The next day, we got started late. We went and got coffee for Erin, and then we went to the Baha'i temple right near my house. Sam came with us again. There was a Baha'i man there this time, who wanted to tell us everything about the Baha'i faith and where there are temples -- and he was very insistent that we visit the Baha'i temple in Chicago (the only one in North America; there's one on each continent, plus one in Central America), until he found out how far away Chicago is from where Erin and I live. We walked around the grounds, which were as beautiful and peaceful as I remember them.
To be honest, I don't even remember what we did for the rest of Thursday. At some point, though I don't remember exactly when, we went to the National Theatre craft market. Erin got some things, and I got more things, and it was pretty typical. That may have been on Thursday, or it may have been on Sunday -- this is the problem with blogging a week later. I forget exactly when we did what.
In any case, on Friday we woke up really late again and went to Kabira Country Club, about a mile from my apartment where you can pay 30,000 UGX (they raised prices!) to use the pool. It was a bit overcast, but we were working with limited time, so we went anyway. The sun came out in full force briefly, at which point we jumped in the pool, but it shortly started thundering and threatening rain, so we got out and went into the restaurant. They have pretty excellent Indian food, which we ordered. After lunch, we went to this dress shop in Bukoto that Emily had told me about, where I showed the woman this beautiful and huge bolt of fabric I had bought at the craft market and asked her to make me a dress. She said it was a lot of fabric, so Erin decided to have a dress made as well. We picked out our designs and got our measurements done, and then the day was sort of over. We briefly thought about going out to Iguana, the nightclub I always go to when I go out. However, we had decided to go to Sipi Falls over the weekend, so we made an early night of it.
On Saturday morning, Olivia, Erin and I woke up early and went to the bus station, where we caught a 9am bus to Mbale, a town in the eastern part of Uganda, near the border with Kenya. The bus ride took exactly four hours, and it wasn't bad at all. The bus conductor was hitting on Erin, but it gave us an opportunity for conversation with someone, so it was fine. When we got to Mbale, we had to get on a matatu to go to Sipi itself -- or so we thought. It turned out the matatu conductor spoke no English, so when we tried to speak to him to ask where we needed to go, he just ignored us. They also crammed more people into the matatu than I've seen in a while -- in South Africa, there are regularly 20 people in the matatus (which have seats for 12 people), but in Kampala they generally stick to 14. In Mbale, there were 25 people in the matatu; we were literally on top of each other. A Ugandan sitting next to me told us that we had to take the matatu to "the junction," and then get on another taxi. We got to the junction -- but by then, it was only the three of us left, and they just turned the matatu off and got out. We were like, what do we do now? But as soon as we got out, there were boda bodas who were asking us where we wanted to go. There was a sign that said Sipi was 12kms away, and one of the boda drivers was from Sipi, so we got three bodas and went up to Sipi.... in the rain. Which hurts on a boda, by the way.
We got to Sipi at around three in the afternoon, and the place we had made a reservation at was kind of a dump -- but very cheap. You get what you pay for. Still, we decided to stay. We ordered lunch, but they had to go into town to buy the ingredients, so it took about an hour or so for the food to be ready. We ate and then went out into Sipi, which has literally one road, to look around. We just sort of walked around a bit, attracting a lot of attention to ourselves. Everyone kept asking us if we wanted a guide to go to the falls, but we had already made an arrangement with someone through the hostel. It started to rain again, so we headed back. There was no electricity, so we read in the failing light -- and when the sun well and truly set, the hostel provided us with a kerosene lamp. Erin and Olivia both fell asleep really early, but I read for a while longer before finally being tired enough to sleep.
We woke up the next morning, ate breakfast, and set out for our hike. I was really nervous, because they kept talking about a 10km hike, and I was imagining it was all uphill and that I was going to die. But we ended up paying for the "medium circuit" hike, and I was actually fine. We hiked to two tiers of one waterfall, then over and up behind a second waterfall. The area is absolutely beautiful, and the waterfalls were very pretty. I slipped in the mud and fell down at one point, getting really dirty but thankfully not hurting myself; inevitable. We walked back into town just as everyone was getting out of church.
To be honest, I don't even remember what we did for the rest of Thursday. At some point, though I don't remember exactly when, we went to the National Theatre craft market. Erin got some things, and I got more things, and it was pretty typical. That may have been on Thursday, or it may have been on Sunday -- this is the problem with blogging a week later. I forget exactly when we did what.
In any case, on Friday we woke up really late again and went to Kabira Country Club, about a mile from my apartment where you can pay 30,000 UGX (they raised prices!) to use the pool. It was a bit overcast, but we were working with limited time, so we went anyway. The sun came out in full force briefly, at which point we jumped in the pool, but it shortly started thundering and threatening rain, so we got out and went into the restaurant. They have pretty excellent Indian food, which we ordered. After lunch, we went to this dress shop in Bukoto that Emily had told me about, where I showed the woman this beautiful and huge bolt of fabric I had bought at the craft market and asked her to make me a dress. She said it was a lot of fabric, so Erin decided to have a dress made as well. We picked out our designs and got our measurements done, and then the day was sort of over. We briefly thought about going out to Iguana, the nightclub I always go to when I go out. However, we had decided to go to Sipi Falls over the weekend, so we made an early night of it.
On Saturday morning, Olivia, Erin and I woke up early and went to the bus station, where we caught a 9am bus to Mbale, a town in the eastern part of Uganda, near the border with Kenya. The bus ride took exactly four hours, and it wasn't bad at all. The bus conductor was hitting on Erin, but it gave us an opportunity for conversation with someone, so it was fine. When we got to Mbale, we had to get on a matatu to go to Sipi itself -- or so we thought. It turned out the matatu conductor spoke no English, so when we tried to speak to him to ask where we needed to go, he just ignored us. They also crammed more people into the matatu than I've seen in a while -- in South Africa, there are regularly 20 people in the matatus (which have seats for 12 people), but in Kampala they generally stick to 14. In Mbale, there were 25 people in the matatu; we were literally on top of each other. A Ugandan sitting next to me told us that we had to take the matatu to "the junction," and then get on another taxi. We got to the junction -- but by then, it was only the three of us left, and they just turned the matatu off and got out. We were like, what do we do now? But as soon as we got out, there were boda bodas who were asking us where we wanted to go. There was a sign that said Sipi was 12kms away, and one of the boda drivers was from Sipi, so we got three bodas and went up to Sipi.... in the rain. Which hurts on a boda, by the way.
We got to Sipi at around three in the afternoon, and the place we had made a reservation at was kind of a dump -- but very cheap. You get what you pay for. Still, we decided to stay. We ordered lunch, but they had to go into town to buy the ingredients, so it took about an hour or so for the food to be ready. We ate and then went out into Sipi, which has literally one road, to look around. We just sort of walked around a bit, attracting a lot of attention to ourselves. Everyone kept asking us if we wanted a guide to go to the falls, but we had already made an arrangement with someone through the hostel. It started to rain again, so we headed back. There was no electricity, so we read in the failing light -- and when the sun well and truly set, the hostel provided us with a kerosene lamp. Erin and Olivia both fell asleep really early, but I read for a while longer before finally being tired enough to sleep.
We woke up the next morning, ate breakfast, and set out for our hike. I was really nervous, because they kept talking about a 10km hike, and I was imagining it was all uphill and that I was going to die. But we ended up paying for the "medium circuit" hike, and I was actually fine. We hiked to two tiers of one waterfall, then over and up behind a second waterfall. The area is absolutely beautiful, and the waterfalls were very pretty. I slipped in the mud and fell down at one point, getting really dirty but thankfully not hurting myself; inevitable. We walked back into town just as everyone was getting out of church.
We were finished with the hike and back at our hostel by around 1pm, and they called boda bodas to take us back down to the junction to meet a matatu back to Mbale. We had planned to stay the night in Mbale, but it was early enough that we got another bus back to Kampala that very afternoon, which I think we were all happy about. Sam met us at the drop-off point, and Olivia, Erin and I went to dinner immediately -- we hadn't had much to eat that day. Sam offered to wait, but it was his day off and I didn't want to feel rushed (I hate when people are waiting for me), so I told him to go home. He said he would, but then after dinner he was still there. Sigh. So Sam took me home, and Erin and Olivia shared the taxi that we had all planned to take home. Sam gave me a present -- a bunch of sweet bananas and passion fruits, and then he left.
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