Rafting, Soccer, and Third World Transportation

Greetings from Uganda! It was an adventure getting here. We took the overnight bus from Nairobi, and ride was much bumpier than any of our previous bus trips. After a 4 am border crossing and some more bumpy roads, we arrived in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. I'm here with some buddies from the university, and we are having a great time. Kampala reminds me a lot of Dar es Salaam with a bunch of markets and crazy minibuses (here they are called matatus rather than daladalas).

A sea of matatus in downtown Kampala

We took a side trip to Jinja, a small town on Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile. It's a pretty small place with lots of crafts, and it reminded me of some of the towns in the mountains of NC, only with less Floridians and more pineapples. We went rafting on the Nile, which was pretty intense. The rapids were quite a bit bigger than what we've got at NC; it rivaled the Gauley for sure, only you don't have to worry about getting stuck under rocks or fallen trees. The river is beautiful, and monitor lizards and all kinds of birds are always basking on the shore.

Fried grasshoppers for sale on the streets of Jinja

Although rafting was tons of fun, it was wierd being in such a touristy setting again. It was all foreigners. They pick you up in a big blue bus and shuttle you from your hostel in Kampala to your hostel in Jinja. You don't interact with people from Uganda at all, and it made me really uncomfortable at times. Nontheless, our hostel in Jinja did have an incredible panoramic view of the Nile, and the ride into Jinja town was breathtaking.

Kids we met on the shore of Lake Victoria. The little one with the butt hanging out was terrified of us...

Now we are back in Kampala, and it's been an exciting day. One major source of public transportation here are the bodabodas, i.e. motorcycles. This morning, Katie and I each took a bodaboda to the bus station and realized we were broke. We then proceeded to ride around the outskirts of Kampala stopping by five different banks (on the back of our respective motorcycles) before we found an ATM that would take our Visas. After that we were ready to swear off bodas altogether. Alas, after lunch we found ourselves sharing the backseat of another one on the way to a soccer game. We were waving a Ugandan flag on either side of the bike, attracting quite a fan crowd among other game-goers. I'm happy to say we arrived alive with our flags in tact.

Go Uganda!

The soccer game was a World Cup qualifying match between Uganda and Niger. It was pretty nuts. It was like a major football game at home, only here the entire country is rooting for the same team. People were decked out in red, black, and gold (the colors in the Ugandan flag) and had all kinds of ridiculous cheesy fan paraphernalia. Uganda won (1-0), and the whole city was celebrating.

Katie and I were trying to decide what to do with the days we have before we return to Dar (via plane, thankfully), and we decided to head to Rwanda. It's supposed to be beautiful ("the land of a thousand hills"). We leave tomorrow, and I can't wait! No overnight buses this time though.