Uganda!!!

I was not so good at taking pictures in Uganda...oops!  But reading is fun too, right??  I thought I'd give you the full adventure here, since my last entry was not so informative.

Day 1:  Stacey and I arrived in Jinja around 4PM, after a seemingly endless and uncomfortable matatu ride.  We checked into the hostel, and then went out to find lunch/dinner (it was an odd time for a meal).  We ate at a restaurant that had mzungu food!  Crazy!!  I'm talkin pizzas, burgers, lasagna...the whole works!  I had a veggie burger and boy, it was fantastic!  And then to top it off, we bought some ice cream at the supermarket and ate it while exploring Main Street.  We spent the night in a tent because there were no dorm rooms left, but it was probably for the best, because we were at a party hostel and most of the guests had just returned from a booze cruise.  The tent was superduper comfy though!

Jinja has a lot of splended advertisements like the one above.

Day 2:  Shopping in Jinja!  Stacey, Sabrina, Juli and I went shopping in all the craft stores.  By the end, I basically perfected my bargaining skills.  A parade passed us while we were shopping!  Something to do with elections...

We tried to go to the Nile Gardens, but the pikipiki drivers took us to the Nile Garden Hotel instead...which was nice I guess, but probably not a real tourist attraction.  So then we decided to go see the source of the Nile, where the river flows out of Lake Victoria.  When we got there, we realized there were visitors fees.  So we decided just to go home, since we'd be up close and personal with the Nile the next day anyways. 

That night after dinner in the hostel, we were going to go to a concert with some of our new Ugandan friends. The concert was supposed to be two of Uganda's most popular musicians, but when we got there, it was cancelled!!! Bummer! So we went to a bar instead. Ugandan nightlife sure is...interesting.

Day 3:  RAFTING DAYYYY!!!  I don't even know how to describe our adventures!  It felt like we were in the water more than on the raft.  Yeah, that's right -- I went swimming in the Nile River!!  The rapids were crazy and really only scary when I was stuck under the boat, but it was sooo much fun!!!  I'll try to put up pictures soon so you can see just how crazy it was!

Day 4:  A long journey back to Kenya.  We went grocery shopping for cookies and chocolate to use up all our remaining Ugandan shillings before crossing the border.  Finally being back in the village feels good!  I missed those familiar sounds of unseen children yelling, "Hi! How are you?!"