Visà-vis

Monday, 5th July. GMT: 11:17 . Kampala Time: 1.17

The second leg of the journey was rather nicer than the first. Egyptian air has a friendly slap-dash feel to it, with the drinks being served out of bottles. The food is several orders of magnitude better than my first flight with “British Midlands International” and the people on the plane friendlier. The canny folks at Egyptian-air seemingly don’t hire Xenophobes as cabin-crew.

Sat next to a near-woodhousian American grand-matriarch and her younger companion. Going by the name of Sandy, my chatty American neighbour loved making friends and I was well and truly befriended. She waxed lyrical about every subject under the sun from how opinion on Obama was divided because Americans were racist to how I had a very English laugh, which was a secret blessing. Her friend was a lot more reserved and, I think, was beginning to despair of how many friends Sandy was going to have picked up by the end of the trip. They both asked me if I’d brought my yellow fever certificate, which was apparently vital for getting a visa. I knew exactly where my yellow fever certificate was: sitting on the dresser at home. A fact that worried me no end.

Luckily, after a long que for visas, they didn’t even bother checking if I’d had the jab, let alone the certificate.

“How long you stay” yelled the sleepy and angry looking airport guard.
“3rd of July to the 17th of September” I replied.
“Ah, Two Month!”
“No, no, um three”, I raised my eyebrows
“TWO MONTH!”
“Three. Thankyou”

I handed over the $50 dollars and headed out, checking my visa. Luckily the two had been scribbled out and replaced with a three. Close shave.

Finding a taxi at the airport was not too difficult. Several smiling taxi drivers jumped on me the moment I walked out the door. Haggling was rather more difficult, but eventually managed to bring the driver round to twenty five dollars. Only two more than the $23 it had been recommended I pay to get to the guesthouse.

The trip to the hostel was very dark, but my first impressions of Africa were positive. If anything can said about the 25 km to Kampala from Entebe, its that it all looked very African. The thrown together huts and shacks, the bird noises, the green banana plants, the markets overflowing with tropical fruits – it was exactly as I’d imagined it, but a bit more-so.

Apart from watching the beautiful Vervets, a species of Catarrhini with bright, aqua-blue bollocks, the last two days have been fairly uneventful. Could not sleep last night so sat awake. The sleeves of my sleeping jumper smelt of Lana’s room, which filled me with homesickness, but these waves of self-pity were cut short by a rather vicious nose-bleed. Nothing like loosing a quart of blood to banish the blues.

Alex turned up this morning and we’re about to head out into town. More on that when I come back.