And the safari begins

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  Kampala, Uganda
Monday, October 27, 2008

Mood: surprised
 
Africa. Amazing. Wow.

I still can't believe I am here. And my first impression? Absolutely lovely friendly helpful beautiful people stuck in a situation they definitely don't deserve. My first contact was with the visa officials when I flew into Nairobi. I was waiting in line for over an hour, but when I finally got to the desk the guy was joking with me about kangaroos and being so far from home.
 
I had to wait a little while for my transfer to be organised, and by the time I left the airport it was almost dark. My drivers name was Livingstone, and he was a really cool and friendly guy - he pointed out things along the way and definitely knew how to handle the traffic. There are some crazy drivers in Nairobi! The road itself is terrible, at one stage we went over a join in the road which was more like going up a gutter. We managed to get caught up in a Saturday night traffic jam, which moved very very slowly, and we had people coming up to the windows trying to sell us newspapers, food, hats, all sorts of things! When we finally got to the hostel there were huge gates and fences of barbed wire - it looked like a prison. Crime is very bad here at night, especially on the roads where fake police pull over vehicles and then rob the people inside. Unfortunately in Nairobi it's not safe at all to go out after dark, so I am kinda glad for the protection level around the hotel.
 
I had missed the pre-departure meeting but found a sign in the lobby telling me the start time was (gulp) 4.30am... ewwww. I met a few people doing one of the other Kumuka tours and chatted to them for a while, then went to bed kind of early as I was exhausted from my flight and dreading another early morning start!
 
There are 9 people on this leg of the tour, which happens to be 3 or 4 different tours mixed into one. Run by a company called Kumuka, my tour - Wildlife and Falls - is a 42 day safari through Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We pickup and loose people along the way, so the group will always be changing. I really prefer the smaller groups and the people so far really nice. We have 4 New Zealanders, 3 Aussies, and 2 Swedish. It was a little cool at 4.30am, and we had to leave so early because it was the Nairobi marathon that day and all the roads were closing at 5am. We stopped and had breakfast just as the sun was coming up, at a spot overlooking the Great Rift Valley, and it was gorgeous. I almost felt like I was in the Lion King.
 
The last 2 days have been driving days, and we have one more day to go, as we have to get to where the gorilla trek starts by Wednesday, as to get a permit you are assigned a specific date, and our groups are for the end of this week. So my African adventure has started out pretty mildly.
 
One thing that has surprised me though is the reception that we have received, especially from the kids. I don't know how but they can see us coming from a mile away, and they yell out to us with the biggest smiles and waves, some even jumping up and down and dancing. You can't help but grin and wave madly back. Even from a distance you know when they are smiling cause there's a big white strip across their gorgeous black faces. Some of the children are so tiny; I don't know if it's because of poor nutrition, but it's so wet and the earth is so rich here, that they have no shortage of crops and food. They definitely aren't going hungry here. But we are definately as much of a novelty factor to them as they are to us. I cannot believe how little these people have contact with white people. I wasn't expecting the lack of westerners here. Everyone is coloured.
 
Even the adults stop what they are doing and stare at us as we drive past. Some of the kids get shy or scared, but most of them wave. Some turn their palms up as if begging for money, but most are just excited to see you.
 
We spent our first night at this amazing campsite at a place called Nirberi River. The owner has some sort of concreting business, and the campsite is just his hobby, but he has clearly gotten quite adventurous, installing a big resort-style swimming pool and recently a huge bar area accessed through a fake stone tunnel. It feels like 5 star, even though we are sleeping in tents! We spent the first night together with a few drinks in the bar, and then dinner from the truck.
 
Our vehicle is very similar to the overland truck used in Morocco, with the bus-style seats and big rollup windows. We have been divided up into groups, 3 or which work of a rotating roster of cooking, dishes and truck cleaning, plus the other group are the 'truck dogs' who load and unload the truck, fill up the water, set up the table and cooker etc. im with Malin, she's part of the Swedish couple. Yesterday we were on dishes, and today on truck clean.
 
We left the campsite at 5am, having to eat breakfast and pack up in the dark. The weather reminds me of the north of Australia in the wet season, muggy weather, with huge downpours of rain appearing seemingly from nowhere. As the sun came up the clouds looked like those from the Lion King, when Simba comes back and the rain washes the hyenas and rubbish away and makes the land green again. Big and dark and fluffy. I can feel myself wanting to compare a lot to the Lion King already.
 
Because today's Monday, all the kids were in their uniforms heading off to school. It's great to drive past and see all these signs for primary, and secondary schools, and universities. At least these kids are having the opportunity to go to school. And their uniforms are so bright - reds, blues, even pinks!
 
What saddens me is the standard of living that some of these people have. You see so many different types of houses - stone, mud, iron, grass, wood. My favourite are the little round mud ones with thatched roofs. They are so cute set in amongst the banana and sugarcane plantations. Coming towards the Ugandan border we dropped down in altitude and the countryside became a lot more tropical, and as soon as we were across the change was so sudden and dramatic. The border itself was very interesting, there is a crisis here at the moment where Kenya's computer system for border control is broken, and so all the trucks with goods trying to cross the border are banked up in lines 12km long. We didn't have any trouble, we just had to get an exit stamp for Kenya and buy our entry visa for Uganda. But because Kenya has one of the biggest ports and controls the flow of goods into landlocked countries such as Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo, it's a big business, charging tax on all the goods that go through makes them a lot of money. A lot of the time all the goods have to be unloaded out of the trucks, individually counted, and then put back in. some trucks have been sitting there for 2 weeks already.
 
On the Kenyan side we had a guy trying to sell us a set of scales, which looked like they had been flogged from a butcher, and he kept putting it on the ground like he wanted us to get on. I don't think anyone wanted to know what their weight was! I can't wait to see all my stamps by the end of Africa - im going to have a cool looking passport by the end!
 
The countryside now is very swampy, with heaps of crops - rice, tea, bananas and sugarcane, and the earth is so red and rich. And everywhere, there are cows and goats tied up outside houses, eating or lying around. It's crazy the amount of people that you find literally out in the middle of nowhere, walking or pushing a bicycle loaded with something - and it's usually something huge! When we stopped for lunch just off the road, within 10 minutes we were surrounded by children. We all felt bad eating in front of them, but they were more inquisitive than anything, and I think that they equate white people = money and food. We gave them some of our leftover chips, which they fought over like crows, but there was no way we could give them any of our proper food, as there was way too many of them - they almost out counted us at 3:1!
 
We stopped to check out the Ankole cattle, which have the biggest horns I have ever seen! They are only really found in Uganda, and we had to pay the herder to let us take some photos, which at 1000 shillings was a little steep (about the equivalent of 60 cents US). Also, all along the roadsides are stalls of fruit, vegetables and meats. This is the only way for them to advertise their products.
 
We are now in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The city is really big, and really dirty. There are people, bikes and trucks everywhere! Our campsite is quite nice, they have 2 huge fat dogs, some goats, and roosters wandering around the site. They also have guards with guns on the gate, so we all feel really safe. When we were setting up our tents there was a group of boys watching us over the fence and giggling, it was funny to have an audience! Especially since we are still mastering the whole tent-erection thing. Its perfectly safe to out here during the day, it's at night though that you have to be careful.
 
I don't think we will be up late tonight, as all the driving and hours on the truck has made me exhausted! Especially when everything is so full on, you're trying to absorb in as much as you can see as possible. And these early mornings are killing me! Im still trying to catch up on everything since all the drama with my ticket, let alone the culture shock of something so different as Africa, and so im getting so tired all the time. By the time we have dinner the sun will have gone down and then it's a bit like '...so what now?'
 
Oh I forgot to mention my tent buddy, Kelly. She's from Brisbane but has been living in the UK for 8 years now. She's really lovely and doesn't snore. YAY!
 
So my first taste of Africa has been great. I really love it here already. Especially the scenery, it's absolutely amazing! Im really looking forward to the rest of my trip. Im sure you all are too :)

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cruisin through Uganda	typical transport... the turkeys get the fun ride!	swamps of Uganda	the roads get worse!
Ugandan countryside	some of the Ankole cattle	impressive horns!	Ankole cattle
market stalls - everything here is so fresh!	rolling hills of Uganda	rolling hills of Uganda	rolling hills of Uganda
where? look at the size of the potholes!

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