Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Diary of a time long ago...
Cos I'm lazy - well, some of the time - I've decided to put up my Uganda diary on my blog. It's the only time I've ever kept a diary and it gives me an excuse to be able to put all of it on the computer rather than keeping it in my small blue book.
BTW, I'm getting a car tomorrow! Peugeot 306. :D
Day 1:
3:30am. Got up! What the heck was I doing? Getting up this early was the biggest sacrifice I had to make so far. Forget the jabs and money spent…
My travels started by walking up to the building with Nig to meet Andy. Andy was 5 minutes late, but who could blame him? My stuff was already in a trailer on the back of Andy’s 4x4 as was everyone else’s. I only had a small hand luggage bag with a nights worth of gear on me. We arrived on time at Reg and Anne’s to pick up those guys plus Maz and Loz. And off we went.
The indicator on the 4x4 was really annoying. It beeped every single time it went on to let us know the trailer was still attached. Getting some sleep wasn’t going to happen. We got to the airport at 6:30, said bye to Nig and lined up in the queue for Kenya Airways – The Pride of Africa (apparently). Little did I know this would be the last time I’d see lots of mzungu for some time.
Checked in, but not after Sat and Christine had pushed in front of everyone else in the queue – they arrived as we were checking in (good timing). Luckily the metal in my jaw didn’t set off the metal detector. However, my bag was checked… for drugs!
Anyway. The toilets at Heathrow were cool, cos you just had to wave over them, Jedi style, for them to flush. Had a full fat breakfast at an Italian place (the only place I’ve found who don’t accept tips) and Sat started his camcorder journey.
Got on the plane at 10am and started talking to this American person called Sarah. Nice enough person, but I preferred to not talk. I’d been up for 6 ½ hours. Sleep was on my mind. There was actually a seat separating us, which I would’ve loved somebody less chatty to sit in.
Pants.
A little girl who couldn’t keep still and kept asking for chocolate sat there. I didn’t mind her too much when I was awake - it was when I had finally managed to get to sleep and she woke me up 2 minutes later to climb over me that annoyed me the most!
Great views on the plane. We could see the Alps and we could see the shoreline of Africa stretching for hundreds of miles as we flew into the continent.
8 hours later, the plane landed in Nairobi. And my bag was checked again… Reg almost had some clippers taken off him but he kicked up a fuss so they let him take them on!
Got on to the final plane. No TV. No music. But I did manage to sleep for 30 mins on the 50 min flight. Got off. Got bags but not without a few dodgy looks off of the Ugandan security men as we lugged around 4 marquees. Met Andrew. Really nice bloke. Went to a travel hotel in Entebbe to sleep. Mosquito nets were weird. Ants came to and from the toilet and there were cockroaches on the floor –
Welcome to Uganda!
BTW, I'm getting a car tomorrow! Peugeot 306. :D
Day 1:
3:30am. Got up! What the heck was I doing? Getting up this early was the biggest sacrifice I had to make so far. Forget the jabs and money spent…
My travels started by walking up to the building with Nig to meet Andy. Andy was 5 minutes late, but who could blame him? My stuff was already in a trailer on the back of Andy’s 4x4 as was everyone else’s. I only had a small hand luggage bag with a nights worth of gear on me. We arrived on time at Reg and Anne’s to pick up those guys plus Maz and Loz. And off we went.
The indicator on the 4x4 was really annoying. It beeped every single time it went on to let us know the trailer was still attached. Getting some sleep wasn’t going to happen. We got to the airport at 6:30, said bye to Nig and lined up in the queue for Kenya Airways – The Pride of Africa (apparently). Little did I know this would be the last time I’d see lots of mzungu for some time.
Checked in, but not after Sat and Christine had pushed in front of everyone else in the queue – they arrived as we were checking in (good timing). Luckily the metal in my jaw didn’t set off the metal detector. However, my bag was checked… for drugs!
Anyway. The toilets at Heathrow were cool, cos you just had to wave over them, Jedi style, for them to flush. Had a full fat breakfast at an Italian place (the only place I’ve found who don’t accept tips) and Sat started his camcorder journey.
Got on the plane at 10am and started talking to this American person called Sarah. Nice enough person, but I preferred to not talk. I’d been up for 6 ½ hours. Sleep was on my mind. There was actually a seat separating us, which I would’ve loved somebody less chatty to sit in.
Pants.
A little girl who couldn’t keep still and kept asking for chocolate sat there. I didn’t mind her too much when I was awake - it was when I had finally managed to get to sleep and she woke me up 2 minutes later to climb over me that annoyed me the most!
Great views on the plane. We could see the Alps and we could see the shoreline of Africa stretching for hundreds of miles as we flew into the continent.
8 hours later, the plane landed in Nairobi. And my bag was checked again… Reg almost had some clippers taken off him but he kicked up a fuss so they let him take them on!
Got on to the final plane. No TV. No music. But I did manage to sleep for 30 mins on the 50 min flight. Got off. Got bags but not without a few dodgy looks off of the Ugandan security men as we lugged around 4 marquees. Met Andrew. Really nice bloke. Went to a travel hotel in Entebbe to sleep. Mosquito nets were weird. Ants came to and from the toilet and there were cockroaches on the floor –
Welcome to Uganda!
# posted by TommyDB @ 4:24 p.m. 
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lol ... no wonder they gave you dodgy looks. Am quite surprosed you got through customs! Isn't the smell of Africa just amazing! That second you step off the plane and go 'WoW!!!'
We all had to wear our OAS!S t-shirts (16 of us!!) and when we landed in Entebbe in 20+ degrees, we hadda put on jumpers so they wouldn't stop us getting through and so they'd give us lovely 3 month visas! Muppets would only stamp us for 2 months, meaning we actually ended up with about 4 differnt visas whilst we were there!
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We all had to wear our OAS!S t-shirts (16 of us!!) and when we landed in Entebbe in 20+ degrees, we hadda put on jumpers so they wouldn't stop us getting through and so they'd give us lovely 3 month visas! Muppets would only stamp us for 2 months, meaning we actually ended up with about 4 differnt visas whilst we were there!
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