First Day in Kampala

I had a good journey from Calgary, and arrived in Kampala last night about 7:30pm local time. It was a long journey - about 48 hours in total between the two flights and a 22 hr layover in Amsterdam. But it was nice to have a day to walk along the canals in Amsterdam, explore the flower market and take in some of the art at the Rjikes Museum.

So today I woke up early, and enjoyed breakfast of fresh fruit (locally grown bananas, papaya and pineapple), fresh squeezed passionfruit juice and Ugandan coffee. It is a nice treat that breakfast is included at my hotlel, and it has a terrace restaurant that overlooks lush green gardens. I could have sat there all day...

I already had a taxi adventure - I was going to walk to a few of my appointments, but got talked into a taxi from the reception at the hotel, as they thought it was too far to walk...so as I am jet lagged and fighting off a cold I caught on the plane, I caved. Big mistake! I arrived at the Mulago Hospital grounds to meet Dr.Konde-Lule, but he was in meetings. I was only gone 10minutes and when I came down, the taxi driver's cab had a clamped tire (placed on it by security for illegally parking). There was quite a heated debate going on about why, how and what happened that the security guard felt he needed to clamp the tire. By talking to another witness, he told me that the taxi driver had not heeded the security guard's two warnings, and had almost ran over the security guard when he gave a third warning, and clamped the tire. So the administrator of the office had to come down and listen to both sides (the taxi driver being at fault here, and having to pay a fine of $10 US to free his taxi). I wasn't going to pay, but felt bad that my taxi ride had caused such a commotion...
Anyhow, the taxi driver did take me back to the hotel, I paid him for the ride back and forth (too much for what the whole ordeal was worth) and I decided I would now walk to wherever I needed to go! I'm pretty centrally located in Kampala, so it shouldn't be much of a problem.

It's fairly overcast today, but still very warm, and I'm already sweating just walking around from the humidity. When the sun does peek out, it is really hot on my skin. Kampala hasn't changed too much from my first visit, although the traffic is a lot worse. Many more cars on the road than I remember, and the diesel fumes burn the nose. I'm looking forward to the fresh air of Fort Portal already ;-)