my travel

I chose to fly Qatar for my trip as one of the flights offered a timetable that seemed to be ok for departure as well as arrival time.

I was asked to take some extra stuff with me like a well-built multi-plug, some converters (UK-CH) and some food like Gerberchäsli, le parfait, mustard, minipics. As I also had my solar panels, battery packs, load-balancer, power-booster, Wechselrichter, notebook, kindle, tons of cables, old mobile phones with chargers, food plus the other usual stuff like a few clothes, repellents and so on… this summed up quite some weight. After reading thoroughly through Qatars luggage regulations and packing/unpacking/repacking and weighing my stuff several times I seemed to be fine. But you know, as soon as you line-in for check-in it gives you the cramps… Even though the guy complained a little about my luggage his colleague convinced him that it was all in conformity, so he finally let me go, refusing to give me a sticker for my camera bag… which I didn’t need anyway.

First flight took me to Doha International Airport with a Boeing 787. I have to admit it was pretty cool, as the seats were pretty spacious and the entertainment system was top notch either.



some Sheiks Falcons at Doha Airport


My 6 hour-stay in Doha wasn’t that much of a fun time but as I finally got to make the free WLAN work I was able to chat a little which made the time go by a lot quicker. At 00:30 I boarded the flight to Entebbe. This time it was only an Airbus A320 but it was nearly as comfortable as the other flight. Then arrival, baggage claim, money change… US$ to UGX… customs service… nothing to declare and adios… then I saw some guy holding a sign with my name on it up in the air… that was Anthony, my taxi driver… let’s get ready to rumble… I was a bit tired as I never manage to sleep when I’m flying but the fresh and cool morning air helped a bit. Off we went. It was already warm outside but with opened windows I had to put my light jacket on. My driver asked me for some money soon as he needed to buy some gasoline for the long ride (that took around 6 hours). He then went to a small supermarket with me to get some water which was no bad idea at all! After that we continued our journey and as we got closer to the capitol of Uganda traffic increased more and more until it ended up in a traffic jam in Kampala… Man, I had never seen such a mess before in my life and I was so happy I didn’t have to drive myself. I would’ve never managed to get through this chaos…




But my driver managed to surf through this masses of cars, small bus-taxis, which are usually cramped with people, and hundreds of boda-bodas. Those are motorcycles with small engines, that serve as a cheap means for transport. You can also rent them as taxis. Often you see 3 people driving on them. The air is pretty polluted because of all the traffic and some of the cars exhaust black clouds permanently. At some point Anthony stopped to do some micro-job and to pick up his son Joram, who accompanied him on the journey so he needn’t drive the long way back home all alone. I guess he’s about 16. He told me he was a mechanic and a driver, too. He told me about the dangerous side of Kampala and insisted on giving me his number just in case I would ever want to come back to visit Kampala. He would show me around. Well, after the things he told me, I think I’d better stay away from that place… It took pretty long to get out of the centre of the city and even after we had passed it for a while, Anthony informed me again and again that we were still in Kampala. On the left and on the right you could see pretty poor buildings, usually painted in the CI of one of the telephone companies. Seems like this is their way to do advertising. Other than that there’s cabins made of wood or tin… I don’t know exactly. Wherever we drive there’s lots of people on the streets, either discussing with each other or walking somewhere. Most of them don’t have real jobs so they would do “micro”-jobs to earn a few Shillings. From some of the houses one can hear loud music. As we drove away from the city the roads got worse. There’s huge potholes in many roads and you have to be careful not to be hit by other vehicles passing by. You better brake and escape when buses pass by as they never seem to brake at all. Parts of the edges of the street are gone as they are being washed away in times of heavy rain. So one has to be alert when driving on the roads. Whenever Anthony saw a boda-boda in front of the car or people alongside the road he pushed the honk twice to make them notice him or go away. I assume that there’s lots of accidents with boda-bodas or pedestrians…





At a gas station, Anthony parked the car to take a short bathrom break. Another adventure… :-) I was glad when we returned and I saw that all my stuff was still in the car. We had to stop a couple of times because of road work and wherever cars have to stop there’s lots of people trying to sell bottled water, fried bananas or some kind of root and grilled meat on sticks. Anthony bought some bottles of water, a couple of fried bananas and some roots at some of the stops. I then got a text message from my host saying that we wouldn’t need to take a break as we’d eat something in a lodge where we met her later on. As we came closer to the meeting point the roads became pretty dusty. It was pretty hot and didn’t rain for 3 months, which is pretty unusual. So the plants alongside the roads were all dry but only a few meters further away it got greener and greener. It reminded me a little of Western Australia… ok, the pine trees looked a bit strange but they grow them to build furniture.

 

We then finally met Claudia at the lodge where we ate something and then drove to the eco farm, my new home for the next couple of months.


There I was first introduced to Moritz, who’s the farms watch dog.


… and our piglets…


Then I was shown around and got to see my cottage on which I have mounted my solar panels…



And here’s the toilet… and adventure of its own…


That much for now…