Kampala has got to be the most unorganised inefficient city we've travelled to! We were warned about being caught in rush hour traffic in Nairobi but the traffic here is far worse! The centre of town is permanently grid-locked and it seems that all routes to go through here. As with so many African countries the shameful history of its dictators are to blame. Idi Amin came to power and destroyed tourism but allowing the army to machine-gun wildlife for food. He gave the Indian population 90 days to leave and when the British left by obvious choice at the same time, a lot of the intellectual capacity was lost. From there runs the same story of no vision and planning and the city has grown without any order to become this mess of uncontrollable traffic.

Having said that, Kampala has a charm to it like every place and only being here for a few days it's enjoyable to just watch life go by. We intended to travel around on a boda-boda, a motorbike taxi, but our hosts decided that was too unsafe and we must use our car. Apparently about 5 deaths are caused a day in boda accidents and they were not willing to take that chance while we were their guests.

On our first day we were chauffeured around town because Sam took my car to be serviced and his brother, Samson, took time off work to drive us around. We had assumed he was a taxi driver and used him as such and obviously felt terrible to find out we're abusing this guy's generosity! Driving in Kampala seems to have no rules. Cars, taxis, bodas, trucks all push their way through the traffic and no one seems to get too hot around the collar about it! We took a little while to adjust and were extremely grateful to have people to look after us though in all the chaos!

We had seen the choir and have heard much of the Watoto Church and Village so we decided to visit them. The church is one of six campuses around Kampala (one campus is in North Uganda) with a total congregation of 20 000 people. They have between two to five services at each campus where the same worship band play and the same preacher preaches so we imagine it can be pretty exhausting!

There are 3 villages each housing 800-900 orphans. In the village there are houses where 8 boys and girls of different ages live with a mother, a single lady who gives her life to car and run the house. Although basic, the house prepares its own food, does laundry etc and has its own bathroom and kitchen. There is a primary and secondary school in the village and classes are about 35, far better than public Ugandan schools I hear, and all the teachers have houses for their families on the premises. The school also caters for boarders which change the dynamic amongst the children. There is a fabrication yard teaching children skills in metalwork and carpentry and they produce all the beds, chairs, desks, window frames etc. from this workshop. They also have a farm which is helping the self-sustainability of the village with melies and other vegetables as well as livestock. Goats milk is used to feed the babies, of which there are 50 with dedicated nannies in the baby's house. These babies cannot be supported by their parents or have been abandoned, some even found in pit latrines. In all, it is a wonderful success story and there goal of bringing hope and a future to children. They are continually expanding as well as their global influence and I hope more people are inspired to copy Watoto as a model.

From there we headed through the rain in town (the storm water is so bad the streets become rivers that people have even drowned in!) and got some groceries before heading to the Earthwise ferry at Port Bell. To see the ferry was one of our main aims and a turning point on the middle day of our adventure. It too is looking like a success story and hopefully will define an unutilised market of transport on Lake Victoria. We looked around the boat and it was great to finally see all we'd heard and seen photos of. Unfortunately, although we had the time, we couldn't spend a whole day to go out on the boat since we were seemingly always waiting for the car to be ready.

The rest of our stay in Kampala was a time-consuming, frustrating, stressful episode of our journey. Our main aim in staying in Kampala was a rest stop, to refuel and stay put for a few days. And have our car serviced. Sam didn't get around to looking at it on the first so on Henry's advice we took our car to Shane's Auto Services. In four days he managed to service the car and put new rear brake linings in. During this time we basically waited and all we got was bad news. We didn't have a phone (it's a mission to get one in Uganda) so we waited on people to phone us on our Kenyan number. They didn't and when I paid to use another phone they wouldn't pick up. So we were stranded basically because we didn't know what bad news was coming next about our car, how much we were to pay and, most importantly for our itinerary, when we could leave for Rwanda.

Shane seemed to have too many other things going on in his life and in the end we think ripped us off properly by using second hand parts and putting huge mark-ups on them. But life can often be at the mercy of a mechanic! He also gave us bad news that our car's engine needed to be overhauled, a great stress and disappointment in the middle of our trip. The worry was that he suggested we "should" get back and was feeding us such worrying information we weren't sure what to do. In the end, because he took so long to do some simple mechanics we spent 4 days pottering around doing not much in Kampala but worrying about the car and not really relaxing. In hindsight we could have taken a bus trip somewhere but the car is a lifeline to the trip and we needed to know of any damage or the cost for any repairs.

Because of this delay we had to decide not to go to Rwanda, a great disappointment. We looked at options of bussing or flying in, but they were very costly and we were now stressed about spending on the car not only in Kampala, but also on the way home if things went pear shaped! We trust that the Lord was in control here and that there was a reason for all these things and that he in fact closed the door. Our itinerary was planned in such a way that we needed to get from Kigali to Mombassa in 3 days. This is 1500km and impossible to do in daylight and it would be exhausting. We also didn't want to come back into Uganda as it would cost us another $100 for visas so it was a bit of a mathematical exercise.

One of our intentions in going to Rwanda was to visit some of the parks in the West of the country en route. Luckily we were prepped by a flyer at Jungle Junction where we found out the Ugandan National Parks are the most expensive yet:

Gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable: $500 for an hour soon to be $750 (Already $750 in Rwanda)

Ruwenzori/Murchison Falls etc: $35 each to enter and $150 for the car both per day

These are obviously without accommodation and for 24 hours in the park. The Kenyan National Parks are also ridiculously expensive. Fees range from $65 and $90 pp and then $15 - $30 to camp. So it was ok not to be going to Rwanda as we wouldn't have visited these parks. The government is just too greedy and too blind to realise that many tourists won't visit these parks, especially the overlanders because, although we may be able spend money like this for a weekend getaway, once in a while, none of the overlanders can pay $200 a day to travel Africa. The Serengeti wasn't looking so expensive after all!

The rest of our time in Kampala was largely uneventful as we spent most of it waiting for our car. On the Sunday we attended Watoto Church with Anthony which we REALLY enjoyed. They have 5 campuses each with at least 3 services. The one we went to - Watoto Central in the centre of Kampala was heaving with people, about 1200. The worship was great - a choir of 100 and a great band lead. They were having their "Miracle Missions Sunday" where the people were encouraged to bring money that they had been saving for the Lords work into Burundi, Isreal and South Sudan. The church was very professional, everything was really well run and the people were on fire for God. It was an inspiring place!

Later that Sunday Anthony invited us to his house for lunch which was lovely. We watched a basketball game on tv and even managed to see some of the rugby! Afterwards he took us for a tour of Kampala, something much easier to do on a Sunday without the traffic!