From dust till dawn
Trip Start
Jan 11, 2006
1
2
Trip End
Ongoing
Kampala, Uganda
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Petra is big into bird-watching and I think I may have caught the bug from her - the island is a bird sanctuary with opver 60 species. Bear in mind it's a small island (about 10 minutes to walk around it), and god knows how many birds. Mainly we saw Little Egrets and Little Cormorants, thousands of them, but also heaven knows how many other unusual ones whose names I don't remember. It was fascinating. I kicked myself for not bringing binoculars from South Africa with me. Unfortunately we didn't swim because of bilharzia.
This morning Petra was quietly minding her own business, bird-watching, when she was attacked from behind by an African kite. He (or she?) klapped her on the back of her head, then circled round her ominously until she ran for cover. Later we discovered she must've been near his nest, like within 100 metres of it. Clearly a first-time, over-protective parent!
When we arrived at the Source of the Niles, there were some pygmies dancing and making weird music, and the smell of wood smoke made it really eerie and surreal. Then it started raining, and it rained and rained practically the whole way on the boat (called a ssese) ride to the island. Big, fat, juicy drops. Naturally, it being the dry season, we had no rain gear. Wise, very wise.
The boat guide took us to this tiny place on a different island on the way there which he says is the true source of the Nile - there's a whole lot of little bubbles there like a spring. Then my camera died, because I had forgotten to charge the damn batteries!
The traffic to and from Kampala was an absolute nightmare. There are no lanes, many potholes, and sort-of three lanes of traffic where they would normally only be two, and every bus just pushes in wherever it feels like. Yet there's no hooting or shouting or anything, everyone just gets on with it - amazing. Road rage in Kampala? It would probably shock everyone to a standstill if it ever happened.
The night on the island was wonderful, though Einstein (that's me) not only left her windows in the banda open, but the light on too. Mosquito netting or not, about 3million lake flies made their way to my bed, my duvet, the pillows, the walls, and oh yes, inside my bed too. We swatted them away to another light, it was mass murder. And then I spent quite a bit of the night wriggling them off me. Saucy little bastards.
Today, when we returned to the car, whoops, a flat tyre. Petra and Julia replaced it with the anorexic spare (they always give you a half-hearted attempt at a tyre for a spare), and then stopped at a "Tyre Clinic" along the way. These are handy things at some garages, obviously a supply where there is a constant demand. Since they seem only to neaten up roads wherever somebody important (and invariably from parliament) has been, tyre clinics are like the rubber red cross around here.
Apart from that, life is busy busy busy. Doing volunteer work for the USPCA and a rehab centre, and rushing about from interview to meeting to interview, with portfolio under my arm, in the heat and dust, and from one matatu taxi to another, to hopping onto a boda boda, to another interview. Twice my right shoe broke. Once just after my first interview - thank god, *after* the interview. Madame hobbled elegantly all the way down this long road before getting to a garage where they Super-glued it. Then later, the whole strap came off in the middle of frantic Jinja Road. Lovely. Fortunately there are shoe repairers around, and a whole army of helpful Ugandans, no doubt used to shoes breaking down from the punishment they take. Half an hour later my shoe was fixed and ready to walk again. Or break.
...was good to get out of Kampala for the weekend, and see some of the Uganda I came to see. On Wednesday we are due to leave for Kidepo, on the Ugandan/Sudan borders, accessible only by charter plane. Unless you are the edgy type and wanna go try the roads and take on the Lord's Resistance Army. Which I don't. I'll go by fly, thank you kindly.
Right, now to try loading some more pics....
