Uganda : Dec. 30 - Jan. 7
Entebbe: Thursday Dec. 29-30, 2005
Our day started extremely early with a 5:30am wakeup call. Why is it that we always seem to have such horrible flight times? Our plane from Hurghada was scheduled to leave at 9:05 am but we had to be there two hours before departure. The hotel staff was quite insistent that it was two hours even for a domestic trip to Cairo. So we piled into a cab at 6:20 and headed to the airport where we proceeded to wait for the next two hours. It was a short hop and then we were landing in smoggy Cairo. Sierra who finally got a chance at the window seat wasn’t very pleased with her limited visibility. Cairo was experiencing a very bad haze day.
As our flight to Nairobi wasn’t until 10:15pm, we had booked a room in a nearby hotel for the day. It was much better than hanging out at the airport for 12 hours. Debbie managed to catch a nap, the kids did some homework and we all watched a movie. We had planned to do a little web surfing but the internet was down. We knew that it was still going to be a very long day because after our journey to Nairobi, we were continuing on to Entebbe.
After grabbing a bite in the hotel restaurant we headed back to the airport. There was a bit of confusion over onward going visas and our lack of them for Kenya and Uganda but Brian was insistent and a supervisor was called over to OK the ticketing. After a bit of duty free shopping we exchanged the last of our Egyptian pounds and boarded the plane on time.
As we taxied out to the runway we were congratulating ourselves as to how well the day had gone. At that point the plane pulled up short and announced a “techno bugger”. We immediately interpreted this as being at least a 1 hour delay and we were about right. Almost 1 hour to the minute we were back up and taking off. We weren’t too worried because we had a 3-4 hour layover in Nairobi to begin with so even with the hour delay we weren’t in bad shape.
The plane was crammed full however and the seats had much less space than previous flights. The end result was a very poor attempt at sleeping was had by all. By the time we landed at 4:00 AM in the morning body time, we were all a bit groggy. Brennan was the most tired, as well as pale and green. We kept telling him not to throw up because we were afraid that they might deny us continued passage.
Knowing that we had to take out visas we rushed the counter and pen in hand proceeded to fill out forms for the next 10 minutes. When we got to the clerk however he would have none of it. There was no way he was going to sell us $200 USD worth of transit visas for a 4 hour stop over. We explained that our luggage was not checked through. Not a problem. Brian was sent down by his lonesome to pick up the 4 packs and haul them back up to the secured side of immigration. We then managed to backtrack to the transit gates, get checked in and bags checked with little hassle. A round about way of doing things but it saved us a couple of hundred bucks.
Still groggy, the flight to Entebbe was on time and wonderfully short. As we landed Sierra pointed out the obvious fact that things were very green in Uganda and there was almost no air pollution!
Customs, Immigration, and visa acquisition were all done in one line in Uganda named “other”. It again was incredibly short and we were on our way. The bags were first off the plane and before we knew it we were out in the reception area being greeted by our driver and guide for the next 9 days, Gabriel.
Gabriel was wonderfully friendly and spoke excellent English. (English is the official language of Uganda but most locals also speak African dialects so the accents can be a little tough sometimes.) We knew we were off to a good start when less than 3 minutes in the Land Cruiser that was to be home for the next eight days he had managed to point out the old terminal buildings where the raid on Entebbe happened, a unique species of flycatcher (that’s a bird) as well as the great storks. He also pointed out that in the raid; a second large passenger plane was damaged so that it could no longer fly. It had been hauled across the highway since that time by an entrepreneurial Ugandan and converted into an indoor movie theater!
Our first stop would be banks to get some money exchanged and then it was onto the Boma, the “premiere guest house” in Entebbe! (See Debbie’s traveler tips about money at the end of today’s entry.) It was a wonderful place and we got a very exciting overview of our upcoming safari. After that it was time for a delicious lunch and a bit of a rest to catch up from the long day before. Gabriel was picking us up at 12:30 for our first stop on our safari, the Ngamba Chimpanzee Sanctuary. The sanctuary is located on an island some 24 km south of Entebbe in the middle of Lake Victoria. It is sponsored by the Goodall Foundation and serves as a home for orphaned chimps that are no longer able to be reintroduced in the wild. I guess the wild troops reject strange chimps coming in and end up killing them in a couple of days.
In order to get to the sanctuary however, we had to navigate our first animal haphazard! No it was not alligators or hippos and certainly not lions or elephants. It was bugs! A huge insect hatch had occurred this morning out on the lake and the swarms of flies (like mayflies) were incredibly thick. Worse than what we had experienced in Greece that night not so long ago. They didn’t sting or bite but what a pain! Fighting our way through them along the dock we boarded our high speed launch and set out on our 45 minute trip out to the island.
The visit was great and while we didn’t get to touch or feed them, we learned a great deal about chimps, their habits and their social hierarchies. Basically the 100 acre island is set up for two troops of chimps (old and young) and a small section of one point of land cordoned off for the keepers. The chimps have free rein over the rest of the island absent to predators.
After a brief introduction we were off to watch feeding time. We had been warned that the head juvenile chimp named Mawa, had a habit of demonstrating his leadership by tossing rocks. Well we had expected we might be ducking small stones or pebbles. Our eyes popped out of our heads when the guide screamed and we all looked out to see a huge chimp launching a 7-8 lb boulder from 20 feet away. It easily cleared the fence and over our heads. At least we now knew who the boss was! After that things settled down to eating however and after a while we headed along on our tour. After several more photo ops and lots of learning we headed to the boat for our trip back.
The kids enjoyed the cool of the water and the ride back. Especially when we stopped in what looked like the middle of the lake and the guides pointed out that we were on the equator. We hadn’t realized it before but the trip to the island involved a change in hemispheres as well. The kids thought this was all very cool.
The rest of the ride was uneventful until we hit the beach and had to fight our way through the flies again. They come out twice a year we are told. Lucky us! Anyway back to the Boma for some dinner and sleep. We are not sure which we are looking forward to the most. Tomorrow the safari really begins as we head out to the parks of Uganda.
Debbie’s travel tip:
Obtaining money in Uganda was not easy for us. There were not a lot of ATM machines and the few that we tried did not take our cards. So we were forced to exchange money and/or traveller’s cheques. The best exchange rate was for $100 US bills. The smaller denominations were valued lower than the higher ones. Cash was always a better value than the traveller’s cheques. If you are exchanging traveller’s cheques, have the receipts of purchase handy. The banks will not take a traveller’s cheque without this bit of paper. Also when you get your Ugandan money, ask for lots of 1000, 5000 and 10,000 shilling notes. These are the small denomination bills. As most people in Uganda don’t have a lot of money, it was very difficult to get change. So we were tipping more than necessary with 20,000 shilling bills or having to buy a second item to make up the difference. Consequently we ran out of money before the end of our safari and had to find another bank to change traveller’s cheques. ( NEXT PAGE )