images from kampala

We're back in Kampala for a few days and I appear to have a fast enough internet connection today to post some photos, at long last! A break in all the text. So here goes.

First some birds...

This one is a type of vulture, I think and it's bit, at least a metre high, if I wager a guess. The baby you see is probably bigger than the birds below.

These two are called Plantain Eaters, self explanatory.

Not a great pic, but I love the blue of this tiny bird in the Hibiscus bush. What you can't see is his blue crest and his long, thin and hooked beak.

The one in the middle is the same vulture type as the top pic, no idea what the white one's are but they were so graceful flying together.

Earlier today I saw a beautiful bright orange breasted bird, robin sized, with black wings and a black head with a white stripe above each eye. Very striking, of course I didn't have my camera with me. And many others of course, many I see from the window of a bus where I can't take a good picture, but still, just lovely to see all the bird life here. I looked at a bird book in a book store, over 1000 types of birds in Uganda. Needless to say it was a big book and I didn't plan to haul it all over the country, so will have to identify the birds in the future.

In Kampala there are several artisan markets, below is the outside of just one of the shops in one of the markets where I perused for a few hours and the one below is of necklaces, the beads of which are made of paper strips and then varnished to hold their shape and presumably to make them water resistant.

This one is for Mark - thanks for the heads up on the taxi park, it's exactly as you described! This is one of two taxi parks in Kampala. Chaos about sums it up - at least the feeling - it's surprisingly organized. All taxi's (14 passenger mini vans) going into the city appear to end in the taxi park so when you're ready to leave downtown for a particular destination it's easiest to go to the taxi park and find the taxi going in your direction. If you don't know, a bunch of young men usually approach and offer their assistance - usually it's helpful, sometimes it's a bit much as they can be rather aggressive in their helpfulness. Once in the taxi, it waits until it's full before departing - thankfully this hasn't taken long but building extra time into one's schedule is essential!

Below, a slightly scary moment for me - I saw this bridge on our way to Kitgum from Gulu - and knew I had to get a picture on the return trip. The driver speeds up and just flies over this bridge - it's the only one I've seen like it - the others are not brick and have guard rails. It's only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. Yikes.

So that's all for now. Unlike what I said at the top of this blog, while I do have a high speed connection, uploading pictures is painstakingly slow! But at least I can give you a quick snapshot of a bit of Uganda.