(This was an actual email sent home from Uganda)
Phew, today has been one hell of a day.....this will be a long one but worth the read...I promise!! So my day starts at 5:30am and by 6:15 I have eaten breakfast and am waiting in the lobby for my driver to arrive. I am heading to Entebbe which is on the shores of Lake Victoria. From there I will be taking a boat to Ngamba Island where I will visit a chimp orphanage started by Jane Goodall. Darrell & I had "Chinese food" last night at what was supposed to be one of the top 2 restaurants in all of Uganda....I’m convinced the "chicken" dish we semi-enjoyed was not at all chicken as it was oily, fatty and not very good. So my driver picks me up this morning and of course, he is driving like a maniac (this is par for the course in Kampala) I immediately felt that fetid meat gurgling in my tummy. After 45 minutes we arrived in Entebbe. I wasn’t feeling well so I headed to the restrooms, when I got there I found (brace yourselves) 3 toilets completely overflowing with shit....this was my breaking point, last night’s mystery meat took over and I promptly puked all over the floor then filled up the sink with puke too. Phew....finally free from the fetid meat and feeling a bit better, I boarded my boat for Ngamba Island. Being the classic dip-shit that I am, I didn’t think to put on sunscreen and didn’t remember to put any in my bag either.....yah, I'm 150 miles from the friggen equator.... on a boat..... Without sunscreen ...real smart! Needless to say, I am very sunburned! When I finally get back to the hotel around 2pm Darrell (who stayed behind due to not feeling well) is awake, feeling better and rearing to go to Jinja. I on the other hand am tired, hot and sunburned but Darrell doesn’t care about me so we get a taxi and start our 1+ hour journey to Jinja. Not surprisingly, our taxi driver is...you guessed it, a maniac and in this case, the term "maniac" may be giving him a bit too much credit. In Kampala, there are only 2 lanes for traffic; however, there are never less than 4 cars in these 2 lanes all of which are going in every direction. There are also huge potholes, various types of livestock and families of 5 riding on a single moped, limbs hanging out in every direction just asking to be ripped off by a passing taxi...like ours. Did I mention that our taxi's breaks don’t work very well? So when the need to brake arises, our driver simply improvises by swerving into the other lane of oncoming traffic. Miraculously, we make it to Jinja although I am ready to scream! I am relieved to be out of the death car and on my own feet wandering around Jinja. Jinja is quaint, only a few small shops line the streets as its main attraction is being the source of the great Nile River. When our tour is completed, I decide to slip our driver $20 on the down low (I have to do this on the “down low” because Darrell is to damn cheap to tip). Despite Darrell’s frugality, I give my secret tip to the driver and I tell him he had better slow down on the way back or else!! He pretends to agree to my terms and off we go. Once on the road, Darrell is insisting the driver turn the AC on. See Darrell is in the front seat which is actually cooled by the AC; I on the other hand, am in the back seat sweating profusely. The only thing the AC does is blow body odor at me ….full force. I keep asking D to open the windows but he is oblivious to my pain…what else is new!! Suddenly we are diverted from the main road because of an accident. We are sent down a side road with about a million other cars, motorbikes, buses etc. The road is dirt and badly rutted, however this doesn’t seem to faze our driver and he continues at his 90 mph. pace despite the road conditions. Finally he decides he’s had enough of this detour and quickly decides to cut across a soccer field filled with kids. Before we can speed across the child filled field, we have to make it through a ditch which we promptly get stuck in. We have to get out and push…did I mention it was over 100 degrees out?? Moving along, once we are freed from the ditch, our driver steps on it and races across the soccer field honking at the kids who are playing soccer. The kids take off in every direction in an attempt to get away from our speeding taxi. I am in the back seat hiding; I’m trying to hold back my overwhelming desire to SCREAM! Somehow I manage to keep my screams to myself and thankfully, despite the drivers best efforts we leave no carnage in our wake…..yet.
Somehow, we end up back on the street and to another impasse, this time the driver decides to pass on the left (they drive on the left here) and low and behold out of nowhere comes a man walking his bike.....I see it coming, I cover my eyes and then I hear it …. CRASH…. we completely wipe out this guys bike and knock him to the ground in the process. Almost immediately an angry, machete wielding mob assails our taxi. While machetes are a common site in Uganda it was frightening none the less. I try to get out of the taxi with Darrell and our driver and am immediately told to STAY IN THE CAR! The machete people are yelling and waiving their chosen weapons in the air. I’m thinking...Holy shit, this will be a good story for the family…if I live to tell it! Finally, Darrell and the driver strike a deal with the injured man and send him to the hospital (his only injury was a cut knee where a screw from his bike tire "bit" him) the angry mob disperses...phew, that was close! (This is all true; I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried). An hour later, we arrive safe and sound at our hotel in Kampala. Tomorrow we have an 11 hour drive to The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest for 3 days of gorilla trekking which I am looking forward too. I have to mention that there is actually more to this day....seriously, think angry Europeans whining about not being able to cuddle & kiss the chimps on Ngamba Island, Darrell trying to buy $80 worth of stuff for $5 and guards armed with machine guns yelling at our driver for who the hell knows what, in a language we don’t understand....again, I couldn’t make this up ....this was my day today...I hope your day was a little better
.
Phew, today has been one hell of a day.....this will be a long one but worth the read...I promise!! So my day starts at 5:30am and by 6:15 I have eaten breakfast and am waiting in the lobby for my driver to arrive. I am heading to Entebbe which is on the shores of Lake Victoria. From there I will be taking a boat to Ngamba Island where I will visit a chimp orphanage started by Jane Goodall. Darrell & I had "Chinese food" last night at what was supposed to be one of the top 2 restaurants in all of Uganda....I’m convinced the "chicken" dish we semi-enjoyed was not at all chicken as it was oily, fatty and not very good. So my driver picks me up this morning and of course, he is driving like a maniac (this is par for the course in Kampala) I immediately felt that fetid meat gurgling in my tummy. After 45 minutes we arrived in Entebbe. I wasn’t feeling well so I headed to the restrooms, when I got there I found (brace yourselves) 3 toilets completely overflowing with shit....this was my breaking point, last night’s mystery meat took over and I promptly puked all over the floor then filled up the sink with puke too. Phew....finally free from the fetid meat and feeling a bit better, I boarded my boat for Ngamba Island. Being the classic dip-shit that I am, I didn’t think to put on sunscreen and didn’t remember to put any in my bag either.....yah, I'm 150 miles from the friggen equator.... on a boat..... Without sunscreen ...real smart! Needless to say, I am very sunburned! When I finally get back to the hotel around 2pm Darrell (who stayed behind due to not feeling well) is awake, feeling better and rearing to go to Jinja. I on the other hand am tired, hot and sunburned but Darrell doesn’t care about me so we get a taxi and start our 1+ hour journey to Jinja. Not surprisingly, our taxi driver is...you guessed it, a maniac and in this case, the term "maniac" may be giving him a bit too much credit. In Kampala, there are only 2 lanes for traffic; however, there are never less than 4 cars in these 2 lanes all of which are going in every direction. There are also huge potholes, various types of livestock and families of 5 riding on a single moped, limbs hanging out in every direction just asking to be ripped off by a passing taxi...like ours. Did I mention that our taxi's breaks don’t work very well? So when the need to brake arises, our driver simply improvises by swerving into the other lane of oncoming traffic. Miraculously, we make it to Jinja although I am ready to scream! I am relieved to be out of the death car and on my own feet wandering around Jinja. Jinja is quaint, only a few small shops line the streets as its main attraction is being the source of the great Nile River. When our tour is completed, I decide to slip our driver $20 on the down low (I have to do this on the “down low” because Darrell is to damn cheap to tip). Despite Darrell’s frugality, I give my secret tip to the driver and I tell him he had better slow down on the way back or else!! He pretends to agree to my terms and off we go. Once on the road, Darrell is insisting the driver turn the AC on. See Darrell is in the front seat which is actually cooled by the AC; I on the other hand, am in the back seat sweating profusely. The only thing the AC does is blow body odor at me ….full force. I keep asking D to open the windows but he is oblivious to my pain…what else is new!! Suddenly we are diverted from the main road because of an accident. We are sent down a side road with about a million other cars, motorbikes, buses etc. The road is dirt and badly rutted, however this doesn’t seem to faze our driver and he continues at his 90 mph. pace despite the road conditions. Finally he decides he’s had enough of this detour and quickly decides to cut across a soccer field filled with kids. Before we can speed across the child filled field, we have to make it through a ditch which we promptly get stuck in. We have to get out and push…did I mention it was over 100 degrees out?? Moving along, once we are freed from the ditch, our driver steps on it and races across the soccer field honking at the kids who are playing soccer. The kids take off in every direction in an attempt to get away from our speeding taxi. I am in the back seat hiding; I’m trying to hold back my overwhelming desire to SCREAM! Somehow I manage to keep my screams to myself and thankfully, despite the drivers best efforts we leave no carnage in our wake…..yet.
Somehow, we end up back on the street and to another impasse, this time the driver decides to pass on the left (they drive on the left here) and low and behold out of nowhere comes a man walking his bike.....I see it coming, I cover my eyes and then I hear it …. CRASH…. we completely wipe out this guys bike and knock him to the ground in the process. Almost immediately an angry, machete wielding mob assails our taxi. While machetes are a common site in Uganda it was frightening none the less. I try to get out of the taxi with Darrell and our driver and am immediately told to STAY IN THE CAR! The machete people are yelling and waiving their chosen weapons in the air. I’m thinking...Holy shit, this will be a good story for the family…if I live to tell it! Finally, Darrell and the driver strike a deal with the injured man and send him to the hospital (his only injury was a cut knee where a screw from his bike tire "bit" him) the angry mob disperses...phew, that was close! (This is all true; I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried). An hour later, we arrive safe and sound at our hotel in Kampala. Tomorrow we have an 11 hour drive to The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest for 3 days of gorilla trekking which I am looking forward too. I have to mention that there is actually more to this day....seriously, think angry Europeans whining about not being able to cuddle & kiss the chimps on Ngamba Island, Darrell trying to buy $80 worth of stuff for $5 and guards armed with machine guns yelling at our driver for who the hell knows what, in a language we don’t understand....again, I couldn’t make this up ....this was my day today...I hope your day was a little better
.
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