at the bank I was worried that it would be necessary to make such a big withdrawal, and I was right. The cashier does indeed ask for my passport. I have panicky visions of having to dash back to the hotel and get my passport and back, etc. when I remembered a top-tip from Emmet about traveling in Africa.
He'd told me to always carry a photocopy of my passport, and if I was ever stopped by a policeman and asked for my passport to only give him the photocopy. If he insisted on the original, then calmly tell him you would give it to him, but only back at the police station. This is to prevent corrupt coppers (or guys pretending to be coppers) from taking your passport and refusing to give it back unless you give them a 'fee'. Anyway, I tell the cashier guy in the bank that all I have is a photocopy of my passport and he says 'yeah, no problem' - phew!
So I grab the huge bundle of notes and grab a motorcycle-taxi right outside the bank. He takes me back to the UWA office, were he waits outside as I run in and pay for the permits, thank the ranger guy profusely (as he reiterates just how lucky I am), hop back on the taxi and back to the country club with about 25 minutes to spare for brekkie. Needless to say I had a great breakfast followed by a really relaxed and relieved swim and steam room before casually checking out at noon. We then had the rest of that day at our leisure really - all I had to organise was the transport down to the national park where the gorillas live, which was pretty straightforward.
So I gets to the place just after 8am and I'm the only tourist there. I sit down and casually ask the ranger guy what the chances were of getting a permit to trek the mountain gorillas, preferably for that Thursday as that would give us plenty of time to get down to that part of the country. The ranger guy kinda looks at me funny and then laughs, reaches across his desk for an envelope and says that I'm a very lucky guy. He'd just happened to have received two permits, which were originally for two Swedes, but that they had had to cancel. Otherwise he said I'd have had to wait until September for permits, as they are always booked out for months in advance.
He said I could have them if I wanted - and of course they just happened to be for that Thursday. They were also for the best park for trekking (Bwindi), and also the best (or at least his personal favorite) group of gorillas (there are 4 Ugandan gorilla groups that you can visit). Apparently this group had two mature males (the silverbacks) and a number of cute and playful juveniles, and they were very peaceful and enjoyed the presence of humans (other groups tend to scatter or hide in undergrowth). Also our trekking date happened to be June 28th, and on July 1st the price of a permit went up from $375 to $500, so I had just saved $250 by getting the cancellations too.
Naturally I was delighted, and quite excited, and whipped out my credit card to pay when the ranger starts shaking his head and saying 'nope, cash only I'm afraid'. Whoops - I hadn't checked that part - I'd assumed because the permits were so expensive that they'd have to take credit cards, but I was wrong. So this meant I'd have to get to a bank to try and withdraw the cash for the permits. The ranger guy is really nice (or course, as is everyone we've met, except that pirate Captain Ali of course), and says no problem, the banks open at 9am and he'll hold the permits for me.
Of course, I'm now worried about the prospect of having to try and get all this cash but head off towards the bank. I only have to wait a few minutes at foreign exchange but then the cashier guy tells me there is a credit card withdrawal limit of 1.2M Ugandan schillings. I need 1.275M for the permits, but it just so happened that that morning I'd put about 90,000 schillings into my wallet from the room safe. I really don't know why I took that much, but it's all a bit uncanny how the combined total was just enough to cover the cost of the permits.
Also I had intended to take my passport as ID, but I'd forgotten it. While waiting at the bank I was worried that it would be necessary to make such a big withdrawal, and I was right. The cashier does indeed ask for my passport. I have panicky visions of having to dash back to the hotel and get my passport and back, etc. when I remembered a top-tip from Emmet about traveling in Africa.
He'd told me to always carry a photocopy of my passport, and if I was ever stopped by a policeman and asked for my passport to only give him the photocopy. If he insisted on the original, then calmly tell him you would give it to him, but only back at the police station. This is to prevent corrupt coppers (or guys pretending to be coppers) from taking your passport and refusing to give it back unless you give them a 'fee'. Anyway, I tell the cashier guy in the bank that all I have is a photocopy of my passport and he says 'yeah, no problem' - phew!
So I grab the huge bundle of notes and grab a motorcycle-taxi right outside the bank. He takes me back to the UWA office, were he waits outside as I run in and pay for the permits, thank the ranger guy profusely (as he reiterates just how lucky I am), hop back on the taxi and back to the country club with about 25 minutes to spare for brekkie. Needless to say I had a great breakfast followed by a really relaxed and relieved swim and steam room before casually checking out at noon. We then had the rest of that day at our leisure really - all I had to organise was the transport down to the national park where the gorillas live, which was pretty straightforward.
Cheeky monkeys
I was hoping that our bus from Nairobi to Kampala would take somewhere close to the estimated 11 hours, and that we would arrive nice and early in the morning. That would have allowed me time to get to the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) office before they closed at 1pm (it was a Saturday) to inquire about getting a permit to see the mountain gorillas. But of course the bus took 17 hours and so we arrived after the office closed.
So after lunch I decided to head out to one of the really nice places to stay as a treat after the long journey. I negotiated with a motorcycle-taxi guy, and was a little suspicious when he accepted a low price, but we headed off regardless (the place was a few kilometers outside the city) . When we arrived I got talking to the caretaker guy outside the hostel who informs me that the hostel was closed for renovations, and had been closed for months. It was immediately obvious that the taxi guys knew full well this place was closed (it's a very popular backpacker place, highly recommended by the guide), which explained why the guys accepted a low price - they knew we were now stuck outside the city and obviously needed transport to another hostel, and assumed we'd have to pay them more to take us there.
But they hadn't reckoned on encountering a machine-savvy dude such as myself, who certainly wasn't going to let these cowboys away so easily. I asked the caretaker guy if there was anywhere else within walking distance, and all he could suggest was a place right next door, but that it was a real luxury place, and very expensive. So I told our motorcycle-taxi dudes to wait for a bit as I legged it next door (about 150 meters up the road) and checked it out. It turned out to be a mighty luxurious place alright (The Kariba Country Club), with a price tag to match, but I reckoned I'd rather pay these guys $120 extra for a plush place than the taxi cowboys $2 to bring us to a different hostel.
So I legged it back to Sarah and the lads, asked them to drop us both up the road (I hadn't paid them anything up until now of course). They didn't know exactly what I was at, so said OK, and then I just hopped off at the Country Club, paid them the low initial taxi fare and said thanks very much and goodbye. They were pretty peeved to say the least, as their little plan had backfired, but I was walking away when Sarah started to cave in to their pleading for more money. I kept telling her to just walk away, trying to explain to her that they had attempted to cheat us, but she ended up giving them a few bob more - which kinda pissed me off, as really she was rewarding them for trying to rip us off. Ah well, you live and learn I suppose...
So anyway, the Country Club really was lovely, and a great relief after the long bus journey. It was really quite, so I had the lovely swimming pool, steam room and sauna pretty much all to my myself, and I made the most of all of them. We were waiting for the UWA to open on Monday morning to see what our next plan of action would be, so we just relaxed at the Club and walked around Kampala for the weekend (checking out all the five-star hotels of course, of which only one is really worthy of the stars - the Nile, which I hope to go back to and eat in the restaurant, apparently the best in Uganda (it was closed on Sundays)) .
Suppose I should mention the only Irish bar we've been in so far, simply because I think the name is cool, and it was actually a really nice, genuine bar. Even though we were there early afternoon on a Sunday, the place had a really cool feel to it and I'd hope to go back if we spend much more time in Kampala. Anyway, it's called Bubbles O'Leary's - and I reckon it's worth a visit if your passing this way any time soon.
So after lunch I decided to head out to one of the really nice places to stay as a treat after the long journey. I negotiated with a motorcycle-taxi guy, and was a little suspicious when he accepted a low price, but we headed off regardless (the place was a few kilometers outside the city) . When we arrived I got talking to the caretaker guy outside the hostel who informs me that the hostel was closed for renovations, and had been closed for months. It was immediately obvious that the taxi guys knew full well this place was closed (it's a very popular backpacker place, highly recommended by the guide), which explained why the guys accepted a low price - they knew we were now stuck outside the city and obviously needed transport to another hostel, and assumed we'd have to pay them more to take us there.
But they hadn't reckoned on encountering a machine-savvy dude such as myself, who certainly wasn't going to let these cowboys away so easily. I asked the caretaker guy if there was anywhere else within walking distance, and all he could suggest was a place right next door, but that it was a real luxury place, and very expensive. So I told our motorcycle-taxi dudes to wait for a bit as I legged it next door (about 150 meters up the road) and checked it out. It turned out to be a mighty luxurious place alright (The Kariba Country Club), with a price tag to match, but I reckoned I'd rather pay these guys $120 extra for a plush place than the taxi cowboys $2 to bring us to a different hostel.
So I legged it back to Sarah and the lads, asked them to drop us both up the road (I hadn't paid them anything up until now of course). They didn't know exactly what I was at, so said OK, and then I just hopped off at the Country Club, paid them the low initial taxi fare and said thanks very much and goodbye. They were pretty peeved to say the least, as their little plan had backfired, but I was walking away when Sarah started to cave in to their pleading for more money. I kept telling her to just walk away, trying to explain to her that they had attempted to cheat us, but she ended up giving them a few bob more - which kinda pissed me off, as really she was rewarding them for trying to rip us off. Ah well, you live and learn I suppose...
So anyway, the Country Club really was lovely, and a great relief after the long bus journey. It was really quite, so I had the lovely swimming pool, steam room and sauna pretty much all to my myself, and I made the most of all of them. We were waiting for the UWA to open on Monday morning to see what our next plan of action would be, so we just relaxed at the Club and walked around Kampala for the weekend (checking out all the five-star hotels of course, of which only one is really worthy of the stars - the Nile, which I hope to go back to and eat in the restaurant, apparently the best in Uganda (it was closed on Sundays)) .
Suppose I should mention the only Irish bar we've been in so far, simply because I think the name is cool, and it was actually a really nice, genuine bar. Even though we were there early afternoon on a Sunday, the place had a really cool feel to it and I'd hope to go back if we spend much more time in Kampala. Anyway, it's called Bubbles O'Leary's - and I reckon it's worth a visit if your passing this way any time soon.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Trainspotting
So after our very relaxing train journey from Mombasa we arrived nice and early back in Nairobi. I wanted to check out the train museum before trying to organise the next phase of the trip, as it's only a short walk from where the our train pulled in. Mind you, I had to put up with Negator (my latest cute petname for Sarah - those who know me best will be able to work it out) complaining about having 'absolutely NO interest in going to a bloody boring train museum', but in the end it was actually a gem of a place (as the Lonely Planet correctly described it), and she really enjoyed it in the end (hint: negative people really annoy me!).
Turns out the entire history of Kenyan is very closely tied in to the construction of the railway from Mombasa via Nairobi to Kampala, and the very friendly curator did a great job of explaining it all to us. He also took great pride in showing us the museum's pride and joy - the actual claws of the famous man-eating Lions of Tsavo who reportedly killed 140 railway workers before finally being shot (the rest of the lions are stuffed and are in a private museum in Chicago and the Kenyan government is trying to get them repatriated apparently - good luck to them I say (and the Egyptians trying to repatriate loads of national treasures from the English tomb-robbers)). The claws were stolen years ago, but the thief was caught trying to sell them for $5M, and they're now safely locked away, only to be shown to 'special' visitors. But then he just left us with them ('cos we're 'special' or course) and wondered off for ages - very high security.
They also had a mad railway bicycle contraption which never really worked, but suitably demonstrated the eccentric nature of the people involved in building such a crazy railway. You could also climb all over the ancient old engines they used to have - no glass cases here or roped-off sections, it was all very hands-on. Lots of cool photos of English royality lording it about back in the day too, all very atmospheric I thought.
So after our 'not at all boring' few hours at the museum, we headed to the airline office and discovered that flights to Kampala in Uganda were all booked up, so that only really left the overnight bus option. So after running around for a bit organising tickets I had a relaxing few hours before the nightmare bus journey began.
It's a bit weird traveling again (proper, long-term traveling I mean) - even though I've done loads of long distance overnight bus journeys in the past, the prospect of this one, our first on this trip, was still a bit daunting. I remember feeling exactly the same way 8 years ago too (i.e. worrying because we'd be crossing our first border, with all the attendant niggly worries about immigration, visas, money changing issues, etc.), so I suppose 'The Machine' has been successfully nibbling away at all the experience built up on the last trip and managed to instill a fresh dose of 'fear' back into me. But of course, everything went without a hint of a hitch, as they always do really.
We even had the added bonus of not having to pay anything for our visas, seeing as how Irish people are exempt - probably due to the Irish missionaries or Roy Keane (all the lads over here know Keano) or something - the poor English have to pay double the visa fee of every other nationality in South Africa apparently, so it's all a bit arbitary really.
So I arrived in Kampala quite relieved that everything had gone so well (I even slept a bit on the bus), went straight to an ATM and got Ugandan cash out with no problem, and then celebrated by going straight to the best Indian restaurant in East Africa for a slap-up feed. The journey had been 17 hours and we arrived at around lunch-time, so a reward was certainly well earned, and Haandi restaurant in central Kampala certainly lived up to it's reputation.
So now, once fed, we had to work out what Uganda was all about and why on earth we'd bothered to come here...
Turns out the entire history of Kenyan is very closely tied in to the construction of the railway from Mombasa via Nairobi to Kampala, and the very friendly curator did a great job of explaining it all to us. He also took great pride in showing us the museum's pride and joy - the actual claws of the famous man-eating Lions of Tsavo who reportedly killed 140 railway workers before finally being shot (the rest of the lions are stuffed and are in a private museum in Chicago and the Kenyan government is trying to get them repatriated apparently - good luck to them I say (and the Egyptians trying to repatriate loads of national treasures from the English tomb-robbers)). The claws were stolen years ago, but the thief was caught trying to sell them for $5M, and they're now safely locked away, only to be shown to 'special' visitors. But then he just left us with them ('cos we're 'special' or course) and wondered off for ages - very high security.
They also had a mad railway bicycle contraption which never really worked, but suitably demonstrated the eccentric nature of the people involved in building such a crazy railway. You could also climb all over the ancient old engines they used to have - no glass cases here or roped-off sections, it was all very hands-on. Lots of cool photos of English royality lording it about back in the day too, all very atmospheric I thought.
So after our 'not at all boring' few hours at the museum, we headed to the airline office and discovered that flights to Kampala in Uganda were all booked up, so that only really left the overnight bus option. So after running around for a bit organising tickets I had a relaxing few hours before the nightmare bus journey began.
It's a bit weird traveling again (proper, long-term traveling I mean) - even though I've done loads of long distance overnight bus journeys in the past, the prospect of this one, our first on this trip, was still a bit daunting. I remember feeling exactly the same way 8 years ago too (i.e. worrying because we'd be crossing our first border, with all the attendant niggly worries about immigration, visas, money changing issues, etc.), so I suppose 'The Machine' has been successfully nibbling away at all the experience built up on the last trip and managed to instill a fresh dose of 'fear' back into me. But of course, everything went without a hint of a hitch, as they always do really.
We even had the added bonus of not having to pay anything for our visas, seeing as how Irish people are exempt - probably due to the Irish missionaries or Roy Keane (all the lads over here know Keano) or something - the poor English have to pay double the visa fee of every other nationality in South Africa apparently, so it's all a bit arbitary really.
So I arrived in Kampala quite relieved that everything had gone so well (I even slept a bit on the bus), went straight to an ATM and got Ugandan cash out with no problem, and then celebrated by going straight to the best Indian restaurant in East Africa for a slap-up feed. The journey had been 17 hours and we arrived at around lunch-time, so a reward was certainly well earned, and Haandi restaurant in central Kampala certainly lived up to it's reputation.
So now, once fed, we had to work out what Uganda was all about and why on earth we'd bothered to come here...
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