How To Live Like a Rockstar When You are Not One...
by The Beave · Published February 22, 2016 · Last modified November 24, 2016
Uganda to Kenya: Hitchhiking with a German and Sniffing Tobacco. Feb 22 I ate breakfast and went for a venture around Jinja. The “Source of the Nile” is here, as this is where Lake Victoria channels into what is the River Nile that goes all of the way to the Mediterranean Sea. The longest river in the world starts here! I decided that I needed to go and have a look at something that is such a big deal. It...
Whitewater Rafting the Nile River. Feb 21 – Kampala, Uganda. My telephone rang at 05:51. It was my Ronald from Nalubale Rafting. He was looking for the hotel in Kampala where I was staying. Ronald arrived at the hotel at 06:10. 06:10! They had told me last night that he would be there at 06:15. Five minutes early? In Africa? Wow! A professionalism seldom experienced on this continent…! Ronald helped me to get my backpack in the car and we drove...
Feb 18, 2016 Uganda Elections. Kampala, Uganda. Today is a big day for Uganda. One of the biggest in recent history. Holy! I just looked up at the television showing elections taking place as I started writing this and across the screen it says, “Besigye Arrested.” Kizza Besigye is the opposition leader to the current president Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. President Museveni, has been in office from January 1986 to now. Actually, I just looked the dates up on Wikipedia...
Kampala: Uganda 2016 Election Day 3. Feb 20, 2016 Uganda Elections. Kampala, Uganda. The suspense has built until today, though it was clear that the incumbent Yoweri Museveni would win the 2016 Ugandan election for presidency over Kizza Besigye. Also, obvious to everyone who has paid even the slightest amount of attention to the past two days is that corruption has prevailed and has been in control of the election. Today, a European Union governing committee on hand was pleading...
Kampala: Uganda 2016 Election Day 2. Feb 19 Uganda Elections 2016 Kampala, Uganda. Well, today was relatively quiet as provisional results for the polls began coming in for the Ugandan election. The 30 year dictator, Yoweri Museveni, is in the voting lead, but his position is not with accusations of scandals and corruption. Opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, the only other real competitor in the election, has been arrested again today by local authorities. He has now been arrested two times...
Kampala: Ugandan 2016 Election Day 1. Feb 18, 2016 Uganda Election Day. Kampala, Uganda. Today is a big day for Uganda. One of the biggest in recent history. Holy! I just looked up at the television showing elections taking place as I started writing this and across the screen it says, “Besigye Arrested.” Kizza Besigye is the opposition leader to the current president Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. President Museveni, has been in office from January 1986 to now. Actually, I...
Kampala: A Gorgeous Translation of Ugly Voices and Smacking Locals. Feb 17 I left the guesthouse in Entebbe at about 14:00 and went to a restaurant to meet Stella, who wants to accompany me to Kampala. I figured that would be fun and a pretty lady companion for a couple of days would probably be a good time. Stella and I caught a mini-van to Kampala, and went to check in a day early for the hotel room I had...
Masindi to Entebbe: Smooth Ridin’ Boring Timin’. Feb 16 My hotel cleaning ladies seem to have a thing for me. Both of them were in my room this morning. One of them was on my bed and asked me to take her with me when I leave. I asked her if she wanted to fall in love and if I was looking at my future right now. She told me she wants to see Europe and North America. She asked...
The Fair Museum in Masindi. Feb 15 I took a maintenance day today. Being up until 06:00 to try to catch up on life is generally just borrowing most of tomorrow for more of today. But, when you are on a roll, it is hard to stop to reset for the following day. Masindi is stifling hot. I walked around and checked out the town in the afternoon, though being in the sun was like being a turkey in an...
Butiaba to Masindi: Scrap-Heap Car Adventures. Feb 14 Happy Valentine’s Day! The closest I got to romance was this: I walked into a cheap hotel in a town called Masindi in Uganda. While I was waiting for a receptionist to appear, I noticed on the wall was a glass cabinet that said “Free Condoms” on the outside of it. I wondered what kind of a hotel this was. Free condoms is a bargain price. I went to take a handful,...
Fort Portal to Butiaba: Cheats, Near Collisions, and Jerry Can Showers. Feb 13. To get from Fort Portal to Butiabam, I got up and found a mini-van leaving Fort Portal and heading north to a town called Hoima. 30,000 shillings ($8.80). When I asked, they told me it was going to take about three hours to get to Hoima. One always needs to double that number to mentally prepare for the actual arrival time… As I was sitting and waiting...
Fort Portal: Death Threats and Crater Lakes. Feb 12. Well, today has not been easy. I tried to get through to Hostgator because my website went down. I tried live chat for 30 minutes and then the website would reset itself. I tried again for 30 minutes and then it would reset itself again. I called them and lost the connection. I called them again and got through. I talked to a man. He said the site was working. I...
Lake Bunyonyi to Fort Portal: Tired Man. Feb 11. I got up early, had breakfast and checked out of Wilfred’s Place. It is a beautiful property, but I need to get going and see more of the country. Plus, my body aches from labor that it is unaccustomed to. To get from Lake Bunyonyi to Fort Portal, I caught a motorcycle for about 45 minutes to take me into Kabale for 10,000 shillings. I am not sure how a man...
Lake Bunyonyi: Blistered Softie. Lake Bunyonyi: Blistered Softie Feb 10 I worked all day on the shower again and finished the job today, but I worked for most of the hours of daylight. Workaway = Workallday Likeaslave Fornopay But, it felt great to be helping a really good man to build something on his property. I would be happy to hear that he can really get the eco-farm and the school to prosper. One can only wish good things for...
Lake Bunyonyi: Hard Work is Hard Work. Feb 9 I woke up in a wonderful cottage clinging to the side of a hill with a terrace overlooking a beautiful lake with mountains behind the water. It is gorgeous here on Lake Bunyoni. Amasiko Eco-Farm is just that. It also has cottages for visitors. It is also a green-school for primary students. Wilfred is a busy man. It turns out that I am in a village called Hamukaaka! Breakfast was at...
by The Beave · Published February 8, 2016 · Last modified November 26, 2016
Rwanda to Uganda: From Gorillas to Potato Trucks. Feb 8 Time to leave my wonderful little village of Kinigi. It is time to get out of Rwanda. I had not ambition to leave the ‘Land of thousand hills and a million smiles,’ but I need to start making some miles and some dust. Time for the move from Rwanda to Uganda. I feel like I am going to cheat a lot of countries out of a lot of time, but...
by The Beave · Published January 28, 2016 · Last modified November 27, 2016
Masaka to Kigali: Hotel des Mille Collines. Jan 28 I need to get to Rwanda before I get too deep into Uganda, so I got up early and caught a bus from Masaka, Uganda to Kigali, Rwandan for $11.50. The bus that came that hour was one for a company called Jaguar. Every hour a different bus comes through town, usually for a different company. They all cost the same price. I found a place beside a Rwandan girl, who...
Walking on Eggshells Bery’s Place – The Sexual Abuse Recovery Home of 43 Ugandan Girls Sometimes one ends up in situations they could never expect. Actually, it seems to be a daily part of my existence as a man on the road trying to avoid the mainstream. Gifts of people and of life just sort of fall at my feet. Maybe that is part of being as open as possible to everything around me… My local friend and I were...
Masaka: Wonderful Ugandans Can Learn to Rock. Jan 27 I found out that when Berlin was walled in the early 1960s, the east part of the city was considered Eastern Germany of course, but the west, which I had always believed was part of West Germany, was actually something entirely different. The west part of the city was sort of a special entity that was very unique in the land with no real allegiance to either country. The citizens of...
Kalangala, Ssese Islands to Masaka: The Perks and Disadvantages of Caucasian-ing. Jan 26 Shortly after I got moving this morning, there was a knock on the door of my guestroom and one of the girls from Bery’s Place brought me a tray with coffee and cookies on it. So sweet. I finished the temporary breakfast and walked outside of the door of my guest room to find that my shoes had been washed and re-laced. By the time I returned...
Kalangala, Ssese Islands: Performing Arts Recital. Jan 25 I moved out of Dreamland and caught a motorcycle taxi to Bery’s Place in the village of Mweena. Many of his 23 daughters approached me to personally welcome me back as I took my things to the guestroom. On the front lawn, the girls had a dance instructor sitting off to the side who comes to teach them traditional dance. The girls were in the middle of practicing a routine, where they...
Kalangala, Buggala, Ssese Islands: Ugandan Wikipedia and Lake Victoria. Jan 24 Kalangala, on Buggala Island in the Ssese Islands of Uganda, is a quiet place in Lake Victoria. I assumed it would be the Ugandan counterpart to Ukerewe Island, which is also of Lake Victoria, but in the Tanzania section. Buggala Island in Uganda is far more developed and makes Ukerewe (where they slaughter albinos for witchcraft) feel very primitive. There are resorts and golf courses here in Buggala. The...
If you smock, people will think you are a jerk! Kalangala: What to not do in the Ssese Islands…Have sex… Jan 23 (cont’d) The bus pulled into Masaka where Jasmine and I disembarked and I got cash from an ATM. MONEY! However, Jasmine tried four different banks, but no ATM’s would take her Chinese bank card. We had exchanged countries and exchanged problems. Life is ridiculous! She was heavily stressed and decided to get on another bus to Kampala where...
Life is Crazy / Tanzania 2015/16 / Uganda 2016
by The Beave · Published January 23, 2016 · Last modified July 9, 2016
East Africa Visa Battle: Tanzania to Uganda Jan 23 It was a crazy and stressful morning, but I really did not care that much and knew life would find a way to work itself out somehow… My friend Jasmine and I arrived at the bus terminal in Bukoba, Tanzania by 6:20 via motorcycle taxi. She had to pay for my motorcycle because I only had $0.40 worth of Tanzanian money left in my pocket. We climbed onto our Greyhound-sized bus...
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