Week in Kampala, Uganda

After leaving Nyeihanga, we set off for Kampala (Uganda’s capital) for a week of relaxing before attempting to climb Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. As soon as we arrived we were able to enjoy some of the luxuries we had been without while in the village, hot showers (well just running water in general), toilets, and Westernized food (I had a burger… amazing!).  We kind of just bummed around the hostel the day we got there and the next day. Late on the day after we arrived our buddy from home, Blake Shubert, and his girlfriend, Bianca, arrived. Blake works for the organization we had been volunteering with in Nyeihanga, and was coming to Uganda to check out how all the organization’s operations were working, especially in Nyeihanga. The plan was to brief him on what we had done with our time down in the village, provide him with any ideas or plans for the future of the village, and then just hang out for the rest of the time we had with them.

We got lucky the day after Blake and Bianca arrived. There was an Africa Cup of Nation’s qualifying soccer match between the Uganda and Guinea Bissau national soccer teams downtown about 10 miles from where we were staying. All of Kampala was going crazy for the game. People were dressed in soccer jerseys all over town. We got lunch downtown and the crowds of people we saw in the streets was nuts. When we got to the stadium there were huge lines of people trying to get in and they were so tightly packed that we didn’t really want to get in the lines. We walked around for a little while trying to find a shorter/safer line when we found this gate that was letting cars in. Whenever the police (in full riot gear toting large automatic rifles) would open the gate to let a car in about 50 people would run through the gate and then the riot cops would go crazy, start screaming, and push the people who didn’t make it back with their huge clear shield thingys.  We watched this happen 2 or 3 times until one of the cops just points to Blake and tells him to follow him through the gate. Jackpot. We ended up bribing him to “pay for the tickets” which we never received but at least we were inside!! The crowd inside the stadium was electric. Uganda ended up winning 2-0 and whenever they scored the crowd would erupt and people all over the stadium would blow whistles and go to town with their vuvuzelas. As annoying as they were during the World Cup, being there in person took it to a whole other level. My ears were literally ringing by the end of the match. Another cool thing was after the game was over no one left the stadium. We were planning on waiting around to let things clear out before we left (to avoid any tramplings), but the stadium was completely full even a half hour after the game. By the time we made it to our car we were all pretty tired and ready for dinner and drinks back at the hostel. Unfortunately we were about to experience the worst traffic any of us have ever seen. At literally every intersection the entire way home 3 lanes of traffic (where only one should be) would try and turn in each direction of the intersection at one time. Things would completely grid lock and cars would inch forward as much as they could. After 25 minutes of this, half of the people would get out of their cars and try to direct everyone to get unjammed. About 5 cars would make it out and then the cycle would start over. It took us over 4 hours to get the 10 miles back to the hostel.

The next day we said our goodbyes to Blake and Bianca as they left to continue our efforts in Nyeihanga and then Erin and I took a few hour bus ride to Jinja to whitewater raft the Nile. This trip was one of the coolest/most fun things we’ve done on our entire trip. The river was full of Category 4 and 5 rapids that were tossing us all over the place. Erin and I shared our raft with 2 British guys and our guide. At the beginning our guide told us the day could go one of three ways. We could go easy and make sure the raft didn’t flip over by just going over the edge of the rapids, we could go medium by going near the center of the rapids but there’d be a chance we might flip, or we could go hard and the guide would try to hit the center of the rapid and pretty much try to flip us every time. Obviously the 2 other guys and I chose the hard way. Erin was a little apprehensive but went along with it. By the end of the day the boat had gone over 3 times and I had popped out one more time. By the end of the day we were all exhausted. We pulled the rafts out of the water and a huge BBQ was waiting for us on the banks of the river. It was so good.

The next day we had booked a mini safari through our hostel up to Murchison Falls National Park. The park was about 4 or so hours away by minibus. Our group was made up of Erin and I, another couple who was on holiday from some volunteer work in the DRC, and a really weird Italian guy named Bernardino. Now, we met Bernardino the day before while whitewater rafting, but he was in a different raft so we didn’t interact too much with him (besides being treated to some pretty epic Italian boy-shorts swim trunks… Bernardino wasn’t a small guy). He was a nice enough guy, he just didn’t like the sun and was really afraid of mosquitoes so he was always in jeans and a sweatshirt, lathering the rest of his exposed skin with sun block, and spraying bug spray everywhere. As soon as we got to the park, the group went chimpanzee trekking. We hiked for about an hour with a guide until we spotted a group of chimps in the trees. There were about 5 or 6 female chimps and most of them had baby chimps with them. It was pretty cool just watching them eat and the babies swing from the branches. We had about an hour with them and just before we left the chimps started calling for the male chimps who were a few kilometers away. We waited for a few extra minutes hoping the males would show up, but we didn’t get lucky and hiked back to the bus. We drove to the campsite and just hung out for the rest of the afternoon. One thing that we experienced here that we really hadn’t yet was true equatorial African heat. Where we had been staying in Nyeihanga was at a higher elevation so it never really got too hot and Kampala would maybe get into the low 90s, but in the park it was well over 100. Too hot to even lay down in the tents. The next morning we work up early and went for a game drive around the park. We saw a ton of baboons, giraffes, bushbucks, and elephants. We didn’t see any lions or cheetahs or anything, but we weren’t really expecting to, and there’s always Tanzania! After a quick lunch back at the campsite we jumped on a boat and cruised down the Nile to the falls. The boat ride was about 3 hours long and along the way we would pull the boat over to check out the animals drinking. We saw hundreds of hippos, a few crocodiles, and a bunch of elephants and buffalo. When we got to the falls our group jumped off and hiked to the top. This was when having Bernardino in the group got a little crazy. About a half hour after we started the hike, Bernardino had to stop. The other couple went ahead and we waited with him. He looked terrible. He was just dripping with sweat and he got sick a few times. I told him to take his sweatshirt off because it looked like he was about to get heat stroke. He claimed that he was just sick from spraying bug spray in his tent and then breathing it in 3 hours before, and that he didn’t want to take his shirt off because he didn’t want to get burned. We stayed with his as he basically crawled to the top. He made it and didn’t die so that’s good I guess. The view from the top of the falls was awesome, totally worth it.

On the drive back to Kampala the next day we stopped at a rhino rehabilitation park. All of the rhinos in Uganda were wiped out in the 80s due to poaching, but this park is trying to bring them back. We walked for about a half hour and got to within about 20 yards of 2 huge rhinos. It was pretty cool to be so close to these massive animals.

The next morning we hopped on a bus and headed to Tanzania. It was an overnight bus from Kampala, Uganda to Arusha, Tanzania. The bus was supposed to take 16 hours, but there was some overturned truck in the middle of the night which held us up. The trip ended up taking a full 24 hours. We also had to cross two international borders during the trip. Everyone had to get off the bus at these and go through border control. It was crazy how unregulated these border crossings were. People were just walking back and forth through an open gate. Not exactly like the US-Mexico border. When we got to Arusha, we got our stuff ready for our Kilimanjaro climb which started the next day.

Next up… Climbing Kilimanjaro: He Said, She Said!!!!!

Read Full Post »

I’m on a Boat

Sailing a felucca down the Nile is easily the most relaxing thing in the world. We boarded with the group around 10am on Thursday and set sail for two days of laying in the sun, swimming in the Nile, and drinking beers around the campfire at night. The only thing we didn’t account for is the low temperatures. It was about 80-85 degrees in the sun, but in the shade it was much cooler. Throw in the wind on the water and the added breeze from sailing and Erin was bundled up in her winter jacket. The first day on the boat we sailed until around 2, pulled the boat up to the beach, and had lunch. There were three Egyptian guys who did all the sailing and cooking for us on the boat. They cooked falafel with two sides for lunch. Each meal on the boat outdid the first. It was incredible how good of cooks these guys were considering after talking to them we found out that the only cooking they do is when they’re on the boat… at home that’s woman’s work.  Regardless of how much I pushed the issue, Erin was unwilling to bring this traditional Egyptian heritage back with us.

We were docked for about 2 hours, so after lunch I pulled out the two decks of cards I had bought at the local market the night before to play some asshole (uh… a card game (usually a drinking game) for those of you who didn’t know). Playing asshole with different groups of friends is difficult enough, with all of the different rules. Playing it with people from different continents is extremely difficult. We ended up playing with a combination of everyone’s rules. Turns out playing asshole is one of the few things (e.g., grilling, chick flicks) that are exponentially more fun when alcohol is involved. Once we pushed off from shore again, time was spent BSing with the group, napping, reading, listening to music, and watching the Nile river pass us by. Right before sundown we ran the boat aground again and had dinner. This time it was a zucchini stew with rice and pita. After the dinner the cards came back out, we were able to crack a few Stellas (the local Egyptian beer), and hang out for the rest of the night. To sleep, they wrapped a blanket around the canopy area to stifle the wind, and everyone jumped into sleeping bags. The sound of the river against shore put everyone to sleep within minutes.

The next day was more of the same. After a quick breakfast of Egyptian French toast (pita fried in egg) and fried eggs, and playing with some local kids who overtook our campsite, we set off again. It was a little bit warmer though, so during our lunch break a bunch of us put the trunks on for a quick dip (Erin chickened out). It was a little cold, but we were able to stay in for a good 5 minutes or so before we ran up the sand bank to lay in the sun and dry off before setting sail again. The landscape in the area is quite interesting. After about 10 yards of palm trees and what looks like tropical plants, the desert begins. While we were drying off in the desert area, we saw a few desert foxes running around which was pretty cool. Even being seemingly in the middle of nowhere, we could still hear the mosque calls loud and clear on the river. Though not as booming as in the cities where they wake you up around 5 in the morning, they’re still pretty loud and have become a part of the background noise everywhere in Egypt. That night the 3 Egyptian guys, started a bonfire and started singing and drumming a hybrid of traditional songs mixed with a few songs we would know. To Erin’s extreme pleasure “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was one of the tunes. She can really “A-wee-ma-whey” with the best of them.

We got off the boats on Saturday morning and it was just a quick bus ride to Luxor. This was easily our favorite city so far. It has the awesome markets and store fronts that Cairo has, but you don’t fear for your life trying to cross the street. The markets are fun to walk around and hear all of the witty lines the vendors throw out. I regularly get offered all of the camels in Egypt for Erin. We also have been kicking butt in haggling… we have the good cop/controlling wife routine pretty much down. We’ve felt extremely safe in all of the locations we’ve been in, but here we walked around at night and through the markets without issue every night. After getting to Luxor, we checked into the hotel grabbed a quick falafel sandwich from the stand around the corner (we ended up going here every day both because they’re amazing and they’re around 30 cents), got a mug of sugar cane a few stores away, and then napped for an hour or so. If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far on this trip, it’s that a mug of pure sugar cane is the nectar of the gods. It tastes amazing and gives you a solid 20 minutes of sugar high before crashing back down. The hostel we were at in Luxor was pretty cool. Our room was much larger than the one in Aswan. The bathroom was still a little dicey as you couldn’t flush paper down the loo, there was no shower curtain, and the hot water heater was hanging above the shower. The bed was extremely comfortable though, so it was an enjoyable stay. The best part about the hostel was the rooftop garden. We were on the 4^th floor, and the stairs up to the fifth floor just led right up to the roof… no doors or anything. There was a garden, a bunch of tables, and a few couches up there, and a night time they served beers, shisha, and tea. Generally, Erin and I would take our lunches up there for a nice place to eat as well.

That night we walked over to Luxor Temple. It was interesting as it began to be built over 3500 years ago and was continued by multiple pharaohs, including King Tut. The part I found most interesting was during the time Romans ruled Egypt, they plastered over the hieroglyphics and painted Roman murals. These paintings are still clearly visible in parts of the temple and where it’s chipped away you can see the hieroglyphics that were hidden underneath. After the temple, we walked over to the market and grabbed dinner with the group at an open air rooftop restaurant overlooking the market. We ended the night hanging out on the roof garden with a few beers and a shisha. By the end of the night, the owner of the hostel came up to hang out with us. We started talking about Mubarak and the future of Egypt and he, like everyone else we’ve had a chance to speak with, was very excited about the future. We’ve had a lot of people ask us why we’re still traveling to Egypt with everything that happened right before we left. Granted, for a while we were really considering pulling the plug and rearranging out trip, but once everything shook out with Mubarak stepping down and the army taking over we decided to stick to our original plan. There are issues travelers run into seeing as how there isn’t really an Egyptian government currently (more on this later), but what a cool time to be here. Everyone is extremely happy with the outcome (at least everyone we’ve talked to… a few of the younger people have said their parents/grandparents were pro-Mubarak just because it was all they knew), and was more than willing to talk about it. For example, according to our guide, one of the guys who was sailing our boat hasn’t really spoken much in the year or so that the guide has known him. The first 15 minutes of being on the boat the other day, that guy was talking our ear off saying things like “I am freedom” and “Now I am like all of you”. Many of our conversations with locals start out this way and it’s really cool to see it.

Yesterday we woke up kind of early, and jumped on a bus to head to the Valley of the Kings. This is a valley in the mountains on the west bank of the Nile (Luxor is on the east bank) where they have excavated over 60 Pharaoh tombs, including King Tut. It was crazy to go down into these tombs which were built over 3300 years ago in most cases and still seeing the colors painted on the walls and ceilings perfectly. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take any pictures in there as the flash can dim the colors. After Valley of the Kings, we went over to the Valley of the Workers. This was where the head builders lived a few miles from the Valley of the Kings. The workers who build the Kings’ tombs built their own here. They were much smaller than the Kings’ but decorated with much more detail and much richer colors. The few that we were able to go into looked as if they were painted yesterday.  We got falafel for lunch and then went over to the orphanage the tour company we’re with sponsors in downtown Luxor. We were given a quick tour of the facilities and then were able to play with the kids for about an hour. A bunch of the boys had a soccer field set up in the yard so Erin, me, our tour guide Dave, 2-3 other people from our group, the head of the orphanage, and 4-5 kids played. It was awesome. I guess the kids play like every day so even the 9 year olds were blowing past us (Erin was the only one able to hang with them… I think she only knocked one of them over). Luckily, a few minutes in I was tapped to play keeper. While I was able to make more than a few spectacular saves, the pipsqueaks still fired a few past my head and nutmegged me at least 3 times. In the end, my and Erin’s team won. It seems like the organization does a great job with the kids, and we had a great time hanging out with them. After a quick three course dinner overlooking the Nile we crashed early. Those kids wore us out!

Today we went to Karnak Temple, via horse drawn carriage, which is the largest temple in Egypt. There are statues, obelisks, ruins, and pillars everywhere. After taking some amusing group shots around the pillars, we were shown the oldest Christian paintings in Egypt and walked around an ancient statue of a beetle to ensure good luck and long life. After hitting up the falafel place one last time and packing up our stuff we jumped on a bus for a 5 hour bus ride to Harghada for a pit stop on our way to Dahab, a beach town on the Red Sea where we will be staying for the next 4 days. One bad part about traveling in a country which has no official government is things can change without any real notice. This morning we found out that the tunnel under the Suez Canal which is usually open 24 hours, is now closed from noon to 6am. Meaning our hour pit stop in Hargada for dinner turned into a 5 hour stop off. We now don’t leave until midnight which should put us in Suez right before 6. We should get to Dahab around 2pm tomorrow. Hopefully we can sleep on the bus!

Dahab should be a good time. Apparently they have some of the best snorkeling/SCUBA in the world, so assuming it isn’t too cold we’ll check that out. After 4 days there, including St. Patrick’s Day with our Irish guide, we’ll head to Jordan. We should have good internet in Dahab, so expect some wedding/Paris/Egypt pictures posted to this site and my/Erin’s facebook page. Keep the comments coming. We miss you all!

Read Full Post »