Uganda part 1

For those of you who dont know our team went on a short Vacation to Uganda to see the city of Kampala. For some reason my journal entry from the 24th wont open on this computer, so I have started from the 25th. The 24th was just spent on a eight hour bus ride. The highlight was seeing the mouth of the Nile river from Lake Victoria


David Wednesday November 25,2009
We left Kitale on Tuesday on the 24 at 10 in the morning, and we arrived in Kampala around 9:30. After a comfortable sleep in our guesthouse we all met downstairs to have breakfast together at 8:30. After breakfast we discussed that we would all like to spend the day looking and shopping around the city and just use public transportation. We got ready and met outside, but we met a man who was on staff with Adoni guesthouse and who could drive you and be your tour guide around Kampala. So we decided that since we didn’t know anything about Kampala and where things were, we hired him. He first drove us up to a large hill where a large Muslim mosque stood and you could see all of Kampala from the top. We were allowed to go inside the mosque and take a boo, so we took off our shoes and the mosque man allowed us to go way up to the top to one of the four towers. After walking up a very spiral 79 stairs we got to see an even better view of Kampala. Kampala has 2 other hills, which are for the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans. It also had alot of tall modern looking buildings, which was a site for sore eyes.

Our next stop was lunch. I was very happy to see a western style menu that didn’t just serve just Ugali and chicken and chips like Kitale. We stopped by an impressive new mall that got us pretty excited because it was something like you would see at home. We only spent a short while because we decided we would check it out in more detail the next day. Next, our driver took us to a very cool touristy kinda market, where I bought a mid sized Jimba drum, two African shirts, and some other gifts for home. Nothing had fixed prices on it, so it was fun to bargain. We then went to another market but this one was mostly second hand clothes, but I did end up buying some nice dress pants. We wanted to see lake Victoria, so we made a stop by before dinner, and I Candice and I put our feet in the water, just to say we had put our feet in Lake Victoria and we got pictures to prove it. Our driver dropped us off at probably one of the most expensive and nicest restaurants in town. It felt like I was at a tropical resort because the roof was a grass roof and it was made off bamboo, and there were lots of fountains and palm trees and it had a nice view of Kampala. I ordered the tenderness steak I had ever tasted that only cost me 24 thousand Ugandan shillings which is around 14 dollars, where in Canada it would have cost be between 25 and 30. It was sure nice to spoil ourselves though and have a break from the small town of Kitale and experience new and also familiar things.