Final days in the Pearl of Africa

Well, here I am, with my third and final week of data collection here in Kampala completed. It has definitely been a busy couple of weeks - I made several new acquaintances at the guest house and so went out for many long evenings of dinner and drinks after 9+ hour days of data collection. It made for some rough early mornings, but it was fab to get away from the rather bland offerings of the guest house restaurant and try some of the fun places in Kampala: Mish Mash, The Lawns, Thammaphon Thai, Cayenne Club, Mediterraneo... One definite highlight was sampling tandoori-style crocodile, kudu, and springbok meat at The Lawns - so named because the restaurant/bar overlooks a lovely open space where there are a few bunnies (seriously) hopping about (tho no rabbit on the menu, if you were wondering).

I've also had plenty of Ugandan style cooking, because last week I finally let the technicians in the anatomy department convince me to have a "real" lunch and accompanied them to the little awesome place in the hospital known as Mama Box. This is no hospital cafeteria. Rather, there are several ladies dishing up heaping plates of beans, rice, matoke, cassava, potatoes, avocado, etc from huge tureens for about the cost of a dollar. It's all delicious and, everyone assures me, traditionally prepared. So, naturally, I gave up my sad little Clif bar and snack lunches and have gone to Mama Box every day since.

With last weekend being essentially my only opportunity for tourism, I decided to spend one day visiting Jinja and another visiting Entebbe. On Saturday, fellow guest house traveler William and I hired a driver to take us to several sites in and around Jinja, the town near the "source of the Nile." We headed out of Kampala in the morning, and our first stop was Ssezibwa Falls, a short jaunt down dirt roads off the main road between Kampala and Jinja. A guide took us around the site, which has several local shrines in addition to the waterfall - in the past the area was apparently a favored spot of some of Buganda's kabakas (leaders).

View above Ssezibwa

Ssezibwa Falls

Our next stop was Mabira Forest, which has an extensive trail system. Given our packed itinerary for the day, though, we only went on a short hike. My entire goal with going here was to see monkeys, and we actually saw a few red-tailed monkeys within the first few minutes on the trail! Our driver, Paul, is actually the one who spotted them. By the end of the hike, I was joking we should have just hired him to be our guide because I feel like he spotted more wildlife than the actual guide... Once he learned I wanted to see monkeys, he proceeded to point them out to me for the rest of the day (there are lots of free range black-faced vervets roaming Jinja), which was awesome. With a short hike we didn't get very deep into the forest, but in addition to the monkeys we saw several different types of birds (Uganda is apparently great for birding) as well as a long trail of safari ants on the move. There are so many ants in the marching column that they actually create deep ruts in the ground, kicking up dirt on both sides. You do NOT want to get in their way - they swarm!

 

Vervets hanging out by the Nile

Next we headed on to the town of Jinja itself, where we had a leisurely lunch and then went down to see the Nile. By taking a boat ride out on the river you can see the actual location where Lake Victoria meets the Nile- the water ripples and then calms in a line that shows the demarcation.

The river Nile

Our Nile transportation

 At the source with William

On the boat ride back, we saw a vervet pop down for a drink! (spotted by Paul, of course)

We then decided to try and find Itanda Falls, a place I had read about online. A large dam was built several years ago that essentially destroyed many of the waterfalls closer to Jinja that used to be a large tourist draw, but this one survived unscathed. Itanda is a bit far out of Jinja and tricky to locate, but with frequent stops to ask the locals for directions, Paul managed to find it. There was a short rain shower on the drive there that was just letting up when we arrived, so the pics are a bit overcast, but it was great to see the rapids, some of which are Class 6. Adrenaline-junkies do go white-water rafting and kayaking down this part of the river - it's the most popular thing to do in Jinja.

The rapids @ Itanda Falls

After visiting Itanda, we returned to Jinja to have a sundowner at a lovely bar overlooking the Nile. We had planned to meet up with two other guest house travelers, Vanessa and David, for dinner but unfortunately had phone issues (if you two are reading - sorry to have missed you!), so we decided to call it a day and head back to Kampala.

View of Lake Victoria from the Botanical Gardens

Entebbe Botanical Gardens

Earlier in the week, I had accepted an invitation from Duncan, the chief technician, who offered to show me around Entebbe on Sunday. We took a car to the city and visited the Wildlife Park, which is a cross between a zoo and a refuge center, and the Entebbe Botanical Gardens. Among the animals housed there, the Wildlife Park has several rescued chimpanzees who live in a fairly large enclosure surrounded by a moat. The water keeps them stranded on their little island because they don't like deep water. To get the chimps to come out into the visible part of the enclosure, the guide started calling them and chucking fruit into the water while explaining the purpose of the moat. I asked him why he was throwing the fruit in the water if he knew they wouldn't go in. He turned to me with a gleam in his eye and said, "Oh, just wait." Soon enough, several chimpanzees came knuckle-walking (it's really more like knuckle-loping; it was much faster than a walk) into view down the path to their moat. Upon spying the fruit in the water, one chimp looked around and then grabbed a large branch and used it to start pulling the fruit towards the shore. After a bit, another one joined in as well. It's one thing to know that chimpanzees use tools and to watch videos of them doing it, but, wow, to see it in person is pretty spectacular. When I asked if anyone had showed them how to do that, the guide replied, "Oh no. They are very wise. We share 98.7% of our DNA with them, you know." I was like, yes we do, buddy! Good job.

Chimpanzees using branches to get floating fruit

Free-range black-faced vervets at the wildlife park

On the way back into Kampala, Duncan took me to one of the roadside markets to shop for fresh fruit. I bought what has to be the tastiest mango I have ever had the pleasure of eating, along with some lovely passionfruit and jackfruit, the latter of which I have never tried before. I thought the taste was somewhat reminiscent of a cross between a cantaloupe and a mango.

Kampala market

A sample of some market offerings

 And now it's on to London! I've had a great three weeks here in Uganda, and it has been a fab introduction to Africa. To end, I want to say congrats to both my cousin and his wife as well as Jeff's cousin and his wife - both couples had their first baby last week! Welcome to the world, Titus and Elise - it's definitely a crazy place, but I will say you can find great people all over it!