Arrived safely. Have just chilled for the first day to recover from the flight. Weather warm and wet. Probably heading down to Rwanda on Friday morning, presuming the border is still open - Ebola has already closed the DR Congo border. Should be OK though. Proper diary update early next week...

The Dark Continent, and here we are in its heart of darkness. This is Africa. A beautiful, shambolic, edge-of-the-seat, falling-off-a-cliff continent. Pure entropy in action. This place, Uganda, and by all accounts the surrounding countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, is blighted by do-gooders trying to construct, build, develop, to still bring the colonial dream of Progress, and always behind it chases the eternal crumbling away to nothing, the dissolution of modernity, the drifting of the equator into its endless repetitive circles, building to a collapse. But enough of that. Let's go back to the start, to London, England, to BA flight 62, departing from Heathrow.

We flew through the night to Uganda. Our plane took a route away from Heathrow over familiar places, all picked out in streaming yellow light pollution; towns sitting in the centre of giant cobwebs of yellow lit roadways. Brighton passed below us, the pier setting out its brave lighted front into the dark Channel. Then the in-flight entertainment started, and we were all saved from pseudo-poetic descriptions of England by night. Lucky us.

France fled below us clothed in a night sky, just as Stardust started on the back-of-seat TV. On we flew, and somewhere over the Mediterranean, or was it as we passed the shores of north Africa, we slept, heads rolling side to side in our cattle-class seats, a thin icicle of drool melting off our lips over the last heat rising from the deserts below.

Somewhere over Sudan we woke with the rising sun, and the first light inspired the air to move. Turbulence over Sudan. How apt.

I watched half of Run, Fatboy, Run, keeping half an eye out of the window, watching the fog far below wrap around banana palms and the mountains of the moon to the west of Uganda. As the sun cleared the horizon and became more confident again in the sky, Lake Victoria loomed on its own horizon, a giant pearl reflecting the white hot sun. A mighty sight, this precious sea in the middle of the continent. Stretching its runway, pier style, into Lake Victoria is Entebbe airport. As the plane banked around 180 degrees to make its northerly landing we described an arc over the invisible line of the equator. We watched the palm trees below grow larger, and let out little squeaks of excited joy as we touched down on African soil (well, tarmac, but you know...).

My diary notes from that morning say "Arrive Entebbe, feel familiarity - tropical/palm trees. Almost like coming home. The tropics suit me." And it's true. Even though it's five and a half years since I was last in the tropics, last outside Europe, I immediately recognised the landscape - the palm fringed roadways, the shacks and banana sellers, the taxi drivers jostling at the airport for business, asking far too much money (and getting away with it), the piles of rubbish at the sides of the roads, minibuses chock full of people which we overtook in our taxi, making impossible passes on blind bends and hill brows, seeing people pushing bicycles overladen with jerry cans and meagre low value products for sale at the local market. It's ramshackle, it's poverty, it's people getting on with their lives in the same way we squash ourselves into steel tubes which whizz down dark tunnels under our cities. It's home, in a way, and it's what burned itself in my brain in the other diaries on this site, and it's great to be back. To be at the equator, between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, where the sun rises and sets at the same time each day of the year, and where dawn and dusk last for minutes rather than hours. It's beautiful, and I always want to return.

Anthony had picked a hostel from the Bradt Uganda Guide - the Backpackers Hostel on Natete Road. We pulled up, checked into a twin room, ordered a beer, then realised it was only 0930. I think we smiled and nodded, and continued to sink our cold beers, the best beer in the world - the cold, refreshing taste which wiped away the grime of flight, the dry prickling skin from lack of sleep, and eased the edge of fear from our excitement.

Whilst we were enjoying our beer, sitting at the bar of the Backpackers Hostel, we met 4 English gap year students, out here in Uganda to do a year of teaching (we think for VSO). They were just shipping out to the Ssese Islands for a short holiday, and we took the opportunity of them arranging baggage to ask a few questions: in honour of the original World Famous Travel Lexicon, we started - of course - with the Cotton Eye Joe conversation: where do you come from, and where will you go?

They returned the favour - after sneering at our clean trainers ("Oh yes, I can see you've just arrived.") - to give us some advice about travelling in Uganda, which I paraphrase here:

"Are you going to see the gorillas? Yeah? In Rwanda? Right, they're supposed to be brilliant. But you might want to check the border situation. What? Oh, well, you see, it's because of the ebola outbreak down near the border. We heard the border with Rwanda's been closed."

Cut back to us, beer bottle touched to our lips, arms paused halfway through the tipping process, eyes slowly panning to meet the other's. Bottles slowly descending, we both re-focused on our learned gapper, saying: "eblubbala?"

It was probably the best welcome we could ever hope for to what we were still thinking, then, was the dark heart of Africa.

Later that day...

After a few hours sleep and a warm/cold/warm shower, we walked into Kampala. Minibuses ("mutatu" or "taxis") zoomed up to us, then slowed down, as if we were emanating extra gravity or a quantum treacle field, beeped their horns, then sped on, carrying their sardine passengers further on down the road. Motorbike taxies ("boda-boda", pr. "buddha-buddha") zoomed past, pod racing through the traffic, their single passengers clinging on precariously to the back of the bike, in a manner not dissimilar to Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones, when he's hanging onto the changeling's escape vehicle on Coruscant. But without any lightsabre action, unfortunately. Imagine that, Ugandans having lightsabre fights on the streets of Kampala. Well, there must be some Jedi-traits, judging by the way the boda-boda drivers insinuate themselves around the traffic. It's like they can see things before they happen.

Arriving in the city centre through the most polluted air I've breathed this side of 1985, we immediately got separated whilst crossing a road, using our Force-senses to slip between the 45 mutatu that decided to all turn in separate directions on a crossroads. It seems mathematically impossible to do that, and yet Anthony walked straight ahead, and ended up slap bang in the middle of the crossroads, lost and looking around for me, whilst I walked ahead, became translated to the right, then without changing direction ended up on the opposite side of the road, exactly where I wanted to be, with only one "oh my gosh I'm about to get squashed" incident in the 5m width of the road.

Money became an immediate issue. Although we'd both taken plenty dollars, we though we'd better try the ATMs to ensure we could get some local currency - Ugandan Shillings. And - apart from the AMT at the airport for Anthony - none of the ATMs worked. Putting off money worries for another, we drank in the sights and sounds of the lower city centre, then had a coffee overlooking where we'd walked, watching the buzz of the daytime city remain nonplussed as dusk settled and sank out of view into the shadows of night time. Sunset on the equator - it takes about 10 minutes, but in the city, no one notices. The business of selling phone cards, newspapers, bananas, pineapples, bus tickets, beads, boiled peanuts, purses and lottery tickets from blankets laid out at the edge of the path carries on until even the mosquitoes pack up and go to bed.

Still feeling wide eyed, we took a taxi back to the hostel, carrying out our first bit of real haggling. I think we managed to get the price down from UgSh15000 to UgSh8000.

Back at the hostel we spent time getting to know the staff. Grace, the hostess with the mostess. Daniel, the only Honduran I've ever met outside Honduras, and Christina, the craziest born-again Christian this side of the equator. We watched our very first Nollywood film (Nigerian Hollywood), which was both awful and fantastic. We went to bed tired, a bit drunk, and with the sound of incessant rain and thunder chasing our dreams around our mosquito nets.

I awoke early from an apparently dreamless sleep. By noon we were once again walking into Kampala city centre, the rain of the previous evening existing now only in the open sewer channels that run along the road sides and out of hte barely planned market areas and partial slums that characterise the land behind the markets, shops, bars and hotels that front the Natete Road.

We spent the day drenched in sunshine, sorting out money (exchanging dollars for shillings and Rwandan francs) and buying our bus tickets for Rwanda. In the evening, we again propped up the hostel bar, talking to Grace and Christina, who promised to take us clubbing on our return to Kampala the following week.

The power had gone off briefly when we were propping up the bar last night, which we were told happens quite often. It reminded me of the 70s when we used to have power cuts in Britain. Uganda, before November 07, had power cuts every week, often for weeks on end. The owner of the Backpackers Hostel, an ex-pat Aussie, had staged a sit in at government offices during August the last time the power had gone off for that long. We have to remember that a lack of electricity doesn't just affect the appliances and lights in the hostel, it also affects the water supply - without electricity, the water companies can't pump water through the distribution network. Clean, piped water is a luxury in Uganda (as we would later discover). To have it disappear with the vagaries of the electricity supply is something the Ugandans are used to - but it really made us think about home, and how lucky we are. When our power goes off for even an hour people are up in arms, but even then water still flows, due to the back-up generators and private power supplies that the water companies have in place.

Since August the power cuts had reduced in terms of length of time, due solely to CHOGM. Now, this isn’t some mutant Japanese mecha, the Mighty Morphin’ CHOGMbot, come with its laser hands and quantum eyes to trample on buildings and carry away white-clad, raven-haired princesses, who have eyes like pointed almonds and legs that go on forever.

No, this is something more earthly, less about futuristic wars and more about fighting for the future in Uganda, and its place in the Commonwealth.

CHOGM is the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting which occurs every two years, where all the heads of the countries in the British Commonwealth of countries get together to discuss issues of strategic importance. As Uganda hosted the event this time, it wanted to show the world how far it had come since the dictatorships of Amin and Obote had wrecked the country. For Uganda this was an opportunity to get the spotlight of the world’s media and to show off. Within the country there were signs about it everywhere: “Are you ready for CHOGM?” they all asked. Some were more direct: “Stop Politicking, Let’s Get Together, Let’s Show The World, ‘Our Uganda’”.

We talked to some Ugandan people about CHOGM, and read the local papers’ letters pages to see what the wider opinion was. Most people were happy that the country was viewed as capable of hosting such an important event, and they welcomed the attention. It was an achievement, a step up to the international stage. Funds appeared from government to improve infrastructure – the airport was upgraded, the road from the airport (at Entebbe) to Kampale (the capital, about 35km away) was re-laid. Well, how could it not be? Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of the Commonwealth had visited. Roads in the centre of Kampala leading up to the Parliament buildings were re-laid. Piles of fetid rubbish that had lain, strewn, heaped into alleyways, by the sides of roads, by markets for years were finally collected by a city-wide refuse collection programme.

And the view of the people? It pretty much fell into 3 common themes. First, it’s great to get the attention and the aid, they really appreciate that, and they’re proud of their country and the stability it’s achieved. Second, that they’ve seen no changes in their personal life, no increase in job security, no wage increase, no increase in state aid for social services. And lastly, the infrastructure improvements, the new roads, the refuse collections, the more dependably electricity supply (in Kampala, anyway) won’t last. That, they think, was all flash-in-the-pan stuff, unsustainable, for show. The Ugandans we talked to thought the condition of the roads would last somewhere between 6 – 24 months before becoming potholed, crumbling back into the red African dust that prevails.

Much of the message from the government seemed to be that CHOGM was going to bring huge positive changes to Uganda. And indeed Uganda is to receive £700M in funding from the UK over the years 2008 – 2017, as long as the Ugandan government takes more action on human rights and tackling corruption; more of which later.

Time will tell how sustainable the funding is, and how much it changes the lives of the normal people of Uganda.

You can read more about the outcomes of the 2007 CHOGM here:
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/document/34293/35232/173044/chogm2007finalcommunique.htm

But! Back to Day 3 in Uganda. This is the day when we move on, when we throw our backpacks on our backs, strike a jaunty pose and start adventuring. And this is how my diary of the day starts:

“Up too early! 04:45. Pitch black, no electricity.”

We’d booked a taxi to the bus station, and thankfully arrived about 30 minutes early. I say thankfully because, it being our first day of adventures, we had to start off in true adventure style – we lost our bus tickets. Somehow, between buying them by squashing my face in a crowded vending window for 35 minutes and stuffing them in my bag, and getting back to the hostel and packing my backpack to ensure it was ready to pick up at silly o’clock in the morning with minimal thought needed, our bus tickets, that would take us from the capital of Uganda (Kampala) to the capital of Rwanda (Kigali), somehow, they got lost.

Oh f---.

Well what else to do at 06:00, but to cram our faces back in the vending window at the bus depot, using our hastily acquired Ugandan queuing skills (which involves not quite subtly elbowing people out of your way and jamming any part of your body past theirs) to try and get replacement tickets.

Now, we weren’t averse to paying for new tickets, even though we’d already bought the last two tickets for the bus the day before. The tickets were only about £4.50 each. But the thing is, see, well, when it’s not “£4.50” but “15,000 Shillings”, it sounds like a lot of money. Plus there’s the challenge. Yes we f—ked up. Yes we should have been more careful. But yes, at six in the morning, we really are going to see if we can blag a replacement ticket, despite the primitive recording techniques for sales information that the bus depot uses.

And of course we were successful. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the Ugandan man who handled all sales (whilst 4 other younger Ugandan men sat around him, looking on in awe as he (a) found spare seats on a diagram of buses, (b) carefully wrote people’s names on those spare seats, (c) carefully wrote out the seat number and bus times for those people, and (d) took their money and gave the right change) looked at us, saw we were Muzungu, and a look flashed through his eyes, and it was one of those complicated looks. To me, at six in the morning, with my head jammed into a window with three other people’s heads, his look said this:

“I kinda recognize you from last night, but then you’re white and you kinda look similar to me, but yes I see you Muzungu, and I know you won’t try to cheat me because you have no need, and I know that if I deal with you calmly you’ll reciprocate and get out of my way as quick as you can, and I also know that if I ignore you there’s a reputation issue here, and whilst we don’t depend on you for much of our income at the moment, I seem to remember the bosses talking about getting more Muzungu through, and we know how much money there is to be made from shuttling you around, so come on, out with it, what’s the problem?”

The outcome of which, of course, was my pathetic bleating of “Hi, er, we bought tickets yesterday for the 6.30 to Kigali, but we’ve lost the tickets. But! I know the seat numbers, and you wrote our names down, and they’re Anthony and Graeme … yes, that’s right, Anthony and Brian (sigh), and could we please please please have replacement tickets?”

Ten seconds later, we were on the bus, crammed right onto the back row, with people who smelled a bit fruity, and some minutes after that, as we hit the departure time … and then waited a while until the bus was actually full … we left Kampala, on the main highway down to Rwanda, and truly our adventures had begun.

More to come...