Mini Vacation
I've been in Uganda for about 2 1/2 months now and I finally snapped, I couldn't take one more meal of Ugandan food. I needed something American like Burritos or Pad Thai. So I packed my bags for a long weekend in Kampala.
Since arriving in Uganda, I have pretty much stayed in Soroti which is fairly isolated. Its a very nice town that is very safe and has extremely friendly people but sometimes I miss living in a city where you have options about places to go and food to eat.
The bus ride to Kampala is a very easy 5 hours (give or take a few hours). In order to avoid travelling in the mid day sun I planned on taking the 6:00am bus and had arranged a taxi to pick me up and drop me off at the bus station in town. Of course, the taxi arrives about 5 minutes after 6:00 so I get there and sit on the 7:00 bus for close to an hour before it pulls out. The 5 hour ride goes smoothly until we hit the Kampala outskirts at which point the traffic stops and it takes me an hour or so to go the last few miles.
I head out to one of our partner sites (Life in Africa) who were helping me arrange a guesthouse, they are a little ways out in the suburbs so instead I decide to stay at a hotel in the city center (especially since it was the same price!).
here is the view from my window:
I hung out most of the day at a local coffee house, had some ice cream and went to a movie, now that's a vacation! Friday I went out for Ethiopian food, that was nice and spicy and Saturday hit the beach.
We went down to Entebbe to one of the really nice hotels in town and they had a large beach area set up with tables and you can just hang out eating and drinking in the cool breeze.
it was very nice though I'm not sure the water is clean enough for swimming (though that didn't stop people).
Sunday was all about Pizza! We found a nice pizzaria and I enjoyed every slice! mmmmmm....pizza.
Monday was spent at Life In Africa sitting in on some meetings where they were discussing how they use the Kiva Website and ways to improve their processes. Then it was off for Thai food. The pad thai was terrible, but the curries and satays were very tasty as well as the mango and sticky rice desert.
I left a little early and went to Game, a large department store where I was able to finally get my French Press! Now I can have real coffee at home.