(Not many pictures in this section, but a good story!)

We woke to pale light coming in the window of our hotel room, and the faint sounds below of the city coming to life. Ah, the luxury of having plenty of time!

After breakfast in the hotel dining room we took our time getting everything packed for the flight to Uganda. I took my Masai spear to the concierge desk and checked it (put it in storage) there, planning to retrieve it on our last pass through Nairobi after seeing the gorillas. I carefully stored the folded receipt in my wallet, and we left our bags and backpacks behind the concierge desk while we waited for Les and Linda to come to the lobby. It was only 9:30, and we weren't supposed to leave for the airport until 10:30.

As I sat in the lobby and glanced out the front window, I noticed just down the street a sign for an internet café. Suddenly the thought occurred to me that I could send an email to Amy or Joy, ask them to forward it on to others to let everyone know how things were going, and probably they could send a reply back to the Stanley Hotel before our next stay there (in 4-5 days) so we would know how everyone was back home. Great idea! All I had to do was get the e-mail address of the Stanley.

I asked at the front desk. They referred me to the business office one floor up. Taking the steps two at a time, I hurried to the first floor (European system - the "first floor" is the one just above the "ground floor") and found the Business Office. I explained to a very helpful lady that I needed the Stanley's e-mail address so my daughter could send me a message there. She asked why I didn't send my daughter an e-mail from right there in the business office, and the "return address" would be on the e-mail. "Can I do that?" I asked. Of course, I was told, only $2.00. What a deal!

So I sat down in front of the computer (with a standard English "QWERTY" keyboard, and with Netscape Communicator running as the "composition" screen!) and banged out an email explaining to Amy how to send me a reply within 4 days and I should get it on my next stop there. I even had enough time to give a few details of the trip to that point.

I finished up at about 10:20 and headed back to the lobby. Everyone was anxiously looking for me because they didn't know if I had gone down the street to the internet café or if I was still in the hotel! Joyce and Joseph had arrived to take us to the airport, and had already loaded our bags into the minivan. When we told Linda what I had done (sending the e-mail), she said she wished she had thought of that also and had sent one to her family back home as well. We decided that at the next opportunity she would do so.

At this point the four of us were joined by a fifth person from the United States, Carolyn Parker. She was travelling alone through some different parts of East Africa, but was going to Uganda with us to see the mountain gorillas. Carolyn was the same age as Carol and I, single, a nurse by profession, and obviously very courageous to make a trip like this by herself. We learned from her that she lived in Kentucky, and was obviously in great physical condition since she said she ran 7 miles 3-4 times each week. She seemed to fit in well with our fun, joking attitude about things. We all hopped into the minivan and left the Stanley for adventure in the mountains of Uganda.

On our way to the airport we noticed uniformed military men with automatic weapons at various places along the highway. The closer we got to the airport, the more soldiers we saw. Joyce explained that the President of Kenya was flying out to Sudan from the airport that morning, and this was the added security. At the airport itself there were soldiers everywhere, including on the tops of the buildings! I wondered if we would see the President, but we never even caught a glimpse of the motorcade.

We unloaded in front of the Kenya Airways terminal and waited for Joyce to check us in and verify our flight and seating. We waited. And we waited. Linda went to check on Joyce, and found her arguing with the airline personnel. As we already knew, our early morning flight had been cancelled. But Joyce had received written confirmation that we would all be booked on the next flight, scheduled to depart Nairobi at 1:30 PM. This would require some changes in our schedule in Uganda, but was not a major problem. As it turned out, however, the airline had failed to re-book us on the later flight as they had promised, and it was now full!

All they could promise us was that they would put all 5 of us on standby, and guarantee that if we didn't make this flight we WOULD be on the last one (at 6:00 PM!) Joyce argued and argued, trying her very best, but the airline wouldn't budge. We learned that Kenya Airways had recently taken over the routes formerly flown by Uganda Air, so there was no competition for the flights to Entebbe. A lack of competition definitely resulted in a lack of motivation to please the customer!

So, we waited. As 1:30 approached, we felt certain we would miss the flight and just go get lunch somewhere and cool our heels. But no! Right at 1:30, Joyce came running out of the airline office with two tickets, thrust them at me and Carol and said, "You two are on the plane! They're holding it for you; the others will join you later. GO!"

We grabbed our suitcases and headed for passport control. Our passports were stamped, and an airline employee was waiting to lead us to the plane. We went down a hall, up a flight of stairs, past several departure gates, and out a doorway to the outside, then down another flight of stairs to get back to ground level. A Boeing 737 was parked right in front of us, but the airline employee (who was trying to hurry us along while she attached "baggage check" tags to our suitcases as we were carrying them!) hustled right past the jet. We looked ahead, and several hundred yards farther was another 737. We speed-walked past that one too! Finally, one more 737 stood at the far end of the ramp with anxious airline personnel around it looking at us. We were puffing pretty hard at this point, and the sun was hot! Finally we ran up the stairs to the plane, which had been sitting there on the ramp, in the hot sun, with every seat filled but two, for the last 15-20 minutes waiting for us.

The lady who had been jogging along with us tried to get the other personnel to put our suitcases in a baggage compartment. The flight attendants said there was no room for them in the cabin, but the ground personnel told them to keep them in the plane because there was no time to put them in the belly! We left our bags in the care of the flight attendants, and headed down the aisle, with a lot of not-too-happy faces staring at us (like it was OUR fault they had been sitting there in the heat!) One of the seats happened to be in First Class, so Carol had a slightly more comfortable ride. My seat was, surprisingly, on the aisle about half way back towards the tail. Still panting, I stuffed my backpack under the seat in front of me and sat down. The pilot started the engines immediately, and we taxied. My shirt had wet spots! Whew!

The flight itself was not much longer than an hour, during which we were served lunch. I sat next to a young man from Uganda who was studying in Nairobi. He asked about our vacation trip and seemed genuinely interested in where we had been and where we were going. He was intrigued that I had attempted to pick up a few words of Swahili before leaving the States, and was amused when I showed him my "cheat sheet" of Swahili words and phrases with the English equivalents beside them.

Carol had a much more interesting travel companion. She sat next to a well-dressed, well-spoken man who was obviously not too comfortable flying. He asked if she knew what would happen to the plane if it were struck by lightning! They chatted about flying for a while. He explained that he was a Ugandan attorney, and, in fact, was the head of the Uganda Bar Association. It happens that Uganda is a nation of about 22 million people, but has only 700 lawyers (members of the bar) and about 1000 people with some legal training! Sounds like about the right ratio to me! When Carol told him where we were going in Uganda, he commented that in that part of the country many of the hills are cultivated in small patchwork patterns from top to bottom, and it's really pretty. Carol remembers thinking, "How pretty can farms be?" You'll see later from some of our pictures.

Carol's new lawyer friend also mentioned that just the day before some white tourists in Northern Uganda had been killed, presumably by bandits or possibly rebels from across the border in neighboring Sudan. He said he was glad we were not traveling to the North. (He thinks HE was glad!?)

As I looked out the window, I remember thinking that I knew that Lake Victoria was huge, but it seemed to just go on and on. Entebbe and its airport are on a peninsula protruding down into the lake from the Northern shore. As we approached the airport and turned on final from out over the lake, I was struck by the fact that there were NO boats visible. Not even one. Any large lake in America near a major city would have been crisscrossed with the wakes of pleasure boats, jet skis, fishing boats, yachts, and so on. The shoreline was green and lush, and the water was deep blue, but no boats. Carol's new friend (the lawyer) turned to her as the wheels touched down and said simply, "Welcome to Uganda!" He was a very nice man.

We learned later that Entebbe was established on the lake shore as the original colonial capital, but later the capital was moved to Kampala, about 20 miles North. As we were taxiing in I immediately noticed a half dozen MiG 17s parked in different spots around the airport. A closer look revealed that they would never fly again; they were all missing panels or large parts and looked rusty and basically dead. Still, it was interesting to see up close for the first time one of the models I had trained to fight against during my Vietnam era Navy days. Those planes had represented The Enemy!

We deplaned outside (no jetways in Nairobi or Entebbe) and followed the line of passengers into the terminal building to go through passport control. After clearing customs, we saw a man holding a sign saying "Mantana," the name of the travel company in Uganda that was arranging our gorilla excursion. We smiled, he smiled and introduced himself as Dave Stewart, the manager of Mantana, and said, "Where are the others?" We told him, "They're still in Nairobi." The shocked look on his face was total and priceless. "Nai-RO-bi?" he exclaimed, "What happened?!"

To his credit, once we explained to him what Kenya Airways had done he quickly regrouped. We asked, "Didn't the folks from Luke Travel in Kenya call you this morning to tell you we'd be late and were separated?" No, they hadn't. We knew the others would be on the 6:00 o'clock plane landing shortly after 7:00. Dave said there wouldn't be time to drive anywhere that evening, so we would all stay at a hotel in Entebbe and drive all the way to the mountains tomorrow. He informed us that the hotel and supper would be at our own extra expense, explaining that he had prepared for us all to get to one of Mantana's camps at Lake Mburo National Park that evening, and the crew there had already begun preparing for our arrival and supper. This was the original plan, according to our itinerary. Lake Mburo Park was nearly half way to the mountains, and would have allowed us to break the LONG drive into two days, and have a small game drive one afternoon and then another the following morning before continuing on the way. But now, that wasn't going to happen.

Dave introduced us to Denis, our driver/guide for Uganda, and told Denis to take us to the Lake Victoria Resort Hotel (just a few minutes from the airport) and let us check in. Dave would meet the others when they arrived at 7:15 or so and bring them to the hotel for a late supper. Afterwards he said he would buy us all a drink and give us our briefing on our stay in Uganda. It sounded like a plan, and Carol and I had all afternoon to kill waiting for the others.

Dave and Denis helped us carry our bags out to their vehicle. As we walked the few hundred yards to the parking area, we mentioned to Dave the story Carol had heard about the recent killings of tourists in Northern Uganda. Dave said that since we would be staying in the far South of Uganda, we ought to be safe. (OUGHT to be??) But if our itinerary had been to go North, we would not be going! He had THAT part right!

As we drove out of the airport, Denis pointed out a large, four-engine jet parked across the highway from the main terminal building. It looked like an old 707. He told us that plane was the Israeli jet that had been hijacked back in the 1970s by Palestinian terrorists. They had forced the plane to land in Entebbe, and were holding all the passengers hostage until their demands were met. The Israelis, as you may remember, sent in commandos who landed in Uganda without permission and stormed the jet killing the terrorists and rescuing most of the hostages. I think some of the hostages were killed in the fire fight, but most were rescued and whisked out of Uganda before Idi Amin and his forces could react. The plane, according to Denis, had been towed across the road to its present position and had been there ever since!

We arrived at the sparkling white Lake Victoria Resort Hotel in about five minutes, as it was quite close to the airport. It had a hard-to-describe European air to it, but was quite pretty with a good view of the lake. Unfortunately, we didn't see fit to take many pictures at this point, and regret it now. Here are the ones we DID take:

NEXT: Installment 14. A LONG drive through Uganda.

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