After spending a day looking around Kampala, changing money and generally trying to work out what day it was, I suggested to Ann that we should wander out of Kampala and see a bit of the country. She suggested going to a town called Jinja, about an hour to the East of Kampala. This rather faded town was once to be the capital of Uganda, but kampala won out. All Jinja's buildings date from around the 1940's and it shows. The whole town looks tired and faded. The taxi drivers are just as predatory though, so watch it if you ever go here.
We decided, after looking in the local freebie mag, The Eye (well-useful) to stay at the Jinja Nile Resort. Tres plush 4-star jobbie with pool, bars, restaurants, health club, chalets and all for only US$75 a night for the two of us. Sounded good, so we went down to the bus station in the middle of Kampala to get the post bus up to Jinja. Post buses are a bit posher, cost more and go faster. The fares on these buses work out to be about just over a dollar to go about 80km!
So, afetr arriving and finding a taxi driver who didn't charge too much to the mzungu (white person) we were off.
Lovely place too, about 10 minutes out of Jinja itself, the resort was set on the top of a range of hills running along the banks of the Nile, just downstream from the dam on Lake Victoria. After checking in (and being a bit gobsmacked about how nice the place was), we headed off to our chalet via the bar for a swiftie as it was, after all, about 28 degrees!! |
