oops. Just realized I didn't reduce the size of the photos in those last couple of posts. Hopefully it doesn't slow down the thread load time too much.
While Nairobi was a nice break, it was also kinda boring in that it really could have just been a city in USA#1, so I started looking for parks in Kenya with wild dogs, as they were the one animal I hadn't seen yet. I found a couple, but it was the wrong time of year and the sightings were not good lately, so I decide to leave that for the next trip instead to give me something to look forward to.
Instead, I hopped on a pretty decent bus:
to Kampala, Uganda. That ride is supposed to be about 12-13 hours. Instead, it was around 18. Had me re-evaluating my preference for taking ground transport to see more of the countryside, as there wasn't much to see pulling in at 01:30.
Crossing the border into Uganda was fairly painless, although we did stand in line for about 2 hours. Far better than the buses that arrived minutes after us and were probably there for 4-5 hours. When the border control asked me my reason for entry, I started reciting a list of various Ugandan foods from memory and that went over very well indeed. Slowed down the line for a bit as she called over her co-worker to lol at the mzungu and also suggest a couple of things I hadn't listed. Sorry not sorry. While I had used that approach before, that experience caused it to instantly become my new go-to answer.
The ride over was interesting. I was greeted with a "mzungu!!" yell upon entering the bus by a group of Ugandans who were traveling home from Kenya. As usual, my approach is to engage in a friendly manner, so I chatted them up, which they weren't expecting. By the end of the ride, I had invites to their homes and workplace, which I took advantage of. We had such a long bus ride that we covered a bunch of topics, and I managed to sell them on the concept of guacamole, which they had never had, to the point where when I went over to one of their houses a few days later, we spent a couple hours sitting around making and eating it. Being guacamole, it was of course a huge hit, and we had a blast just hanging out shooting the **** and chowing down.
My shared apartment hotel (waat?) was in the center of downtown, so it was easy to walk to everything, including the post office across the street. Found this sweet postcard:
and also had a cafe downstairs where I had my beloved lemonade for the first time in approximately forever:
other than South Africa, Uganda was the only place I went that year where it was not basically impossible to find lemonade.
The hotel was a first for me - it's a renovated apartment building with a bunch of 2br/3br apartments that have locks on the bedroom doors. You share the apartment common area & toilet, and have your bedroom to yourself. Kind of like a very small hostel, I guess. About $32/night. If no one else is around, you have the entire apartment to yourself.
The first night I had to myself, which was nice since I Ubered in from the bus area at 02:00 and was stupidly tired. A Catalan couple showed up the next night, then a Ugandan businessman replaced them shortly after that. He loved watching TV until 03:00 and had a different prostitute over every single night, so I won't forget that experience any time soon.
The unit I was in was a 3BR:
but the center BR was never occupied. One of the prostitutes drank my apple juice the day before I was going to leave, but I let it slide.