On Sunday Coryn took me and Becca into downtown Kampala for the first time. I remembered some of the things from last time I was here but overall it was a totally new and crazy experience.
We took a taxi to the taxi park in the center of town and then walked around to get food and do some window shopping. When we had finished Coryn showed us how to get a bota bota. For those of you who don’t know a bota bota is a motorcycle taxi. It is quite a bit more expensive than a traditional Ugandan taxi but they don’t wait for traffic and they take you exactly where you want to go rather than relying on a predestined route.
After learning from Coryn I felt confident enough to be able to navigate Kampala for myself. It wasn’t long until I had my chance. On Monday afternoon I had planned to meet my friend Andrew and get a nice camera lens from him. He didn’t need it and was going to send it home weeks ago until I asked him to save it for me. Anyway Andrew and his friend Ben were hanging out at a coffee shop for a couple of hours and He told me that if I wanted it I would have to come get it.
Some of the guys that work at the babies home were headed into town to do some shopping so I grabbed my wallet and I was off. I rode with them about half way into town then they stopped at the bank. From there I caught a taxi that took me all the way to the taxi park in the middle of town.
I should explain here that Ugandan taxis are nothing like US taxis. I taxi here is a square van with 5 rows of seats. The front row is the driver (on the right side) and 2-3 passengers. Then the other 4 rows are all accessed through one door. There is a walk way to the back row but once the van fills up there are retractable seats that are then folded down into the walk way so that no space is wasted. There is room to seat 3 people comfortably in each row, however it is totally acceptable to squish up to 5 people in a row. Each taxi drives a set route and people are picked up and dropped off along the way whenever they want. If someone is standing still on the side of the road it means that they want a ride. There is a conductor who sits in the front of the back 4 rows. He is responsible for collecting the money and opening and closing the door. When there is traffic the conductor will hop out of the taxi and stand in front of other cars so that his taxi can get through. Taking a taxi is the cheapest form of transportation but it can be quite slow. Every time someone gets out everyone that is in the way also has to get out. Then they get back in and move towards the back of the taxi. It is also not uncommon for the Taxi to stop and get gas along the way.
I finally reached town and I knew that I had to get a bota to the coffee shop to meet Andrew. All I had was the name of the place, a street name and the name of a market that was across the street. This might not seem like a problem but when there is a language barrier and the city is just a jumble of roads, buildings, horrible streets and crazy traffic it could be a problem. After negotiating an appropriate rate with my driver I was off. The driver got me to the right place and made very good time. There was a lot of weaving in and out of traffic and we also drove the wrong way down what I think was a one way street. But I made it.
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