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I slept late and got up around 8:00. There was a pretty little red bird in the tree outside my room. It was cloudy and hazy this morning. Usually, the big windows lining the back wall of my room had a clear view of the Kazinga Channel below, but today, it could barely be seen. At 8:45, I walked down to the lodge for breakfast, bringing my cameras in case any interesting animals showed up. I passed Baker, who was looking over the Land Cruiser's engine, and just beyond, I saw a warthog rooting in the front lawn of the lodge.
The breakfast buffet was the same as yesterday. Uganda has great sausages. I took two servings. The corn fritters were good for seconds also. The staff was putting bread on the bird feeder out back, attracting lots of little yellow birds.
At 10 AM, Baker was not quite ready to go. As I waited in the lobby, a woman dressed in a nice blue dress asked me for a ride to Kampala. I said it was OK if Baker agreed. He was at the reception desk. The lady knew Baker, and I think he had already offered her the ride, and she was the reason we were waiting to leave. We would pick her up at the gate.
When we went to the gate, the lady was not there, so we drove to the employee quarters to check on her. On the way, we passed the hostel, where I found a mother warthog with several babies. I was going to take pictures from the vehicle, but Baker said I could go close, so I did, though they retreated quickly as I approached. We drove on to the gate, and found the lady this time. She spoke slow, careful English in a quiet voice, usually speaking to Baker in English as well, probably as a courtesy since I was present. We followed the channel to the main gate, where the guard asked to see our park permit. Baker had some trouble finding it.
We retraced our path back over the hills, passing a checkpoint where a bus was stopped and all of the passengers lined up to have their documents checked. We did not stop. They normally don't bother tourists. Today, we followed a good road to Mbarara. This was a fairly large town with some nice hotels, especially Lake View Hotel. We stopped at Pelikan Inn, on a back road, for lunch. Their electricity was off, so the menu was somewhat limited. I ordered chicken curry with rice, and the Baker and the lady ordered beef curry with matooke. The lady, whose name was Florence, asked if I ever had matooke before. I said no, and that the closest thing we had were plantains, which were normally sliced and fried, not steamed and mashed. Florence asked if I knew any Ugandan. I said no, and she said I should at least learn one word, "Oliotya", meaning "Hi". When we paid, Baker was short on cash, and asked to "borrow" $10.
After lunch, we drift-started the Land Cruiser. I noticed that Baker was always careful to park facing downhill. There was still some trouble with the electrical system. Mbarara has a statue of an Ankara cow, since this is the capital of the Ankara cattle region. We got back on the highway between Kabale and Kampala, and passed the Lake Mburo game preserve, which is home to zebras. I originally had that on my itinerary, but had it removed to allow a more relaxed visit to Queen Victoria Park.
The next big town was Masaka. The highway now bypasses it, but we drove through town so I could see it. Baker recognized a matatu driver there. This appeared to be a lively town, and had some discos. We passed a number of banana trucks having trouble with their tires or wheels. Some of these trucks were very overloaded. We passed a market selling all sorts of baskets and drums. Fishermen held fish up at stands along the road. We were close to the shore of Lake Victoria now. We stopped for diesel one last time.
The equator was marked by the same concrete circular markers we had seen earlier, south of Kasese. This time, we stopped for equator photos. An "Equatorial Cafe" was nearby, and a man in a suit asked me to sign the guest book. He also tried to sell me an equator certificate, which I declined. We entered Kampala around 4:30, passing more craft shops on the way into town. We soon were stopped by a traffic jam, where police where checking driver permits. Baker said a lot of people in Uganda don't bother to get permits to drive.
A short time later, we entered the center of town, and were stopped again for the same reason. We drove past Kampala High School, where Florence once attended school. We also passed Makerere University, and let Florence out nearby. The fuel was almost empty again, and Baker worried that it would run out in the heavy traffic. But we soon came to the nice neighborhood with the golf course, and were just around the corner from Fairway Hotel.
We checked into the hotel around 5:00, and Baker said he would be bringing someone else over tomorrow, so I might run into him again. I wondered what I should tip him, but didn't know what was expected, so I didn't give a tip. It wasn't clear if he expected one. This time, I got a small single room, which was good because I would be paying for tonight. Jumbo's tour was over now. Even though it was small, the room was still $76 per night, rather expensive for a hotel whose hot water was unreliable, and still didn't work.
In my upstairs room, I could hear live music from the patio below. When I went down, I saw a black man with a keyboard and a white man with a guitar. They were playing a combination of African pop and reggae, with soem American standards mixed in. I took a look in the gift store, and went to dinner at 7:30 in the hotel dining room. It was night now, and I got a seat overlooking the patio and musicians below. Today, I ordered peppered steak and a Nile Special beer. The steak came with fries. It all came to $10.
After dinner, I watched TV in my room and repacked my bags for the plane flight to Tanzania. There was only one channel, Uganda TV, showing a documentary on women in India. I went to bed early, at 9:30.
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| Previous: February 20 | Journal Contents | Next: February 22 |