Well after a couple of long flights and a frantic dash
through Dubai International Airport I finally arrived at Entebbe airport. After
fairly quickly, for Africa, going
through immigration and picking up my bags, I was met by a wall of people most
of them holding up signs. Sadly none were for me, so after picking up some
local currency, as you can’t buy it in the UK, I negotiated with one of the
private hire drivers a fair price to take me on the hour’s drive to Kampala.
It’s worth noting that by the time, I’d gone from leaving
the airport to getting in the cab with my bags I was soaked despite being under
cover most of the time. It was bucketing it down, but rapidly cleared up as we
made our way from the airport.
On the long drive into Kampala I managed to get my first
impressions of Uganda. Overall not as bad as I was imaging, but similar to
other places I’d been. My driver seemed to think he was Ayrton Senna, and
thankfully both of us were spared his fate, though not for want of trying from
the driver.
We passed through the furniture district, the brick
district, the clay district (it’s close to the brick district), and numerous
others where the shops all came in waves of the same variety and there was no
gap in establishments along the entire journey. Of particular note I counted 7
betting shops and 1 casino.
I knew this anyway, but hadn’t quite estimated enough just
how hilly Kampala is, the drive was a bit of a rollercoaster at times and that
was before we got to the road bumps, sleeping policemen, and rumble strips
nearer Kampala as shown on Top Gear
Eventually we rocked up to Backpackers Hostel and I was
friendly and efficiently welcomed and shown to my single room. Well it is a
single, is reasonable sized for a single with a small table and chair, and
mossie net on the bed. The room is however quite frayed around the edges and
the door to the room is in the hallway to one of the dorms. Toilets are of the
UK variety and thankfully have the ability to flush paper.
I went back to the communal areas of the hostel which are
pretty nice and asked for a recommendation for a beer. I, then with bottle of
Nile in hand went to the veranda to bask in finally relaxing at the end of the
journey that started over 12 hours earlier.
The Nile was a surprisingly hoppy lager that was not too bad
at all and definitely one I’ll have more of, though not too many at 5.6%. After
messing about on the internet and having a brief siesta as I hadn’t had much
sleep during the flights. I returned to the bar / restaurant area to try a Bell
lager to accompany my first meal in Uganda.
The Bell was a bit less interesting than the Nile, but on
the flipside was only 4%. Both beers were 500ml bottles that cost 4,000 Ugandan
Schillings, less than £1 each
With beer in hand and surprisingly without me being ready to
interject in someone else’s conversation I heard my name called out and I went
up to the bar to retrieve my quintessential Ugandan delicacy of burger and
chips.
Chips were of the chip variety, strongly resembling chip
shop chips back home. They were sparingly doused and what I assumed was the
local hot sauce, which seemed nice but I could do with a bit more next time. If
I can track down this sauce I’m sure I’ll be buying more of it, unless Shoprite
stock their delectable Peri-peri dressing / sauce.
And so on to the main event, the patty was small, but
pleasing rough around the edges indicated an element of hand crafting in its
construction. It was accompanied with a nicely toasted plain bun, tomatoes,
onions and mayo.
It doesn’t quite meet up to the previous burger entries, but
not too bad at 2 out of 5. I’m sure I’ll have more in my next month in the
Hostel
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