70 – Kampala, the city with one too many hills

Thu 4th Feb, L’Hotel Fiancee, Kampala, Uganda

Kampala Coach office is just beside the New Kenyan Lodge, so i did not have to wake up too early. And off we went on the 12 hour ride. There were frequent toilet stops along the way, with the bus conductor actually announcing “5 minutes” or “10 minutes for lunch.” Impressive, they were in their red uniforms as well, some with matching caps. The passengers were well dressed Kenyans and Ugandans, some with kids in tow.

It was a long ride, albeit comfortable, with plenty of lush landscapes out the window. The terrain is very much like the region back home, with papaya, banana, jackfruit trees, and greens hills, though more grassy.

Reached Kampala city after dark, and this was because of the jam coming into the city centre. I’ve read that the jams are legendary, but this was ridiculous. Cars were waiting upslope and downslope for their turn to pass. We must have spent half hour waiting in queue. Finally dropped off and tried to get my bearings. There were two places of accomodation of note, namely Backpacker Hostel and Red Chill Hideaway, both traveler haunts. However since both are out of the town centre (about 3km and 6km respectively), i needed to get a taxi there. The shared taxis are minivans that load up to 14 people picking up passengers, but it was too dark to figure out which went where. There were also taxi motors. The best way was to get to the taxi park, based on LP, where signs clearly posted the directions of the taxi vans. Unfortunately, i didn’t realise it would be almost impossible to find  either taxi parks in the middle of night. I wandered around around stupidly, with the heavy backpack, till i gave up and found a hotel near the bus station. The Hotel L’Fiancee is 22000 USH with its own toilet, relatively expensive as far as rooms go.