African Safari 2019-Chimps, Gorillas, and the Migration

Day 1-3  Travel

Our first few days of travel, were just that, travel.  Overnight in Boston, early flight to London and overnight there ( to avoid not sleeping on a plane), meet up with Molly and Dave (who did NOT sleep on the plane) in London for our flight to Nairobi Kenya, overnight in Nairobi, and finally, this morning (actually afternoon since the flight was delayed 2 hours) a flight to Entebbe, Uganda.  Tonight we spend the night at a hotel in Kampala and tomorrow morning we are off to the jungle.
I'm exhausted just reading all this.

When we arrived in Nairobi we had to get a special East African visa that would allow us to go in and out of Kenya and Uganda.  While standing on line, a young immigration totally devoted Dave when she inquired whether he was over 70!  This apparently allows expedited service for your visa.  If he knew the reason for the question, he might have sucked it up and said yes.  As it turns out, we were about the last to get through the line.  By the time we got to the hotel, we were all pretty wiped.

Nairobi is apparently not the safest of cities.  Our flight attendant told us that when they overnight here, they cannot leave the hotel grounds.  Our hotel was a mini-fortress.  Entry was through a heavy gate with steel retractable posts.  A guard carefully inspected our vehicle before dropping the steel barricades.  A metal detector was the final line of defense for getting into the hotel.

 The hotel is very modern with extremely comfortable rooms.  You wouldn't have a clue as to what was going on outside.

After a great breakfast, we were transported back to the airport for the flight to Uganda.  Unfortunately, after getting there 2 hours early, we found out that the flight was delayed by 2 hours.  The airport did not have the amenities (or the air-conditioning) of Heathrow and it was a rather unpleasant few hours.

On arrival in Entebbe, Uganda, we couldn't help but think about the Jews held hostage here by Idi Amin, and the daring raid by the Israeli army to rescue the hostages.  The airport has many old dilapidated areas that may have been where the hostages were held.  But that was many years ago (1976), Amin is gone, and the people we have met, so far, couldn't be nicer.  We had a guide that whisked us through passport control and got us to our driver.  Traffic at the airport was crazy, and this didn't let up until we reached our hotel in Kampala.

Kampala is the capital of Uganda and home to about 4 million.  There is a significant amount of poverty here with the unemployment rate at about 70% in young people.  The lack of infrastructure was clearly evident until we entered the downtown area of Kampala.  There is one main highway that connects Entebbe and Kampala, but off the main road, roads are primarily dirt.

No matter how bad it is at home, traveling always reminds us how blessed we really are.

Not sure if the camps in the bush will have Wifi, so keep checking back.