Entebbe

January 8, 2025 - from the itinerary: Day at Leisure

We have arrived in Uganda which we now know to be the pearl of Africa. This phrase was popularized by explorer Winston Churchill (not the UK statesman) in his 1908 book called "My African Journey" because of its natural beauty and diverse landscapes.

Entebbe sits on the shores of Lake Victoria. It is Uganda's former colonial capital. We are staying in the No. 5 Boutique Hotel - not sure what numbers 1-4 are like, but this is quite nice and only about 6 miles from the airport. We seem to have scored an apartment room type which doesn't seem fair, given Lisa did all the work.

Jet lag wasn’t much of an issue for us, thank goodness, and we enjoyed a lovely breakfast and catch up with all our friends.  On this trip are:

Lisa and Rob

Ann 

Vena

Chris and John (cousins)

At noon we left for our afternoon tour of the swamp and a sunset cruise. 

It was a bit longer than I anticipated because I was expecting the sun to set at about 6pm - like in England - forgetting that we are at the equator and the sun didn’t set until closer to 7pm.  Uganda is getting ready for an election so there were many people walking around wearing their chosen politician and many folks with loud speakers. 

Our tour guide was Agnes who had corn row hair.  I asked her how long it took to do her hair-3-4 hours. And it needs to be done once or twice/month.  

We started our trip across Lake Victoria in a speed boat to the swamp.  Lake Victoria is the second-largest fresh water lake in the world (by surface area), after Lake Superior, and is bordered by Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya.  

Along the way we saw this pair of eagles, one of which was hunting.  

At the swamp we switched to cigar boats and crossed to the Mabamba Swamp.  The cleared area was a very busy water highway which was a surprise.  Cigar boats transported people and their cargo, including motorcycles.

The African sun was very hot, but we were very fortunate to see 3 shoebill storks.  This was the highlight of my afternoon. 

We also saw many beautiful African waterlilies and papyrus plants.

We transferred back to the speed boat and went to see the actual equator.  There were many African flies around - thankfully they didn’t bite - as we got off the boat for the photo next to the Uganda equator sign.  This sign is a bit off the equator, but we did get photos of actually going over the equator line on our compasses.

We spent some time watching the fishermen and learning a bit about the Ssese Islands, including one island where the locals raised pigs and islands where women aren’t allowed.  There are about 84 islands in the group.

There was a discussion about the lake water levels that rose quite a bit during Covid and are only starting to come down now.  The high water levels meant some people needed to be relocated off the lower lying islands.

Then we went to see the place where Entebbe got its name.  Entebbe means chair in English.  The king used to hold court on an island and those found guilty were taken off to a penal colony on another island (name forgotten). The island had big rocks.  The king used them as a chair to sit when he passed judgement.  These rocks are located just off an area of coastline near the airport.  The high point of Chris’ day was watching the Emirates jet take off over us as we saw the Entebbe chair.

We took a short side trip to see the remnants of the royal family of that king who live on a small island in a cave where they have ceremonies for their various gods.

There was a small revolution when people got tired and just wanted to go back to the hotel.  The sun wasn’t going to set for a few more hours and it was quite cloudy.  We still had to make one stop to see the fish haul of Nile carp - big fish.- and a very sad market.  The one positive experience at this market was seeing the church choir rehearse and listening to a few stories by the drum player about the church history in the area.  

We didn’t want to see the second market or the craft market and finally convinced the guide to take us back.  Still we had to wait for about 20 minutes for the car and so, by default, had to see the second market.  

Chris then somehow struck up a conversation with a local policeman who had a very big gun.  His name was also Chris.  What followed was a pretty funny conversation which, thankfully, was very friendly.  Along the way a woman wanted to buy Buni off me, but I declined.  The children thought Chris’ white bald head to be very funny.

Back finally to the hotel for a cool drink and a briefing followed by a nice group dinner and bed.  Tomorrow starts at 4:15am.

Here's a short video of the day.