Source of the river Nile in Jinja, Uganda

Hello there,

I quickly start off saying that I am currently having issues with the color settings of my monitor and some of the pictures I am going to upload might look slightly different than they are supposed to look. I am working on it.

Few weeks ago, after many failed attempts to go to Jinja with some friends, I decided to just go by myself and get over with it.

Jinja is where the river Nile starts its way up all the way to Egypt, the source is the point where the river leaves the Lake Victoria; it is debated where the source actually is, you can read more here; being this place heavily advertised as such (there is even a sign!), I will just overlook the fact that this could not be the exactly be the source and enjoy it anyway.

Jinja is a quite nice touristic town, 2/3 hours away from Kampala. It has a different look from the capital, the building styles are still heavily influenced by the strong presence of Indian people before the expulsion of all Asians from Uganda in the 70s.

Lake Mburo National Park – Introduction

Hello everyone,

as promised, today starts the series of posts regarding my visit at the Lake Mburo National Park, located in the western Uganda.
Although being the smallest national park in Uganda, this park still hosts many species of wildlife, including zebras, hippos and buffaloes.

The trip to the park has been quite long; in fact, it takes slightly more than 4 hours to get to the park HQ from Kampala. What made the trip more exhausting was waking up at 4am and then having to wait more than an hour for the matatu (the mini-bus which brought us near one of the gates of the park) to be full.

First post from Kampala!

Hey there!

Finally, I managed to get back to the Interwebz, so that I can update the blog a bit.

I find myself in Uganda, and specifically in Kampala. Amazing city, really.
Totally different from anything I experience in my life. I felt like in one of those ‘on the road’ documentaries, where they show the very active and busy streets, even at late night.

I haven’t had the chance to take any interesting picture, mainly because I feel I should get acquainted with the surroundings before pulling out my camera. Yeah, I admit it, I am still quite afraid to take any picture in public, especially in some areas, such as the market or the slums, although they are surely the places where to capture the most interesting shots.
I am trying to get to know as many people as possible around the place I currently live, so that I won’t seem too much of a stranger to them, in the long run.

I found already that I really love passion fruits!

First Impressions:

Kampala is a very active and busy town, which you realize only when you find yourself on a boda-boda trying to sneak around the several trucks and cars on the road (yeah, very dangerous!).
People here are commonly very friendly and polite, although some of them often try to overcharge foreign people.

Also the kids are very friendly and say hi/bye to the passing strangers, usually adding mzungu (word use for denoting a ‘white’ person).
So, don’t feel uncomfortable if some young child says ‘Bye mzungu’, because it will happen quite often, especially if walking by slums.
I usually take the time to say hi to the kids and introduce myself, as well as asking their name (and trying to remember it); in that way, I hope, they won’t remember me as one of the many mzungus who crossed their life.

I actually happened to meet a kid I met the day before and, this time, he greeted me by name (that really made my day!).

The movie:

We managed to shoot all the scenes we needed in 4 days and now the post-production phase began.
By the end of the month, I hope, we will get some footage that I can actually show!
I will try to start taking some pictures as soon as possible and do something similar to what I did in Croatia (Image of the day).

Take care for now.

/N.