Tuesday, April 3 (Day 18): Back to Entebbe, then on to Nairobi.

Our 5:45 wake-up call seemed early, but breakfast was at 6:30 and we were supposed to leave the camp at around 7:00 for a morning game drive on our way to the highway. From there it was back East to Entebbe for a 3:25 PM flight to Nairobi. Some of our clothes were still wet from the soaking we had received in the gorilla forest, so we planned to do some more clothes drying in the car today.

Sunrise was beautiful, and we tried to get a picture of it. No luck at all. We had bought a little "pocket tripod" about 4 inches tall to use for time exposures or for timer-delayed shots so the photographer could get in the picture. We never once thought to use the thing! The light level was so low during the sunrise shots that they all came out blurry.

Oh! I almost forgot to tell about the frogs around the camp. No, we didn't ever see them, but boy did we hear them. Especially in the hour just before and immediately after sunset, as night was falling, and then again in the morning. They didn't chirp or croak like any frog I have ever heard before, but they made a noise Carol and I could only describe as "Boik!" Almost like "Boy - eek," if you could make that sound in one syllable. It reminded me of a drop of water falling into a tub of water. Boik, Boik, Boik! Weird!

We did get a picture of the dining tent interior as we gathered for breakfast. This is the only picture we have showing what Carolyn really looks like. The others only show her from behind or in the distance. Notice the place settings with fresh flowers and a lighted candle on the table. Very nice.

A wide-awake group in the early morning.

I had to enlarge one small portion of that photo to show a close-up of the juice pitcher. Everywhere we went in Africa, the pitchers of juice or milk or even water always had a little cover over them to keep bugs out. The cover was round, or nearly so like a doily, with small beads forming a fringe around the outside edge. This made it hang down all around the outside of the pitcher and kept it from falling inside. The one shown here is typical, but not all were white.

No bugs in OUR juice!

Below is what the outside of the dining tent looked like. In the foreground is the large rock where the fire had been last night. Stacked inside the left end of the tent are all of the chairs that had been arrayed around the fire, but were taken under cover overnight to keep them dry. Two candelabra trees are in the background, left and center.

The "kitchen" was off in the brush behind the dining tent.

Finally, one last camp photo. This was the view from the front of our tent, over one of the more open areas of the park. Carol is heading toward the Land Cruiser, ready to leave. I was behind her with my backpack and the camera.

Our last morning in Uganda. A rocky hill in the background.

We headed out at about 7:10 AM, and within seven minutes had our first sighting of the morning. There are three oribi in the picture, checking us out. The one in the background is very fuzzy and indistinct in the high grass. We had seen one of these animals the evening before, and these three this morning. Later we saw three others, but could not get a picture. Those are the only oribi we spotted the entire trip.

Tall grass made game sighting very difficult.

We drove along for nearly 45 minutes before our next sighting worthy of a picture. There is one impala between two larger waterbucks. Their shaggy necks are clearly seen, and their size relative to the impala is demonstrated here.

Lots of food for predators, but we saw no lions in Uganda.

Just around the next curve we surprised a small herd of zebras moving through the brush. There were more than the five seen below, but these had moved out of the heavier brush into a relatively clear area and stopped to check us out. Intently!

We must have looked very strange to them, or they were surprised.

After the zebras, suddenly we were at the park entrance, or exit for us, and there was no more game to be seen. Another few miles of dirt road, and then we were back on the main paved highway heading toward Kampala and Entebbe. This was the same highway we had traveled four days before in the opposite direction. We went past the same farms and produce stands, bananas and fields of papyrus we had seen before.

We occupied our time drying our clothing in the wind coming through the open windows. Denis was able to maintain a steady 60-70 mph except when we went through small towns with their speed bumps, so we had plenty of air flow for drying. Unfortunately, the humidity was still so high that the inside of our boots remained damp. We began to wonder if they would ever get truly dry again.

At about 11:00 AM we were entering the outskirts of Kampala, and traffic began to pick up. Here we saw a sight that Linda was able to capture on video, but that Carol and I totally failed to get with our camera. It's not even going to sound funny to someone who didn't see it, but we talked about it for days afterwards so it has to be a part of this trip journal.

It was a pig. Oh, probably a small to medium-sized pig of about 100 pounds or so, black in color. Riding on the back of a motorbike! Well, OK, it didn't really have a choice. It was "all trussed up like a pig." Literally. Picture this: A young man was driving a small motorbike. Immediately behind his seat he had somehow secured a piece of plywood about three feet long and two feet wide, lying horizontally (flat) across the seat. The pig was thoroughly tied up in twine, and tied to this piece of plywood. It's head was hanging off the right side, and its tail was hanging off the left.

When we first saw the pig, I was sure it was dead. It's head was hanging down limply, and I couldn't see any movement. I think the motorbike had just passed us; it drove right ahead of us for several miles heading in towards town. Suddenly the pig raised its head, then some additional evidence of it's "aliveness" appeared at the other end. Evidently this little piggy was going to market!

I'm still not sure why this struck all of us as very funny. Perhaps the thought of hauling livestock into town to market on a motorbike was the key. The driver of the bike just weaved in and out of traffic with never a backward glance at his cargo, and eventually turned off as we continued into town. We joked about that pig for the rest of the week.

Quite close to Kampala now, we topped a small rise and saw the city spread out below. This picture is somewhat indistinct as the city is in the distance, but you'll get an idea of what it looked like.

Downtown is on the left.

As we entered the downtown area, traffic became heavy. There were very few traffic signals, and the rule for successful driving seemed to be, "Just keep moving." I noticed that as other vehicles crowded in from both sides and some tried to cut us off or turn in front of us, if Denis just kept moving slowly forward, eventually the other car would yield and we continued on. If a car ever stopped to let another car through, other cars would keep crowding through on the first one's bumper and the car that stopped would sit there indefinitely. Of course, it probably helped that Denis' Land Cruiser was larger and heavier than most of the other traffic (mainly Toyotas and motorbikes).

Carol took the two pictures below to illustrate an interesting fact of Kampala city life. They have one-passenger taxis! Actually, they are motorbikes that serve as taxis. In the first picture the motorbikes you see parked are actually taxis waiting for fares. In the second picture, a woman has hired one of the taxis, and off they go!

Two taxis waiting for fares.

This one has a fare, and takes off.

We turned South in the middle of town to head toward Entebbe, about 20 miles away. This time we were ready with the camera to try to capture some of the interesting sights that had flashed by four days before. It seemed as though it had been weeks ago!

We passed a section of town where all the shops along the West side of the road seemed to be making metal doors, gates and fencing. Then there were furniture makers and coffin makers with their wares displayed right along the roadside. It occurred to us again that if a sudden rain shower passed through, there would be a mad scramble to get things under cover before they were ruined by the soaking. The photos below will give you a sample of the commerce along the road between Entebbe and Kampala.

Who buys all these metal doors?

An OSHA approved workplace?

"Combined Coffin Makers." Custom made or standard. Not much visible work going on.

From left to right, a dispensary, a furniture (bed) factory, a feed store, and fine ladies' garments. They probably DON'T take American Express.

At 12:10 PM we pulled in to the Lake Victoria Resort Hotel, where we had spent our first night in Uganda. We were to have lunch there, then proceed to the airport to catch a 3:25 PM flight to Nairobi. It had taken us 11 hours to drive from this spot to Bwindi last Friday, and in the past two days we had spent a total of nearly 14 hours to return.

Lunch was good, but it took a total of 1 1/2 hours to get served and to eat. We were beginning to get nervous when the last of the food finally arrived, but as it turned out we were OK time-wise. At the airport we said goodbye to Denis, and tipped him with the rest of our shillings (and some dollars as well) before climbing aboard the 737 to return to Nairobi. At least this time Carol and I were able to sit together, but she didn't get to ride in first class. The plane actually left and arrived pretty much on time! Not what we were expecting from Kenyan Airways after our last experience.

After an uneventful flight, we were met in Nairobi by Joseph and Luca, the owner of Luke Travel. As we were waiting for our bags, I asked Luca if he would call the Stanley and find out how late their business office would be open. I was hoping to find a response from Amy (at least) to the e-mail I has sent her from there a week earlier, and I knew we were leaving again early in the morning, probably before the business office would open. He called, and informed me that they were open until 10:00 PM, so we had plenty of time!

Our itinerary indicated that we were on our own for the evening, so we discussed what we wanted to do for dinner. We quickly agreed that another big, multi-course restaurant meal was NOT what we wanted, and Les suggested that we have pizza and beer like the last time we had been at the Stanley. That sounded like just the ticket for everyone including Carolyn, even though she had ordered pizza for lunch. We told her how good the pizza had been the last time (from Pizza Inn of Africa!), and she was ready to try it with us. We hoped we would find the same bell man (Anthony) as before, but if he didn't happen to be working that night we were sure we could make arrangements with another of the hotel staff.

After our 45 minute drive to the hotel from the airport, we checked in at the front desk. I asked if there were any messages for me, and was told there were not. Disappointed, we went to our room on the 7^th floor and got settled in, washing out some clothing in the shower and hanging it on the light fixtures!

I called the Business Office and asked if there were any email messages for me. After checking, I was told that, yes, there was one. Thrilled, I asked if they would print it and bring it to our room. The lady told me that it would take a short while as there were several guests in line waiting to use the computer, but they would get it to me as soon as they could. We were anxious to see if Amy had made contact with Carol's parents and with my mother, and how things were doing back home.

Les and I had agreed to get together at a certain time, go down to the concierge desk and arrange for the pizza, then walk across the street together and get the cold beer and soft drinks. We took everybody's order, and headed down.

Sure enough, the first bell man we spotted was Anthony, and he remembered us and our pizza from a week earlier! Again, we wrote out for him what we wanted and our room number, gave him some money, and he set out. Les and I picked up the drinks and went back up to our rooms to wait. We had agreed to all get together in our room (Carol's and mine) to eat, so the drying laundry had to come down off the light fixtures for a while. We put the drinks in the "mini-bar" refrigerator in the room to keep them cold while we waited. Linda came in, then Les, and finally Carolyn with an awful story to tell. It seems that her room was the size of a closet, and had no air conditioning! It wasn't merely that the room's air conditioner didn't work properly; it had been completely removed, with a piece of plywood covering the opening in the wall! She had immediately gone to the front desk to complain, but was told that the hotel was completely full, and that was the only room they had.

She was understandably pretty upset. She and Linda agreed together that single travelers (or those travelling alone) are frequently taken advantage of. They usually pay more (on a per-person basis) than a couple, and get very poor accommodations. As a final straw, her room's hair dryer didn't work, either!

Carolyn seemed to have much more than her share of bad breaks on this trip. I left out earlier a story about her first shower in the Bwindi tent camp. The staff had filled her container with warm water, raised it for her, and left. Each shower had a pull-chain to turn on the water. To turn it off, you simply let go of the chain, or pulled on a second chain on the other end of a rocker-arm that controlled an on-off valve. In her case, she started the water flowing and it wouldn't stop. Hoping it would last long enough, she quickly soaped up and shampooed her hair. Of course, at that point the bucket was empty!

Carol was walking by her tent and heard her call out, "Somebody! I need help!" We told a staff member who quickly re-filled her bucket for her and she was able to get the soap off. Then to have this experience at a Very Nice (and expensive) Hotel! Talk about a run of bad luck.

As an attempt to make up for her terrible accommodations, the Stanley Hotel management graciously obtained for her an electric fan for the evening, and agreed to do whatever laundry she needed free of charge. Nice of them!

She had barely finished her story about her room when Anthony knocked on our door with the hot pizza. We thanked him profusely and tipped him generously. He seemed quite pleased. And the pizza was delicious!

After dinner I realized that it had been well over an hour since I had spoken to the lady in the business office about our email message, and we still hadn't received it. I called again, and was assured that they would get it to me as soon as the computer was free, but there were still a few people waiting to use it. I decided to go there myself and get in line - it would probably be quicker!

The business office is on the same floor as the hotel ballroom and meeting rooms. When I got to the hallway leading to the business office, I was surprised to find it full of people with hors d'oeuvres and drinks in their hands. The doors from the hall to the ballroom were all open, and through them I could see a crowd of people lining up for the open bar and tables of food. It was quite noisy as well. I remember thinking that if we had known this convention or meeting was being held, we could have all come here, mingled with the crowd, and probably had a free dinner! The convention was likely the reason the hotel was full and Carolyn was stuck in her "closet!"

Inside the business office there was just one guest at the computer, loading in a file from a diskette so she could print it. Within 10 minutes she had finished, and I took my turn. I was doubly pleased to find TWO emails, one from Amy and the other from Joy. Both confirmed that all was well at home, including their grandparents. We had been a little anxious, especially about the Wynns since we were going to be gone for so long, and so were relieved to get a good report. Of course, if the report had NOT been good it's very questionable whether or not we would have been able to telephone anyone in the States, much less get home early to try to help. So, we were happy to receive good news. I responded briefly to both, telling them a little more about how good the visit to Uganda had been in spite of very limited gorilla viewing.

I called Linda in her room and asked if she wanted to come down and send an email. She had wanted to do so the last time we were at the Stanley, so she came right away. She did the same thing I had done, sending an email to one person and asking them to forward it to other family members and friends.

Back in our room, the nice soft bed and air conditioning was beckoning, so after writing a few brief notes about the day's activities, we turned out the lights. Tomorrow we would leave Kenya for the last time and fly to Zambia to spend some time along the Zambezi River.  

NEXT: Installment 19. On to Zambia and the Zambezi River.

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