From Jinja, I returned to Kampala, this time staying in the Kampala Boulevard Suites. A step up from my previous lodgings Kampala, but I liked it less. It was a splendidly located but completely soulless and not inexpensive business hotel. The only reason I picked it was that I could get a suite with a balcony and, given Uganda’s draconian non-smoking laws, a private balcony was the only place I could enjoy a cigar.
And my first niight there, I did just that, overlooking the snarling traffic.
For my final day in Uganda I hired a driver to take me to the Ziwa Rhinoceros wildlife reserve. It is a good day trip. It is theoretically possible to take transit to get to Ziwa, but the you would need a car to get from the road into the park.
Ziwa isn’t a zoo or a game reserve, it’s really just an outdoor area where rhinoceroses are and armed wildlife rangers guard the, from poachers. Each rhino is assigned two armed guards, whose job it is to follow them around inconspicuously at a distance and keep them safe from poaching. There is no touching the animals or disturbing them; just quiet observation from a safe distance.
When I arrived at Ziwa I, along with two other women who arrived at the same time, was assigned a guide, who walked us through the bush towards where the rhinos were, as directed by the guards over walkie talkie. As we got closer they communicated through whistles.
We came across two groups of rhinoceroses. Some were napping in the shade but the others were eating. Constantly. Fair enough; they’re the size of compact station wagons and eat grass. We got to get pretty close and just observed them in silence for about an hour. It was pretty special.
Was was not so special was when I stepped, ankle-deep, into a pile of warm rhinoceros poo in my only boots.
After the encounter we walked back, had lunch, and I returned to my hotel where much of the evening was spent cleaning my boots.
It was a good end to my short time in Uganda. It wasn’t the gorillas I had originally planned to see, but it was equally interesting. The next morning I flew back to Kigali for a couple of days and then back home.
Nothing of any particular consequence happened on the return visit to Kiglai. I just walked around, had a cigar or two and saw things I had previously seen. It doesn’t merits own post. Over all the trip to Rwanda, Uganda, and the Congo was wonderful. I was already planning my next trip on the flight home.
Kampala, Uganda. I arrived in Entebbe (the closest airport to Kampala) after a 40 minute flight from Kigali. A new country. I had already gotten my East Africa Tourist Visa so there were not formalities other than the checking of my yellow fever vaccination certificate. I took a taxi from Entebbe to Kampala, which took about an hour. Kampala is bigger than Kigali. The traffic is crazy. On the way we passed various poor areas and haphazard markets. I took a few pics from the taxi window.
Canadian Thanksgiving was approaching and my magnanimous boss gave me an extra day off, resulting in a four day weekend. My new thing is: if I have the money and four days off, I’m going somewhere. I scoured the flights and the best deals were to be found in Central America. I decided El Salvador was my choice. It is small and has enough sites to see in four days, but is not a place that I have a strong desire to spend weeks in. And here I am in El Salvador on a Friday night, smoking a cigar on a patio at my hotel.
I went to this one food market (I think it was Gastrónomica San Juan) where they had the usual fruit and cheese but also a gruesome collection of wild game – allegedly everything from lion to capybara, with creatures laid out, torsos like cornucopias of horror. I took a bunch of pictures, but the came out blurry; I was self conscious about taking photos an was attracting too much attention as the lone “gringa”.
