Friday night happy hour…at the airport

This weekend a bunch of VolCons planned a semi-last minute trip to Uganda to go out to the small town of Jinja, a lush outdoor sports center about 2 hours away from Kampala. The planning of this trip was a logistical masterwork on the part of one of us – 6 people became 12 coming from 2 different locations at 3 different times. But it was pulled it off, with minor hiccups.

Friday afternoon we booked it to Nairobi airport for our short 1 hour flight, which was, of course, delayed. This gave me the opportunity to try Tusker, as a one hour delay turned into a several beer delay. Not a bad way to spend a Friday evening, although I would have preferred nicer settings than an airport lounge.

Upon landing at the airport in Entebbe (look at a map) the swine flu police met us, complete with white uniforms and surgical masks. After passing the honor test for symptoms (check “yes” if you have a cold), it was just a matter of another exorbitant East African Visa fee before we were withdrawing $50,000Ush from our bank accounts (exchange rate is ~2000/dollar) at the airport ATM.

Our newfound wealth went to pay our hotel driver, who arrived with a front seat passenger - a bookcase he had clearly picked up on the road. This unwieldy guest accompanied us into Kampala, along the best roads I’ve seen in Africa. In Kampala, we picked up a VolCon and some very expensive burgers at a huge, fancy, empty western-style hotel.

After stuffing our faces (we for some reason had trouble eating normally all weekend), we proceeded out to Jinja, where we finally arrived at the campsite to an almost empty bar overlooking the wide expanse of the Nile River. We gratefully fell into our little twin beds in our permanent tent, but not before my tent mates laughed at my attempt to MacGyver my mosquito net to the tent. Hey, the family saying is “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite!”