4:00am – Wake up.
5:00am – Leave Jinja and ride in a van to the bus station in Kampala.
7:00am – Unload van and load stuff on a bus at the most chaotic bus station I have ever been to. There is no schedule of bus times or any identification for which bus goes where… thankfully English is the national language of Uganda and you can ask people questions and they will understand you.
7:30am – Unload stuff from bus and walk 15 min. to another bus and proceed to load everything on to that bus.
[Sit on the bus while street vendors walk through the bus selling everything from watches to school books and hair clippers. Try to not breath in deathly carbon monoxide fumes coming in the windows from all the other buses.]
9:00am – Leave bus station from Kampala and travel to Lira.
9:30am – Bathroom break at local gas station. Hello African squatty- which is a squatty shape but just a hole dug deep in the ground. Hope you make it in the hole cause there ain’t no water to clean things up like there is in Asia 🙂
[Try to sleep but can’t really move my legs or arms. At all.]
11:30am – Bus stops and everyone from the street runs up to the window to sell you meat on a stick, chipotti, and fruit. I buy pineapple for 500 shillings (around $.25).
[Continue reading the “Circle” serious by Ted Dekker on my Kindle. Phenomenal!]
3:00pm – Arrive in Lira.
[We miss our bus to Pader because our first bus was late leaving. It is raining. We walk 15 minutes to a restaurant where we can put all our bags. Walked by a naked man dancing in the street. Nobody seemed to think that was strange.]
4:00pm – Load all the bags on top of a van and try to cram 7 people inside where there are already people taking up three seats. We fit 3 people into one front seat with our day packs on top of us. After 5 minutes we are told we will not all fit and must get out. The guys unload all the bags off the top of the van and set them on a nearby porch so they don’t continue getting soaked. We walk 20 minutes to go get food. I take a motorcycle taxi to the ATM because I realize I have no money to pay for our next ride.
5:30pm – Hop in a jeep with our things loaded on top to leave for Rackoko/Pader.
8:30pm – After three hours of riding in the mud, almost getting stuck, being jolted by crazy pot holes, and crammed to the point where you literally can not move, we made it!
[We didn’t have to touch our bags cause there we’re at least 5 rather large (compared to the last six months is Asia) men all waiting for us and help carry our things. We enjoy meeting our contact while reliving the last 16 hours of craziness over a cup of coffee. In the midst of conversation, our security guard suddenly stomps on and kills a rat…with his bare feet.]
Just another day in Africa I suppose 🙂
