More interesting images

It's pretty amazing just how much people can load onto their bikes or motorcycles here. We've seen kitchen table sets, bundles of metal rebar, large storage trunks, stacks of beer crates 4 high, and this guy with about a dozen empty water jerry cans. These loads are certainly the norm, rather than the exception.

Barb and I went back to Aero Beach this weekend, and arrived hungry. Luckily they will serve you food and drink on the beach, so we were excited to hear that they had fish and chips available. Not exactly the English style breaded fish sticks, the dish arrived with a whole tilapia and a side of chips! Yum... it was actually quite tasty despite the somewhat terrifying appearance.



We got comfortable with the baboons visiting the camp, though not too comfortable... they're still pretty scary sounding even if the young ones are really cute.





Here's the current water setup, hopefully just the very short-term setup. We procured the large 1000L tank and managed to fill it with a few trips to the local well, with the 10 new jerry cans that we also bought. Hopefully we can soon run a long pipe from the adjacent hillside, to pump spring water into the tank and keep it topped up. Until that happens, the guys will have to continue filling jerry cans and bringing them back to the camp on a bicycle.



Lots of small villages grow coffee among their matooke banana trees, and they lay out the crop in the sun to dry. I think some of the coffee is for their own use, while the rest is traded or sent to a local coffee co-operative for packaging and sale. Ugandan coffee is pretty good, but we're heading to Ethiopia next week where I hear the coffee is even better.

Sweet Sweet Water...

It's been a pretty amazing week for Barb and I, we've been out at the mine camp in the southwest of the country for the last 6 days. The camp runs pretty smoothly, the 10 or so guys working here have a good rapport and all work really hard. We've been doing lots of different things; setting up the office area in the main house, buying a large water tank for the camp, scouting out a clean water source to supply the camp in the future. This first picture is at the big waterfall in the area, where they're planning to install a hydroelectric project in the future. We went out to see it while the guys took a reading of the river flow rate.


This picture of Barb on the hill is from the day we went to scout the water. There's a natural spring coming from the mountain near this point, and we were measuring the distance from the campsite, in order to estimate the cost of running a pipe across the valley to provide fresh water for the camp. We went back another day with a GPS unit to measure the elevation - we may be able to send the water just using gravity, no pumps needed.


We stopped along the road on our way to the mine to check out the drummaker's shop - Barb was pretty excited! As I'm writing this post Barb is outside with the miners, playing on the drums she bought! Music has an amazing power to transcend cultural boundaries and language barriers. Last night I brought out my harmonicas, and some of the guys were very interested. I brought along a few extra harps to give to the guys, so I think they're going to learn. This afternoon I heard one of them practicing across the camp on his own, so there's definitely some interest!

Battery power is running out on our computer, and I don't know if we can run the generator tonight, so I'll cut this post short. I think we're driving back to Entebbe this weekend so more posts should follow in the next few days. I must say that both Barb and I are really loving this trip and adventure, it's been amazing in many ways. I'm sure more adventures are on the way for both of us!

Aero Beach day

When you head out for a day at the beach, you may not expect to arrive to a field full of decommissioned airplanes, but this is Uganda and this is Aero Beach! After paying 2000 shillings at the gate for admission (a little less than one dollar) we parked near one plane that supposedly was once used for smuggling goods into the country, perhaps during the reign of Idi Amin. It certainly looks like it's been parked here for a long time, the wheels are sunk into the ground and the engines are in various states of disassembly.

Across the field another plane was also parked, and it had been painted in tribute to the current American president. Apparently Obama is quite a celebrity here in East Africa, as he has family roots in Kenya. Oddly, it seems that Gaddafi of Libya is also a bit of a local celebrity, though I haven't really figured out why just yet.

We walked down to the lakeshore after parking, and found some interesting sights at the water's edge. Lots of people splashing around and playing in the water near the shore, which is to be expected, but then when you look out at the water there's a small boat with a pair of guys casting out a net for fish.

Then about 30 minutes after we sat down a pair of camels appeared behind us waiting for some customers. A few thousand shillings gets you a camel ride up and down the beach.

It was a pretty interesting day... it's nice to have someone bring you drinks right to your chair on the beach, but after a few hours the place filled up with drunk teenagers and was quite a wild party. We ducked out just as it was getting to be too much crazy energy.