Hello there!
After a busy move from San Francisco and a brief layover in Amsterdam's wonderland of an airport (can you picture the fantastically huge teacup sitting booths?), I was finally on my way to Kampala. The first surprise was that about 3/4 of the plane passengers were white. I know that most Africans can't afford this kind of travel, but it also occurred to me that maybe Uganda is more of a tourist destination than I had realized.
We made a soft landing into Entebbe airport, built next to the sleepy former capital and 40 km from the bustling current capital city of Kampala, on Tuesday night. The visa line was short, my bags came quickly, customs was painless, and I found a baggage cart with all 4 wheels working. Outside at the parking lot, I was impressed to find shiny ticket machines where drivers were paying their fees. So far, so smooth...
All of a sudden, an arm shot out from the darkness behind one of the ticket machines, grabbed a driver's bill, and dropped coins into his palm. Down the row of paying customers, more arms shot out and more money was exchanged. Of course, change men! How else would the drivers have exact change for the machines? Those men on wooden benches made the whole computer system functional. I have to give mad props to Entebbe airport, because it took me this long to feel that I had arrived in a developing country.
A driver from IDI was there to greet me with a warm "WELLCOME!" sign, and he drove me through the night into my new neighborhood of Bukoto.
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