In the spirit of unpreparedness, I had done VERY little research about the distance from Kabale to Kampala. It was just never a concern of mine. Until the day before we left Kigali for Kabale. I was looking at Google Maps, checking out of curiosity how far Kabale was from Kamapla.
I was shocked to discover that it was a roughly 7 to 8 hour journey. SO I informed Sarah of the new dilemma, she seemed very unfazed. So I told her that I would figure it out, but I think that it would be cheapest to take a local bus. So we settled on that option for the time being.
But as we drove from Kigali to Kabale, we saw a few local buses, with suitcases tied to the top, as they flew past our Nissan while Silver drove. At one point Sarah tapped me to inquire whether or not that was the local bus I was referring to. I assured her, with a smile, that it was. She simply looked at me wide eyed and turned to look back out the window as the mountain scenery quickly passed by.
One day while on the lake, we all sat down for a heart to heart about how we would get to Kampala. After some very brief conversation, all three of us agreed that we should make inquires about hiring a private car to take us to Kamapla. We spoke with the manager about this option and he quoted us a pretty fair price, when divided by 3.
When we arrived at the dock, none other than Silver was standing there waiting for us to clamor into the car and hit the road. I thought, for a very brief moment, if Silver would be able to make such a long journey. But who am I to doubt.
We got in the Nissan and headed out. About halfway through the journey I asked Silver if he knew about the equator, I had seen several pictures of it on Instagram in my research. So he alerted us when we were close. We got food from a local shop right across the street. And pressed on.
Instead of 7 hours, it took us about 9 hours to get to Kampala, due to Silver’s very cautious driving, that meant we never went over the speed limit. So when we arrived in Kampala it was dark. We contacted our Airbnb host, and gave Silver the directions from the Google maps.
We arrived safely and went upstairs to the luxurious apartment. We were SO EXCITED to have running hot water and a flushing toilet we nearly cried upon arrival. Our host thought it was hilarious. But we were all too excited to have electricity around the clock and the extravagant luxuries of the modern world.
While in Kampala we did VERY LITTLE! We were basically acclimating back into the city life. So we spent most of our days at the mall, which was at the bottom of the HUGE HILL that we lived on, and at home. Though, we did do a couple of things though that made our time in Kampala very memorable.
The first morning there we walked to the bottom of the hill to venture out and find breakfast. We followed the Google Maps, and entered the Aciaca mall. We walked around, and becuase it was fairly early in the morning only a couple of restaurants were open. We looked to our left and saw a restaurant called Caffeserie. A super cute restaurant that we thought would have waffles, for me, and Avocado on toast, for Sarah. We entered and requested a table, and were seated out on the veranda. We sat and looked at the menu. They had a very extensive menu and we were so excited to eat, becuase at this point we were starving. Then our waiter came to our table. A vey tall slender young man, with a big beautiful mouth full of crystal white teeth, and a perfect smile. His name tag read “Benji”. He took our order and we sat in peaceful bliss and chatting away. Our food was brought and we basically demolished it.
I forgot to mention that in March of 2019 I was accepted into Graduate School. And I had enrolled for courses over the summer, I was taking two courses at the time of this trip. I knew I would be without Wifi for a few days consecutively, so I had completed my assignments in advanced and worked with my group members so that we could have our meetings when I got back into Kampala. So a lot of time in Kampala was also spent with me sitting on my computer in group meetings and working on completing a major project for one of my courses. So this was just the rest and recoup that we needed after out Gorilla escapade.
We waited until the VERY end of our time in Kampala to get outside of the apartment and see what Kampala truly had to offer. It was our mission to support locals of the countries that we visited on this trip, from our accommodations, to the restaurants and tours that we paid for. In my research I came across a locally founded and owned walking tour company called Kampala Walking Tours. The founder is a young Ugandan woman named Zulaika.
The company offers two options a 3 hour tour and a 6 hour tour. In the spirit of “we haven’t been out of the house in 5 days besides to eat food.”, we figured we would walk all day and be happy. And that is EXACTLY what we did! The walking tour was AMAZING! We learned so much about the history of Uganda. Our tour guide was Zulaika’s sister Shamim. She was incredibly knowledgeable and friendly.
We learned soooo much it’s really hard to share everything. But here are some photos that we took while on the tour.
Uganda is rich in history that is still very relevant today. Gaining their independence from Britain in 1962, meaning that the country is only 58 years out of colonization. We learned of Iddi Amin’s rule, and while visiting his old torture chambers we were interviewed by a local Ugandan news station (so we are basically celebs). We also visited the Gaddafi National mosque. Which is the largest mosque in Kampala, located on Kampala hill. Its absolutely beautiful! With its interior inspirations drawn from different Arab, African and European designs. We visited the taxi park, that has only a SINGLE entrance, that also is the exit. Which is the literal definition of “organized chaos”.
At the end of the tour we had walked a little over 7 miles (12km)! So we definitely went out with a bang. Which was much needed after a full week of relaxing.
We went to Caffeserie basically EVERYDAY that entire week in Kampala, and every single time we went we made sure to request Benji. Naturally we became friends over time, and we had planned to ask him to come out with us on the last night of our time in Kampala. And jokingly I had said to Sarah “It will be our luck that today will be his off day”. We walk in and greet the waiters, who we had become very familiar with over the past week. We sit down and before we can even request Benji, our new waitress comes up and says “I’ll be your waitress today, today is Benji’s off day”. Sarah and I just looked at each other and laughed. We had missed our shot.
That night we did end up going out that night, on the invitation of a friend Sarah had made on her way up the hill to grab the laundry. It was an enjoyable time. And the next morning we went to Caffeserie one last time before we headed to the airport for Nairobi. And Benji was there! We told him that we were leaving, and he said “Oh that’s too soon!”. So we exchanged numbers and told him that we would keep in contact.
We went home and grabbed out bags and ordered a Uber. After some calling and discussing, the driver arrived. We ended up having a very heated conversation with him. Which ended up in us following each other on Instagram. It’s funny how technology has changed things so quickly.
We arrived at the airport and waited for our flight. This flight cost more than any of our flights throughout the entire trip. We paid $277 (AED 1,017) for a one-way ticket. But we only had two options. Pay more and fly directly to Nairobi, or fly from Uganda back to Rwanda and then on to Nairobi. This is what I meant when I said “intercontinental flights” within Africa are ridiculous.
~Obsessively Grateful
Chelle J.
