Uganda Bradt Guide
Travel Report
Kampala & Ssese Islands
Tracking the Gorillas
Queen Elizabeth & Kibale NP
East to Jinja
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Travel Notes
Kampala
Kampala 2
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Kampala & Ssese Islands
Gorillas at Bwindi NP
Queen Elizabeth NP & Jinja
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Travel notes from Kampala
Hi Everyone,
It's been about a week since I left home and flew back to Africa. Flew with Emirates via Dubai and Nairobi and finally arrived in Entebbe, Uganda in the middle of the afternoon on Monday 21 January. The capital, Kampala, is about 40km from Entebbe. I took a taxi to the Red Chilli Hideaway in the Bugolobi district of the city, about 7km north east of the downtown area. The Red Chilli is run by a couple of British expats and have set the place up to cater for independent travellers. The weather made a pleasant change from the cold, wind and rain I left behind in London last Sunday. The max temperature reaches about 24'c with hazy sunshine and the odd scattered thunderstorm. Kampala is at an altitude of approx 1300m, so despite being almost on the equator the weather is very agreeable.
Kampala is not a great cultural centre and there is not much to do or see here; it's mostly a place to do business. I got to grips with the local transport and went off to Entebbe for a day to visit the botanical gardens, which are a quiet, relaxing place to escape from the hustle and bustle of Kampala. On Thursday I made an early start to travel to the Sesse Islands, which lie off the northwestern shores of Lake Victoria. I took a bus to Masaka where I then had to wait half a day for a minibus to take me to the ferry and to the largest island, Buggala. The ferry only runs twice a day, early in the morning and again in the afternoon; the government doesn't have enough money to run the service more frequently.
There are 84 islands in this group. The overloaded minibus took me to the only main town in the islands, Kalangala. The islands are sparsely populated and Kalangala is just a small collection of houses and businesses along a dirt road. The islands are covered in dense rainforest with small grassy clearings where cattle roam and islanders farm. The minibus dropped me about a 25-minute walk from Kalangala at the Hornbill Camp Site on a small sandy beach on the shores of the lake surrounded by forest. Here I stayed for a few days relaxing and deciding what to do and where to go next in Uganda. In the afternoons I walked about the island, along the small dirt roads that wind through the forest linking the villages.
In my first week I have found Uganda to be one of the more friendly, easygoing countries I have visited. It reminds me a lot of southern Ghana; very green, tropical and lots of forests. The people too are very hospitable and friendly and I have had no hassles while walking about both the cities and villages. There are very few tourists here, mostly independent travellers and overland truckers and very little tourist infrastructure.
While on the Ssese Islands I began to plan what to do during my time in this country. After finishing work and travelling out here I wanted to find a quiet tropical hideaway to kick back and unwind; I found it at the Hornbill Camp Site. I had planned to visit Rwanda but due to the recent volcanic eruptions and now the acidic nature of Lake Kivu I have decided to postpone my trip. I have a deadline of 1 March to be in Dar es-Salaam and spending a week in Rwanda would not really give me enough time to do justice to both Uganda and Kenya. I could still visit Rwanda from Tanzania towards the end of March, but that will be the start of the rainy season, so my plans remain fluid.
I have decided to visit the mountain gorillas at the Bwindi national park instead. Permits can only be bought at the Uganda Wildlife Authority Office in Kampala, hence my return to the city. I must thank Mike in NZ for changing my mind on this one after chatting on the phone before I left the UK. The permit fee of US$250 had previously dissuaded me. My journey back to Kampala was my first real adventure. The ferry doesn't run on Sundays, so leaving the islands by road is very difficult; instead I hitched a ride on a fishing boat the 30km to a small port just outside Entebbe. I was travelling with a couple from France, Françoise and Celine, who had made the arrangements the previous day. The first boat around the island we took was the leakiest boat I have ever travelled in; you would not believe the amount of water we had to bail out of the bottom of the boat. We were dropped at a beach from where we picked up a larger, more watertight boat for the 5 hour sailing back to the mainland.
Françoise works for the aid agency, Medi San Frontiers, and he has let me stay at the agencies guesthouse in Kampala for free for a couple of nights while I take care of business in the city. I've had a busy Monday morning. I have my permit to track the gorillas at Bwindi this Thursday 31 January. I'm tracking the furthest out group so it should involve some hours hiking in the jungle too. I've now got two days to get to Bwindi national park in the far south west of the country. Tomorrow another adventure begins!
Regards,
Geoff
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