Uganda is a country in East Africa, the region that includes several countries, and the unified language is Swahili. Hakuna Matata, y’all.
I did a quick HIV/AIDS volunteering program near Kampala in Mutungo. After the program, I had the opportunity to explore parts of the country.
How I Got There
As usual whenever I travel, I either take a United flight or search for the cheapest flight on kayak.com. I wrote an article about how I stick to flying on United as much as possible to cash out big with my miles.
For this trip, I flew from Cape Town to Entebbe through South African Airways.
Here are my top 3 favorite things I did in Uganda.
1. Gorilla Trek – Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
Without a doubt – the top and once-in-a-lifetime highlight. I did a weekend tour of finding the endangered mountain gorillas, which included a roundtrip ride from Kampala to where we stayed for two nights near the park. I paid $1300, which was worth every penny.
Unfortunately, because it was so expensive, this cut into my budget for a visit to Kenya, but that will be for another day.
Candy Bar Fun Fact: to even have the license to enter the park to see the gorillas, it’s $600. I heard from a Chilean traveler that he was able to enter the park by paying $600 himself and avoided overpriced tours, but he had to find his way to the west side of the country himself.
After we left Kampala and after nearly 13 hours of driving, we finally arrived near Bwindi Impenetrable National Park at a hotel, and we spent the night there.
Tour Guides
The next morning, we arrived at the park, and we subsequently hiked for about an hour. Prior to 2010-ish, the tourists and the tour guides had to find the gorillas themselves. However, when I went, the Ugandan officials were like “jk” and found the gorillas first, and the officials coordinated with the tour guides, then we would hike straight to the gorillas. I loved that.
Above shown is one of our tour guides cutting through the bushes to create small pathways to the gorillas.
Gorillas
Selfie with a Gorilla
I can’t believe I got that close to the gorillas.
And did you really do the gorilla trek if you didn’t take a selfie with a gorilla? Absolutely not.
I know exactly what you’re thinking. That my beautiful mullet is distracting, but please give some credit to the gorilla in the background.
Tribes near Bwindi
And on day two, we did a tour of around the mountains where we got to meet some of the people from the indigenous tribes near Bwindi.
I’ll never forget it.
2. Lake Victoria – Kalanga Island
Where is Kalanga Island? Google Maps location here. We took a boat from Entebbe and arrived at one of the many islands in Lake Victoria.
I grabbed a beer and enjoyed an insane sunset looking into Lake Victoria from one of the resorts.
Lake Victoria – Kalanga Island
3. Boda Boda Tour of Kampala
I usually hate doing organized city tours, but I think the Boda Boda (meaning motorcycle) Tour was perfect for a city like Kampala. Kampala is congested with traffic from every direction.
Plus, generally speaking, Kampala is just a huge city in area (and population for that matter), and having a Boda Boda take you all over the city is a quick and efficient way to do it.
Our volunteering program offered us a “Boda Boda Tour Kampala”.
Here were some highlights of the tour: The New Taxi Park (Google Maps location)
The New Taxi Park
This is right next to the market. I have never seen such craziness in one parking lot. Returning to the suburbs of Kampala was always an adventure, full of people and chaos.
This is one parking lot where I could have headed to the airport in Entebbe from Kampala. As you can see, it is CRAZINESS, but people in Kampala find ways to get it done. I constantly had to remind myself to be careful – don’t let them rip you off just because you’re a muzungu.
Obviously, you can’t do a Kampala tour without passing by Kabaka’s Palace, so we went there.
There was this really cool fruit market right next to that Taxi Park.
Fruit Market Taxi Park
Also, very underrated: I was VERY impressed with the food in Uganda. I did not expect it to be as good as it was because, you know, it’s not exactly Dim Sum from Hong Kong.
Food
What is that above? Rice, avocados, matoke, lamb. Very delicious.
Honorable Mentions
The Equator!
The Equator!
Where I Stayed
I stayed with the volunteering organization in their dorms.
By the way, I wrote a separate article on How I Choose Where I Stay when I Travel.
If I Had More Time, I Would Have…
Kayak down the Nile River in Jinja. A lot of my friends went off to do this (instead of the Gorilla Trek).
I would have wanted to do a safari tour that includes passing by Murchison Falls.
Closing Remarks
I did Uganda right. I’m happy with it. I spent 2 weeks volunteering in Kijjansi/Mutungo, which I would call a “suburb” of Kampala, and I spent one week touring around the country.
The Gorilla Trek was truly once in a lifetime. Kampala was a unique and an incredible city, and having a beer with the sunset bouncing off Lake Victoria during sunset was amazing.
With fewer than 1000 mountain gorillas in the world, Uganda has done an amazing job of preserving the existence of the gorillas while making it an attractive point of interest for the rest of the world.
Uganda was my welcome to East Africa moment. It may be easy to think “3rd-world country”, but I think of very positive memories when I think of Uganda. There is just so much more to see and I’m excited to return to the East Africa region one day.
