Day Trip to Entebbe

On Saturday a few friends asked me if I would be up for a day trip to Entebbe the next day. Not having any definite plans, and always up for a spontaneous adventure, I said that I was game.

Entebbe is the “seaside” city for Kampala, located on Lake Victoria about 30 miles south of the Kampala. It is the site of Uganda’s international airport, but I did not get to see much of the city since it was dark when I arrived. Even though it is much smaller than Kampala, it has an interesting history and did serve as the capital for a few years while Uganda was a British protectorate.

So yesterday (Sunday) morning I met up with two other Midwesterners that I have randomly linked up with while over here – Justin from Chicago (one of Tyler Strom’s older brother’s best friends) and Sarah from Wisconsin – and we hopped on a mutatu en route to Entebbe. The ride there wasn’t bad at all. The mutatu was full but there was plenty of airflow and no significant traffic jam, and it only took about 50 minutes to make the 30 mile journey. Definitely worth the $1.50 cost!

Our first stop was at a government mapping & surveying office. Supposedly they have very nice maps of Uganda, but being Sunday it was, of course, closed. I’ll have to check back next time I’m in Entebbe. The three of us then moved on to the Entebbe Botanical Garden, a beautiful park established in 1902. We saw plenty of native plants and animals (the vervet monkeys were definitely the highlight) and some interesting nonnative vegetation (who knew that cinnamon and nutmeg were both trees???). Add to that some gorgeous views of the lake and it was well worth our time.

We next went on a scavenger hunt trying to find a Lao restaurant that was mentioned in my Lonely Planet book (they made a specific differentiation between Lao and Thai, so we were interested). After walking for 45 minutes and covering most of the town, we decided that the place didn’t exist. I’m learning that all Ugandan maps showing locations of restaurants/hotels/attractions actually just give a general idea of the location, since this is the third time I’ve ended up wandering aimlessly with a group in search of a restaurant while following what we believed to be a credible map. We eventually settled on fish & chips at a local restaurant, along with a couple bottles of water to quench the thirst after the trek.

The second major stop of the day was the Uganda Wildlife Education Center, an animal orphanage established as a sanctuary for animals that wouldn’t be able to fend for themselves in the wild. The $10 admission fee was a little steep but definitely worth it when I got to have a free-ranging vervet monkey come up to me and start “petting” my leg. In addition to that, I got to see the lions, rhinos, chimps, monkeys, crocodiles, snakes, zebras, and several types of birds that were all housed in the park. We capped off the day with a few refreshments at a lake-side restaurant (although the lake is big enough that it feels like it’s ocean-side) before hopping back on another mutatu back to Kampala.

I was very impressed with Entebbe. It's a very attractive city that offers a much-needed break from the pollution and congestion that plagues Kampala. The entire trip lasted about 12 hours and cost a little under $25 – not a bad day at all!

Cheers!
Chris

Note: A few people pointed out a grammatical error from my last post: "brakes" should have been "breaks." Although the bus was in a dilapidated state, it did still have functioning brakes! Thanks for catching that!


Pic: Supposedly some of the old Tarzan movies were filmed in the Entebbe Botanical Garden...