Winston Churchill allegedly said (after he had visited it) that Uganda was the pearl of Africa. And after having been there myself I must say that I quite agree.

Tanja and I were invited by Doris, a Ugandan, whom Tanja met at Wageningen University in the Netherlands when they worked there together.

After quite a lot of preparations (vaccinations, visa, shopping for appropriate clothing and binoculars, etc) on the 25th of september we took off from Frankfurt Airport heading for Entebbe.

Doris and her husband Derek picked us up from Entebbe airport and took us to their house in Kololo, which is situated in the best neighbourhood of Kampala, and, therefore, in the best neighbourhood of the whole of Uganda. They had prepared a room for us to sleep in and dinner was ready at the table.

The next day we explored the center of Kampala and the Kololo neighbourhood. The center was very busy and noisy, so it was quite as you would expect a city center to be – just much more exuberant! In Kololo we encountered a very wealthy and nice environment: the ambassadors of the Netherlands, Germany, the US, Austria, Italy, Egypt and many others live there. It is very well protected and one of the few areas where only few failures of electric power supply or water supply occur. Having constant access to electricity is very precious in a country where only about 3 percent of the population are connected to the power grid!

After a good nights sleep under a mosquito net we joined Doris and went to Makerere University where she works as a professor. We explored the university a bit and listened to her teaching. University didn’t seem to be very different from what we were used to from Europe. Except that the equipment they use is older.

The next day Doris and Derek took us to see the place where Speke had ‘discovered’ the source of the river Nile. Well, actually, of course, he didn’t discover it. The indigenous people knew it was there all along. And Speke was never able to show that the place was really the source of the Nile. But he was the one who made the connection first. The actual spot is pretty boring – they build a dam up-river in the fifties and that submerged the waterfall which once marked the spot where the Nile left Lake Victoria – but the historical aura of the place compensated it. Later we saw the Bujagali falls a couple of miles up-river, after the dam where the Nile is still untamed and wild. That is until they will have finished the construction works for yet another dam. Uganda has a huge power supply problem (only 3 percent of the population, you know, see above) but, no offense meant, solving it by yet another dam seems just not the right solution. There’ll be three dams in close vicinity which generate almost 100 percent of the electric power – without a power grid that could reasonably distribute the power throughout the country. (The old problem with electricity – generation is easy and cheap, the expensive thing is to bring it to the people). Anyway: Uganda is a really beautiful country with extremely nice landscape and nature.

The following day we relaxed a bit and visited the Kampala National Museum which exhibits the largest collection of traditional musical instruments together with many other indigenous artifacts. It is the biggest museum in East Africa.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday we spent on a short safari trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park. Saturday we left Kampala early in the morning (with a hired jeep and driver), had lunch on the way, arrived in QENP and immediately started our first game drive. Warthogs, water bucks and Uganda kob together with a couple of buffaloes and an abundance of beautiful birds. Then we were brought to our tent and had dinner. Tanja and I were the only guests and there were three waiters just for us. We somehow felt like some rich colonialist guys with their black servants. It was quite surreal to have the large veranda-like restaurant just for ourselves! On saturday we started a very early game drive but unfortunately failed to see lions although the driver tried very hard. He made out a spot in the distance where the antelopes seemed to be scared and there were vultures circling in the sky, so he assumed that the lions had killed an antelope there. But the spot was far off the tracks and so we weren’t allowed to drive there. But then we were lucky enough to see Elephants very closely. On the afternoon we made a boat cruise on the Kazinga channel, a natural channel which connects Lake George and Lake Edward. There were Swedish people on the boat and we talked to them. Nice, huh? Except for the hippos and the buffaloes, which relaxed in the channel’s water, the main thing of interest was the birds. Soo many birds! And they’re so colourful! I couldn’t make photographs, they are too small for my little camera (except for the huge Marabou and Pelicans), but fortunately we had brought binoculars and could at least see them. I had never before considered ornithology anywhere near interesting but the birds in Uganda are really worth a look.

On our third safari day Chimpanzee tracking was scheduled but we cancelled it because Tanja felt very tired and a bit sick. The African climate was starting to put a strain on us. So we just travelled back to Kampala (that took us about 10 hours for about 450 kilometers) which seemed to be a sufficient effort for weakened Europeans. Roads in Uganda are pretty nasty – as is the manner of driving of many Ugandans. But the landscape is so nice! Examples for city driving; the landscape; a village up-country.

The following days we explored the closer vicinity of Kampala. Doris had hired a driver for us who drove us round and so we visited the jungle Mpanga Forest Reserve, Namirembe Cathedral, the Bahai temple of Kampala, the Kazubi tombs (where the last four kings of Uganda are buried), Entebbe Botanical gardens and Namugongo shrine. And then, much too soon, we had to leave again.

But we had a fantastic time! To be there was a very fascinating experience. To be the only white person surrounded by black people made me aware how it feels to really stand out. It made me feel a bit uneasy first but after a while I got used to it. What I learned too, is that the dangers Europeans see in Africa (diseases, malaria, criminality, civil war) are not very dangerous in a country like Uganda. With proper precautions you can easily reduce the risk. The most dangerous thing in Uganda is traffic. Boda-Boda drivers offer you a cheap and very fast trip together with mortal danger (Boda-Bodas are small motorbikes for hire; their name derives from “Border-to-Border” because in former times boys used bikes to smuggle goods across the no-man’s-land: from border to border). The Taxis are no better: they are mini-buses for 10 people but they usually take 12 or even 15 passengers and then they drive like mad. The reason is, that they often have to pay a fixed amount to the owner and keep the fares that exceed that sum. So, the faster they drive, the more passengers they take, the more money they can keep for themselves. Needless to say that Tanja and I avoided Taxis and Boda-Bodas.

Uganda is fabulous. It is very fertile and green; the plantations usually yield two crops per year due to the change of dry and wet seasons. The people from up-country are very poor but at least they do not suffer from malnutrition. Although I cannot compare it to other African countries, I’d say, yes, Uganda is the pearl of Africa!

(If you want to go there, get the “Bradt travel guide”. It’s comprehensive and maybe you can borrow my copy)

A final remark: Derek and Doris, you were absolutely fabulous hosts. THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH!!

P.S.

It took me so long to write this report because there was a lot to be done in the last couple of weeks. There was an essay to be handed in; the new semester started and I now have two jobs at my university. Then, of course, many people visited us and wanted to hear all about Africa. But now, finally, I managed to get this post (and the photos on flickr, videos on youtube) online!