Welcome to Uganda, You're Under Arrest! (Also You Have No Money)

I bought a bus ticket from Nairobi to Jinja, Uganda for last Friday night, leaving at 7:00 PM and taking approximately 13 hours.  My departure on Friday didn’t go as planned though.  I arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 5:00, thinking I was playing it safe.  However, Nairobi can potentially have absolutely horrendous traffic, and on Friday evening, the perfect storm took place.  Apparently there was a graduation ceremony taking place on Friday afternoon at the university, so the usually pretty bad Friday evening traffic was made even worse.  Also, it started to rain pretty much the second that I left Regina’s, which made the traffic even worse (because most of the roads are in pretty bad shape and impossible to navigate when it’s raining, and it was pouring down). Pretty much as soon as I left in my taxi, we hit gridlock traffic.  After a while it became clear that I was not going to make my bus, which means I had lost out on $23 (though I was later reimbursed for half the ticket price).  It was supposed to cost me $13 for the taxi to take me downtown, but I instead paid $30 to be stuck in traffic for two hours and return back to Regina’s for one more night.  I was really pissed off, but there was nothing I could do except plan better the next day.  I bought a ticket for the next night, Saturday, and this time arranged a taxi for 3:45PM.  On Saturday though, there was virtually no traffic.  I had arranged for my favourite taxi driver too, Ken, and he wasn’t really in much of a rush to get anywhere else for a little while, so I was able to spend some of the time before my bus left driving around downtown Nairobi in his car.  It was actually kind of nice because every time I had gone downtown before that I was dropped off at the bus stop, went directly to where I needed to go, then back to the bus stop and away from the city centre.  It’s not exactly recommended to wander around Nairobi unattended, so I hadn’t really seen the city properly.  Driving around in Ken’s taxi though, I got to see the city from an angle I hadn’t previously, and I grew to really appreciate it for what it was during that car ride.

When I got to the bus station, I still had about two hours to wait.  I didn’t know what to do with myself and it was really awkward.  Here I was, a very white mzungu, waiting in a bus station with a bunch of Africans, and I’m lugging around my gigantic backpack containing all my worldly possessions.  For two hours I was basically a zoo exhibit and I kept nervously checking my valuables.  7:00 came soon enough though and I was surprised that nothing went wrong.  I didn’t get anything stolen and the bus was actually (amazingly) on time.  It wasn’t the most luxurious bus in the world but I was definitely expecting worse.  I settled in for my 13-hour overnight journey and we were off.  The seat next to me was free for half the ride which was pretty nice.  I tried in vain to get some sleep but it wasn’t happening.  The seat was comfortable and all, but the roads in Kenya are pretty bumpy.  Every time I was getting close to dosing off, we hit a gigantic pothole or something, and I was jolted awake.  I was so tired but just couldn’t sleep.  It was stupid of me to expect that I’d be able to honestly, but so it goes.

We got to the border at about 5:30AM and I exited the bus with my passport, ready for a routine border-crossing.  What happened next was anything but.  When I gave them my passport, the person behind the glass put it to the side and said something to the other worker in Swahili.  I didn’t know what was going on but I figured they were just being diligent because I was the only non-Ugandan on the bus.  Well it turns out that it was more than that.  They asked me to come into the back room, and this was because I was being detained.  Apparently, I had only been given a one-month visa when I entered Kenya, and I had been there for 88 days.  I had always assumed that I was given a 90-day visa, that’s what it looked like and that is what is standard. Also, I had always planned on being in Kenya until December so I would have of course written “three months” on the custom form when coming in.  I told them all this, but they basically told me that they had to arrest me.  So think of that: it’s 5:30AM on the Kenya/Uganda border, I’m travelling all by myself, and two Kenyan border officials were threatening to arrest me for overstaying my visa.  I had been back there for about twenty minutes, trying to explain myself and why this was bullshit, when these two Ugandan nuns from the bus showed up at the window, wondering what the hold-up was.  There was some rapid-fire Swahili exchanged before they switched to English for my benefit.  I think that the border patrollers were looking for me to bribe them, but I had not nearly enough money on me and when the nuns showed up I think they abandoned that idea.  Eventually, the woman let me go with a warning, and warned me to not be so stupid in the future.  Really though, I think they were just trying to take advantage of me because I’m almost positive that I had been given a 90-day visa; that’s what everyone gets when they enter Kenya.  I’m really grateful that the nuns were there, because I think they guilted the border patrols into letting me go for no cost.  I then crossed the border, paid the entry fee into Uganda (another $50) and got back on the bus with all my stuff.  The rest of the passengers seemed pretty pissed off at me for holding the bus up for almost half an hour, but what could I do?  I was shaking from being nervous and spent the remaining hour and a half of the bus trip just trying to calm myself down (my plan to accomplish this was to listen to lots of BT and Bonobo, it worked pretty well).  I needed to gather my wits because I was about to show up to Jinja, a tiny town, hoping that a boda-boda driver (motorbike) would know where it is that I wanted to go, and wouldn’t rob me blind.  It’s really a sketchy experience travelling with all your stuff in a gigantic bag on your back, especially in a new and somewhat intimidating country.

Anyway, long story short, it was a traumatic overnight journey, but I arrived at my hostel at about 8:00AM, safe, unrobed, and un-arrested.  I slept off the trauma and when I woke I started planning for my time in Jinja.  It is a small town located right on the Nile River and Lake Victoria, and white-water rafting is the thing to do.  After I got settled, I headed into town to find a bank.  I was working with less than $10 cash in my pocket so I needed to find a place to withdraw Ugandan shillings.  I tried four different banks downtown, but none of them worked.  For a couple of them it was because my card was non-compatible, but the other two were just broken and weren’t working for anybody.  I was starting to get really stressed out (again) and had no idea what to do.  I asked a Ugandan woman what the deal with the ATM was and she told me that this happens all the time, which was hardly good news for me.  I needed to get money out somehow.  It turns out that this woman was actually married to a Canadian guy (from Vancouver, small world) and she called him up so that he could give me directions to the one reliable ATM in town (it was actually a little bit out of town).  I spoke to him on the phone and he told me where to go, then asked how I would be getting there.  I said boda-boda, he had expected that I had my own car.  He said it was really dangerous to get a boda-boda to take you to an ATM, so he drove to where I was to take me out there.  It was really a stroke of luck meeting his wife.  They were such nice couple and helped me around town to make sure I had my money situation sorted out.  They were actually missionaries (Jesus and co. were really on my side in Uganda so far) who spent most of their time in Uganda, but returned to Canada every once in a while.  At the ATM, I wasn’t able to withdraw very much money.  I had forgotten to move more into my chequeing account, which was no big deal, I just needed to get online back at my hostel and click some buttons.  The Canadian/Uganda couple very generously drove me back to where I was staying and we said goodbye.

I then signed on to online banking and my heart stopped for the second time in as many days.  I was missing $4000, which is nearly all the money I have saved for this trip. It said that it had been withdrawn on November 23^rd and I immediately feared the worst: that I had fallen victim to some scam while in Nairobi.  It was about 6:00AM back home, but I had no other option but to call home and get them to talk to my bank.  It was really tricky to sort out a way to call home from Uganda, especially with my phone having a Kenyan SIM-card and completely out of credit.  I paid the guy at reception to use his phone and called home, freaking out.  I woke my dad up and we had a twenty-minute conversation or so which basically amounted to “call my bank as soon as you can and let me know what is up.”  There was nothing that could be done right at that moment because it was so early in the morning, so we hung up and I nervously awaited a facebook message.  Anyway, long story short, my bank had moved $4000.00 into an account that wasn’t visible from online banking mistakenly and it was sorted out almost right away.  I was very relieved when it was all sorted, but that was only after another three or so hours of fearing that the worst had happened.  I had been in Uganda for less than two days and so far had been detained and almost arrested, and under the impression that nearly all of my money had been stolen.  Needless to say, it was a stressful couple of days.

But everything worked itself out, so on to the fun stuff.  I’m staying at a place called Nile River Explorers Backpackers Hostel, and they organize all the adventure activites in Jinja.  It’s really not that cheap considering that I’m in Uganda where an expensive meal comes to about $4, but it’s not every day that you get a chance to go Class 5 rafting on the Nile River, so I bit the bullet and signed up.  It was an all-day trip through eight sets of rapids on the Victoria Nile.  I had done rafting before (in Ecuador) but it was pretty tame and I didn’t even get to flip, so I was pleased that we flipped four times.  The other boat that was with us took the easy line on all the rapids, so they only flipped once, pansies.  There were stretches of sometimes thirty minutes or more between rapids where we would just leisurely float down the Nile, and our guides didn’t even make us paddle.  So myself and the three other mzunugus in the boat took the opportunities to tan away our pastiness in the hot Ugandan sun.  We were also served biscuits and pineapple during one stretch.  All-in-all it was immensely relaxing for a Class 5 rafting trip.  Going through the actual rapids was tonnes of fun. If I could afford to get into it back home, I would, but that shit’s expensive man.  Oh also, one of the guys in my boat looked exactly like Ben Kingsley, and his name was Ben too.  This Indian couple in the other boat was convinced that it was actually him, but it wasn’t (obviously).  At the end of the trip there was a smorgasbord waiting for us in this little hut on the riverbank, so we enjoyed the food and drinks as we processed the day of rafting fun.  There was someone taking pictures during the day, and the ones he got of our raft were actually really good.  They were charging $25 for a CD with the pictures, which is way too much, but I bought it anyway.  I don’t have a disc-drive on this little laptop, but eventually I’ll find a way to upload them so you can see shots of me hanging on for dear life.  It was a really fun day, and I wish it was cheap enough that I could afford to do it again, because I would.

Last night I went on what was essentially a booze-cruise on the Nile River, through the source, and into Lake Victoria.  It was a combo deal with the rafting, so it only cost me $15 for two plus hours of free food and alcohol.  (Don’t worry people, I made sure that I drank my money’s worth, and then some).  It left at about 5:00 PM and lasted until dark, so I got to relax with some beers on Lake Victoria while watching the sunset.  Basically, it ruled.  I met some pretty interesting people as well on the cruise, and the food was really nice too.

That was last night, so it looks like I’m finally all up to date here.  I haven’t been very detailed with this entry because there was a lot to talk about, and I’ve already been typing for far too long.  I’m hoping to head to Kampala in the next couple of days.  It’s supposed to be an absolutely crazy city, so I’m looking forward to that.  I have exactly a month until I have to be in South Africa, and I’m not exactly sure what I will be doing to fill the time, but I’m figuring it out as I go.  I think there is a chance I may check out Rwanda for a bit, but besides that I’m not sure what I’ll do.  I have no idea where I will be for Christmas, but I kind of want to be somewhere that there a plenty of like-minded people, so hopefully that works out.  Anyway, there’s my word-vomit for my week in Uganda so far, I hope you enjoyed.