Day 2 Uganda... The sound and the fury

 I must have fallen into a very deep sleep... ok ot was 0130 and I had been up sinve 0200 tge day before... but it must have been a deep sleep because I didn't get woken by the noise of the traffic from the road next to the hotel or the croaking of pete and bob, the two frogs we found in the pond nearby. I woke up feeling not exactly refreshed but certainly raring to go and face whatever the day may bring.

The first thing it brought was coffee and banana pancakes. I was so hungry, I forgot to take my traditional breakfast photo and scarfed the lot down in 5 seconds flat. We then had to wait for our driver to pitch up from ngora (pronounced Nora). Apparently last time he was already at the gate in the morning so the fact that he wasnt here yet should have been  a heads up of our waiting time.

After wondering around the gardens, playing with the supermacro mode on our cameras, I decided to wander out of the gates and take my first look at Uganda in the daylight.

A busy street lay to the right and opposite was a playpark. I heard a loud croaking noose above me and looked up... I was startled to see a huge stork, balancing precariously on a very thin branch, gathering twigs in his beak. Opposite was another one, sitting on what looked lile a nest. They looked quite comical, with their massive wingspan, large bodies and oversized beaks, perching on the smallest of branches. I dragged out Sam to look and we spent a good 15 minutes watching them go about their business. Another few flew in, making the total Uganda airforce up to enough for a V formation. They soared gracefully and landed delicately with little fanfare and my sighting of them jolted me back into a little excitement... I was in Uganda!!

The excitement wore off a little when Gillian received a text saying that our driver would ve here in 2 hours... so instead of the 10am start, it would be nearer 1pm... not good. We had a long journey ahead and could do with getting on the road. Gillian decided that we would walk to the supermarket whilst we waited and make use of the time by buying provisions and getting Sim cards for those that needed them. Fortunately my international Sim seemed to be working well once we touched down in Uganda and I already had my internet access.

We walked down the road to the shopping mall, politely declining an offer of a taxi or a ride on a motorbike. I was very tempted with the motorbike offer but Gillian was very much against it so I decided that I would let her win this one with the hope that I would win the snake search one :)

The mall was as malls are all over the world, complete with KFC, an outdoor shop and a Carrefour. It also had, however, a metal detector at the gate and armed guards inside. The guards were armed with what looked like from a distance as bolt action rifles but again decided not to risk arrest or the ire of Gillian and didnt ask him to have a closer look at it.

We went into the MTN mobile shop and proceeded to sort out Sim cards for Sam and Gillian. (Claire's phone was locked to a network so she would have had to find an Airtel shop and she couldn't be bothered)  Getting the SIM card was something like a 5 step process which involved a ticket for the counter, a form, a photo and a 15 minute wait to register it. But we eventually accomplished our mission and set off to the next one... food shopping.

I love going round supermarkets in foreign countries just to see what is available and what is different. We were here however to stock up on staples and duly filled a trolley with rice, pasta noodles and a jar of peanut butter.  Then went in the journey sweets and snacks, oodles of bottled water as you can't drink the tap water here and a tub of pringles, because apparently you can use the empty tub for some kind of demonstration aid.... it's a midwife thing... I didnt ask!

Once shopping we done, me and Sam walked back and the others got a taxi with the shopping. O reasoned that it would be the last time for a few hours to stretch our legs. By the time we got back, our minibus was there with our driver James and we loaded up all our stuff.... hauled our arses into the seats and settled in for a bit of a journey.

I ended up in the very back with a couple cases for company but it wasn't a bad spot at all.

So off we went through Entebbe to the toll road to Kampala. We rolled past Lake Victoria, an absolutely massive lake that sits on the borders of aboit 4 countries. We got a glimpse of the shimmering water and then it was hidden. 

The toll road is a brand new road, two lanes and well tarmaced. Unfortunately we got a last minute text to ask us to swing buy a hospital stores to pick up a medication that help stops haemorrhage which meant we had to get off the nice toll road and hit the busy congested streets of the outskirts of Kampala.

Wow... what a cacophany of noise and smells Kampala is. Motorbikes swinging in and out of the traffic with dangerous abandon with 2 or 3 passengers seemingly chilling out on the back or carrying a load that looked like it would unbalance the bike as it threaded its way through, sometimes miraculously.

Its difficult to describe the sights and sounds... the shops were mainly in little huts and sold all manner of things... from bikes and motorbikes to chickens and other un identifiable meat, fruits and veg, there were shops collecting palstic and signs on huts for scrap metal. People walked across the road with abandon trusting that they wouldn't be run over.

The number of people was insane. As we went further into the city we passed areas of houses, particularly by the train tracks, where the level of poverty was even lower.... the houses were maybe one or two rooms, clay walls with a corrugated roof. Between the houses ran narrow dark alleyways where washing was hung and children ran around in the  muddy clay. There was rubbish everywhere but piles of it were at intervals. There was sometimes a curtain drawn across the entrance and very occasionally a door. At times I sat in the minibis, tears pricking my eyes at the squalor and desolation that I saw rolling past.

We pitched up at the medical supplies place and waited for the medication to be brought to us and for Gillian to sign some forms and pay. It was pretty warm and it was nice to just get out of the minibus and stretch for a bit.

Then loaded up again and prepared to do battle. The traffic, if you could believe it had got a lot worse and James, our driver, decided to go the back way to avoid the standstill traffic on the main road. The back route was on non tarmac roads and was in places a little bumpy to say the least.

Several times I thought my spine had separated from my body and my watch soon decided that I had reached my exercise goal for the day due to all the movement generated by the bumps.

We were generally moving ok and went up some of the hills around the city where things seemed a little more peaceful, a little less poor and a little more green.... although it is all relative.  It took quite a bit of time to navigate this road, given its condition and eventually we bumped back to the main road... which was gridlocked.

As we slowly crawled along we passed a school, whose motto was 'prey and toil', a boy of no more than 5 crouched over his bike in concentration as he tried to fix the train, we passed the palace of one of the tribal chiefs atop another hill and potted plants for sale all along the road.  Wherever you looked there was something new to see.

There were a lot of places selling airtime for MTN phone network. MTN sponsor a cycling team called  Quebeca and they provide bicycles for kids in Africa so they can get to school, which is a fantastic initiative. Their slogan is MTN everywhere you go... which made me think of Crowded House and I literally couldn't get that song out of my head for the rest of the day.

Gradually we made progress though without much air blowing in the windows we were starting to get a little hot and bothered... fortunately the overturned petrol truck wasn't far away and once we had got past that more progress was made.

Minibus taxis passed us on both sides taking to the dirt path on the side of the road to get round tye traffic. These taxis were crammed.... and I mean crammed with people... that must have been a fairly uncomfortable journey.

We got more and more to the outskirts and the scenery changed. We were now seeing more fields with banana trees and fields of sugarcane and some with rice. The dwellings got more and more spread out and soon we hit a newer tarmac road and progress became quicker. The undulations in the terrain became more pronounced and soon the road was going up and down with regularity, reminding me of the endless hills of Missouri.

More time passed... we had been travelling for many many hours and we were approaching Jinja which is where we were stopping for dinner. We found the restaurant that we were to be eating in, swung round a roundabout and parked up. It was now around 8pm... 7 hours so far.

The food was generally of western origin and without much local food to choose from, I settled on a burger. I was hungry and my watch told me that I had burnt a lot of calories today... sitting!

The toilets were clean and had paper, the food was good... the staff were friendly... and our driver got some proper rest!

All too soon we were back on the road, taking up our now familiar positions to find the maximum comfort. Gillian and Sam soon dozed off and Claire was chatting away to James in the front.  I couldn't see much out of the windows as it was now pitch black but I sat and watched the world go by nonetheless.

3 more hours.....

We turned off tge tarmac road onto another bumpy dirt road and soon saw houses and a sign for Ngora. We had arrived. We found the Hospital and the nursing accomodation.... but it was now gone midnight... we had no key... and everyone was asleep.

James went and knocked on a few doors and eventually came back with the keys.

The building that we were staying in was concrete but appeared solid and Gillian and Claire took one side, with a kitchen and a lounge area and me and sam took the other side which basically had bedrooms.

We walked around...  no electric or lights available at the moment so torches came out. With the torches we then started seeing cockroaches (at least 2 different types) and geckos. Gary the gecko was a good size and very cute... Colin the cockroach was also a good size... Sam didn't think he was cute.

We had separate rooms. each with a bed and a mosquito net.... and then we discovered that we had no water at all. We shrugged, took it on tge5 chin and sorted out ourselves for bed.

It had been an exceedingly long day but it gave me the feeling that Uganda was my type of place. I fell asleep to the sound of the frogs (or maybe toads) croaking and the cicadas chirping.