ARRIVAL (Sat 28 Dec-13)

We arrive  in Kampala on Saturday evening at 10.30pm and we head directly to our hostel in Kampala (Red Chilli Hostel) after having cleared immigration and collected the luggage. Excitement is high, especially for the few ones who touched the African soil for the first time. On the way to the hostel the scenery of Kampala by night provides the first impression ... clean but rather dark. At the hostel we settle for the night in very Spartan but clean rooms. Before going to bed it's time to taste the first Ugandan beer. Our preference goes immediately for the "Nile Special" in a 500ml bottle. Definitively a top-notch beer which helps the 19 members of the group to get to know each other. 

 

DAY 1 (Sun 29 Dec-13)

Good morning and good bye Kampala. The tough wake-up at 8.00am the day after leaves everyone red-eyed. During breakfast our seven 4x4 cars are delivered. They are all Toyota Rav4, a small but sturdy and reliable car, particularly easy to repair. The procedure of embarking the luggage takes about an hour. Then when Nicole and Dustin arrives from Jinja (they arrived in Uganda a few days before) we are ready to go. Getting out of Kampala in a convoy is proven to be easier than expected. One of the cars has a local driver (he will stay with us only for 3 days) who leads us through the city jungle. Kampala's traffic hits us when we got stuck for a while but in about an hour we are out in the countryside heading north to the Murchison Falls National Park. The landscape is rather uneventful but still exciting as our first glimpse of Africa.

 

The sleeping rhinos. The first stop is at a petrol station to buy some food and water. Then we stop at the Rhino Sanctuary. This is a reserve where rhinos are bred in order to re-introduce them in the local environment. Rhinos completely disappeared in Uganda following Idi Amin times in late 70s. The reserve has a hefty $35 price tag per person but our Head of Negotiations (Mr Dan Fishel) does his best and in 45min of firm and persistent negotiations, the price is reduced to $20. A ranger escorts us walking in the park where the rhinos are. It’s mid-day and it’s hot, so when we find the rhinos there is a bit of disappointment as they are sleeping in the shadows under a bush. Not good for pictures. It’s the first day, we are 21 people and everything takes double the time.  

 

Off-road madness. Before exiting the reserve we have to take the first tough decision. To reach our lodge in the Northern part of the Murchison Falls Park we need to choose between a longer route which takes 5 hours or a shorter off-road route through the park which requires less time.  No matter what, we have to catch the last ferry at 7pm to cross the river Nile. Obviously we go for the riskier choice. We start to accelerate and as we hit the park we realize that we need to cruise at least 70 km/h on a bumpy road to catch the ferry. Panic starts to spread around. If we lose the ferry we will be stranded at night in the middle of the jungle! We let the first car to drive faster to stop the ferry while the other ones stay behind. The road is tough and very slippery. On the way Nonno’s car has an accident and skids for a while before landing in the middle of the road (memories from the people inside the car tell about the car turning upside-down a few times but that does not seem to match reality … ). Luckily the damages are small, a few scratches for the people and a broken tire. There is no time to repair it and Nonno continues to drive for another hour with a broken tire until we reach the ferry. We catch the ferry at the very last minute as it was already leaving when our first car stopped it. In a few minutes we embark all the cars on the ferry (well, calling it ferry is generous as it was nothing more than a small raft) and finally it’s time to laugh. On the northern bank of the river Nile we “heal our wounds” and repair the cars. Then it’s another hour in the pitch dark before we reach our lodge at around 9pm.

 

End of the day. At the lodge there is only time to run a lottery on who will get the tents and who gets the room with en-suite bathroom (for the records, the guy who is writing this note got the tent and had to face his very angry girlfriend…). Then there is time for a very quick dinner before everybody collapse in bed.