From the plane window we could see part of the old terminal as we taxied in. When the Israelis made a brief visit in 1976 it looked like this …
Once we were parked it was obscured by the new building added to the front. New is a relative term, the new terminal is looking pretty shabby.
The taxi ride to the Airport View Hotel took about 10 minutes. The streetscape was typical Africa, concrete terraced shops, razor ribbon on the walls, a security guard armed with a rifle outside a corner store, people walking, in fact lots of people walking. We turned left off the main road onto a deeply rutted dirt road. The places on either side were large with impressive fences and gates, a stark contrast to the road. A nice neighbourhood and a nice comfortable hotel.
We wasted no time getting out into the surrounds. The hotel gardens offered up African Grey Parrots, Sunbirds, Weavers, Storks, the gorgeous Ross’s Turaco and this beautiful Double-toothed Barbet …
A promising beginning.
In the course of the evening meal we sampled a couple of the local beers and agreed that the Nile Special got the blue ribbon.
A little guide book in my room informs me that Uganda has a population of about 38 million, the capital is Kampala (about 1.8 million), the President is Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (since 1986) and the currency is Ugandan Shillings ($1 Au will currently buy you 2,700 Shillings, $100 and it will be hard to close your wallet). The local languages fall into five groups. Within each group people can understand other dialects but there is too great a difference between the groups for any of them to be the lingua franca, for that reason the official languages are English and Swahili. The power plugs are 3 pin English style, 240 volts.
Perhaps not everything you need to know about Uganda but a handy start.
bobmcgee 