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.
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