Uganda Adventure: Day 3; To Fort Portal

Last night, or rather this morning, I got a bit more sleep, but still not enough. For some reason, the buildings here have virtually no sound insulation. After a quick breakfast and some picture taking, we left the place around 11. We again avoided the downtown area and headed west toward Fort Portal.

Along the way we passed many little places, some with only a handful of huts. Pretty much all the same looking. Very, very poor. Mud houses, goats, chicken, bare-feet children, women doing laundry, children in uniforms playing in school yards, men making bricks. Bricks they make from their red clay dirt, that is everywhere (and every evening I realize on me that it gets into everywhere :)) Men would chisel it and then mold it into brick shape. Then they lay the bricks for some sun-drying for a few weeks. After that they bake the bricks piled into cube stacks with grass around and on top of them. I suppose the smoke we smell in the air everywhere we go also comes from the brick making.

After 3.5 hours on the bumpy roads, some made with just dirt, we stopped at a town called Mubende. Whenever a bus/van stops there, the locals come running toward them with food to sell; baked chicken and goat/beef kabobs, sweet potatoes (lumonde), green bananas (matoke) served stemmed or mashed, sweet yellow bananas (gonje) served roasted, kasava root. They swarm the vehicle offering the food through the windows. We called it the ‘drive thru’ service. Ada and I walked around a bit, and they started calling out for us as Muzungu (while people). We ate some of that food at the restaurant, so our stop lasted over an hour. The rest of the trip, the road was good.

The country side was so beautiful: green hills, very tall trees, some trees with really bright yellow flowers, palms, banana trees, tea plantations, and tall marshes. Many, many people, and even bare-foot children coming from school, were walking on the side of the street between villages. Also on the road, cows, goats, and baboons!


So much beauty amongst so much poverty.


The weather is absolutely beautiful. While we ate lunch at the stop, I was even chilly in long pants and a T-shirt. I don’t feel the humidity at all.
We arrived at our resort hotel Mountains of the Moon just after 6.

This place is fantastic. It looks like some old plantation. It is so different from the scenes we've been seeing in the last few hours. They wheeled our bags into the rooms, while we were served fresh watermelon juice out on the porch. The room is all tip-top, with a nice balcony looking over into a manicured garden. The bathroom has a rain shower heads, and even little toiletries, which I didn't expect to get in Uganda. The property has several little 'oasis' areas with beautiful flowers and seating arrangements. Pool and sauna as well.

I was thrilled to find a computer room with the Internet, so I can let my family know we have arrived and everything is OK, and to post some of these musings. We ate a wonderful buffet dinner out on the porch, where it actually felt a bit chilly even with long sleeves.

It's midnight now, and I think I am ready to retire to my quarters. I know I've been saying this for the past few days, but tonight I really think I will be sleeping well. (keeping my fingers crossed :))