big city life in kampala

the morning after the festival we had breakfast on the terrace of the hotel - this time I was served a 'Rolex' - no, not a posh swiss watch - it's an omelet wrapped in a chapatti bread; I imagine it must be a combination between roll and eggs (which becomes ex) - anyway - that was quite funny.
after breakfast we needed to sort out more stuff related to the festival; it was difficult to not despair in this environment where you simply can't trust people - shame. but finally around midday we managed to hit the potholed road to Gulu - it took us 3 hours, not least because our driver was chatting to hedson and therefore not concentrating as fully as he could have on the road. anyway - in Gulu we got some food for which we waited almost an hour (we only ordered sandwiches, mind) and finally, at around 11pm after hours on a very bad road (again, crap driver, should have taken the other route) we arrived in kampala.

the next day we spent cruising around kampala, doing some shopping - amazing for me seeing as kigali does not have an awful lot of choice. kampala is a bustling african city with cars, buses and bodas everywhere. I took a boda to go and get my bus ticket for the return to kigali and it took me through one of the busiest streets where the different bus terminals are - the traffic is a killer and more than once I thought 'this is it - we're going to slip, fall either into the mud or under the wheels of a bus' but it all went well and apart from being covered in soot (NEVER wear light colours when you go round kampala) I survived the whole trip unharmed.

We went to the handicraft market and I bought a few bits and bobs. opposite the market was '1000 cups of coffee' a cosy little coffee bar selling all sorts of fancy coffee. so we sat and had - surprise - coffee with home made digestive biscuits which actually did their name justice, as opposed to the mcvities version (which apart from being oat-based probably don't do much for your health - although according to the dictionary their name originates from the fact that they are supposed to be healthy and packed with fibres - hence, digestive - well, I won't expand on that here ;-))

at '1000 cups of coffee'

After coffee we continued our spree through kampala - after all I still needed to get the squash racketts. so off we went - and promptly found a sports shop where I bought a couple of racketts and balls and spent all the money I had on me. the next mission thus consisted in obtaining more cash for more shopping - and that lead to the greatest highlight of the day for me: taking money out of the atm - for the first time in 2 months!! wow... kampala really is so much more cosmopolitan (I don't want to use the word developed here - but it does spring to mind when comparing the two cities in that aspect). fortunately I remembered the code of the card ;-))

muzungu with squash racketts ;-)


hindu temple in the centre of kampala

J'Lo syndrome?

walking through kampala provided so many impressions that it's difficult to sum them all up - but one of the funny things was this poster which was hanging up all over the city - i have been wondering why people want bigger bums; from my impressions people have good bums here by nature - but then again, maybe they've all had the above intervention already ;-)) note: no side effect!

cruising through the streets of kampala

Finally, after hours of strolling through the city, taking it all in and me getting overly excited in the stationary shop (G's comment to someone else was - it's bad when you get excited about stationary in the shop) we decided it was time for a break and a beer. so we sat down in this little bar along the way and asked the waiter to take a picture of us both - this is what came out ;-)) I guess digital cameras are not everyone's thing. and it has to be said that after about 7 shots he did actually manage to get the both of us in the picture completely - that's what they call capacity building ;-))

and finally there's all these societies and centres around that advocate salvation, miracles, or, like this one 'total transformation of mankind' - I hope it's not atomic transformation!