Two weeks of camping in Uganda was an absolutely spectacular experience we’ll never forget. But the most common question we get isn’t about the nature, the wildlife, or the Ugandan people. You want to know how much our roadtrip in Uganda cost. So here’s our full itinerary and a detailed budget breakdown.

Our Route

This time around, we took planning a bit more “seriously” and mapped out where we should end up each day and roughly what we’d do there. The plan changed several times along the way (partly because Google has no idea that most roads in Uganda are unpaved, so a 5-hour drive actually takes at least 11 and a half), but in the end we managed to tick off everything on the list — except for the chimpanzees.

Camping in Uganda – Our Accommodation Itinerary

Planning a trip to Uganda is tricky, and finding a decent guidebook is even trickier. We’ll save you the hassle of buying useless guides — the best one, in our opinion, is Uganda by Andrew Roberts, which you can order online. We recommend it wholeheartedly.

We camped most nights in Uganda, though we treated ourselves to a proper bed every now and then. Here’s a detailed breakdown of where we stayed. All the places had hot water, but don’t count on wifi — some advertised it, but it only actually worked at the Via Via Guesthouse. If you need internet, grab a Ugandan SIM card with data, or consider picking up an eSIM from Holafly before you go.

RoadTrip Uganda #1: Vy dva v Ugandě určitě umřete

Day 1 + 2: Via Via Guesthouse

A charming guesthouse in Entebbe, where we landed at three in the morning. It turned out to be the best accommodation we found in all of Uganda — which is exactly why we came back for our last night too.

Accommodation cost: $50/night for a private room, breakfast included Meal cost: $5–$7 for lunch/dinner Booking: Via Via

Day 3: Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

We camped right inside the park where we went on a rhino tracking trek. We pitched our tent on a camping area the size of a football pitch.

Camping cost: $10/person (no breakfast) Booking: Ziwarhino.com

RoadTrip Uganda #2: Když se zelený ráj změní v peklo

Day 4 + 5: Red Chilli Camp in Murchison Falls National Park

Red Chilli is a brilliant campsite right in the heart of Uganda’s largest national park. Hands down the best staff we encountered anywhere in the country! It’s a gorgeous oasis, located just three minutes from the Nile ferry crossing where morning safaris begin — making it the perfect base camp.

We used the camp as our base for a half-day self-drive safari and a three-hour boat cruise on the Nile.

Camping cost: $8/person Booking: redchillihideaway.com

Day 6: A Hotel You Should Definitely Avoid!

We couldn’t manage the full drive and had to stop for the night at the Glory Summit Hotel in the town of Hoima. First, you won’t find the hotel because the address is wrong on both Booking.com and their website. When you finally track it down, the receptionist won’t be able to tell you your room number, won’t know where breakfast is served, and will have absolutely no idea whether there’s still a chef in the kitchen. Oh, and they’ll slap a 5% surcharge on card payments. 🙂

Accommodation cost: $35

Day 7: Rwenzori Mountains – Rwenzori Trekkers Hostel

Before setting off on our two-day mountain trek, we took advantage of the option to stay in a room on the premises of the trekking company that was taking us into the mountains. A simple room with a bed and mosquito net served us well.

Accommodation cost: $15/person including breakfast (camping $8)

Day 8: Rwenzori Mountains – Kalalama Camp

On our two-day trek, we overnighted at a camp we crawled to after seven hours and 1,800 metres of elevation gain. Trek cost: $250 per person (includes guide, porters, food, snacks, and hut) Booking: rwenzoritrekking.com

Day 9: Simba Safari Camp

About an hour and a half from the Rwenzori Mountains, roughly 100 metres from the equator, and 10 minutes from the entrance to Queen Elizabeth National Park, you’ll find Simba Safari Camp. The restaurant staff will treat you like royalty — as long as you order in advance and go for at least a three-course meal. 🙂

Camping cost: $6/person Booking: ugandalodges.com

Uganda RoadTrip #3: Jak si nás přišla osahat gorila

Day 10: Queen Elizabeth Parkview Tourist Hotel

After a full day of driving around the national park on safari, we pulled up on the other side at this luxury resort overlooking plains full of elephants. We were the only guests, and they tried to rip us off, but everything worked out in the end and we actually quite enjoyed it. 🙂

Camping cost: $10/person Booking: qeparkviewlodge.com

Day 11: Rushaga Gorilla Camp

If you want to trek gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, you’ll need to stay at one of the nearby lodges. Be prepared for higher prices — the Ugandans know full well you have no other option.

Camping cost: $35/person (with breakfast and one main course) Booking: rushaga.com

Day 12 + 13: Paradise Eco Hub

We desperately needed this little paradise. The resort sits on a small island on Lake Bunyonyi and has everything you could possibly want in Uganda.

For your money, you get a level of comfort that’s rare in Uganda (we didn’t camp here), though the huts have no electricity (just a battery-powered light), you need to order food several hours ahead so they can fetch ingredients by boat, and the wifi they advertise on their website doesn’t actually work.

Silas, the resort manager and your ever-present guide, will take care of everything for you from start to finish. Pay for the half-day excursion ($15/person) where he’ll take you by boat around the islands, to a local school, and on a short hike to a viewpoint. Accommodation cost: $60/night for a luxury nest Booking: paradiseecohub.com

Day 14: Mburo Safari Lodge

For our last night in Uganda, we decided to splash out. We pooled all our remaining shillings and treated ourselves to a luxury chalet for $220 that included lunch, dinner, and breakfast. They had by far the best chef, and we were treated like VIPs. Before the meal, they brought us a warm, damp towel (!) to wash our hands, and that kicked off an hour-long gourmet experience. An hour long because it took them ages to serve each course. 😀

Accommodation cost: $250/chalet Booking: mburosafarilodge.com

Day 15: Via Via Guesthouse

We ended up right where we started. 🙂 We only popped in for a few hours, had dinner, and then headed to the airport.

So, How Much Did It All Cost?

Uganda cost us roughly €2,200 per person. That includes flights (around €440), medication and vaccinations (which we didn’t have any of, so it came to nearly €200/person), and gorilla trekking permits (about €400/person).

We flew from London, so those flights are factored in. If you’re flying from another UK city, budget accordingly — but there are decent connections from Manchester and other hubs via Nairobi or Addis Ababa with airlines like Ethiopian Airlines or Kenya Airways.

We didn’t scrimp on the road. Wherever possible, we camped, but we gave up cooking after the first day (it gets dark far too early, and the malaria-carrying mosquitoes come out at 5 pm). So we mostly ended up eating at restaurants for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

We bought whatever caught our eye, but we weren’t exactly throwing money around either. A typical meal at a hotel or campsite restaurant runs $5–$7, and while you can grab a chapati from a street vendor for pennies, you probably won’t want to eat them every single day. 🙂

Budget Breakdown:

Entry Fees Will Bleed You Dry

Park entrance fees, gorilla permits, and the two-day mountain trek alone cost us nearly €1,600 between the two of us. Ugandans routinely charge foreigners many times more than locals. It’s not a scam — those really are the official prices. It’s perfectly normal to pay $45 per person for 24-hour entry to a national park (not a minute longer — a soldier with a Kalashnikov checks you on the way out), plus another $30 for your vehicle. Add accommodation costs, multiply by the number of days, and prepare for some serious sticker shock.

Uganda on Half the Budget of a Tour Company

We compared our costs with what a UK-based tour operator would charge for a similar itinerary. We found one running a very similar route, albeit with fewer nights (4 fewer). It turned out we did the whole thing for roughly half the price of their package, and we saw considerably more (including a two-day trek into the Rwenzori Mountains). And those 4 extra nights are absolutely worth it 😇

	Our DIY Trip	Tour Operator
Car (= freedom of movement)	YES	NO
Number of nights	14	10
Gorilla permit included	YES	NO (+ ~€400/person)
Medication & Malarone included	YES	NO (+ ~€200/person)
Total cost	~€2,200	~€3,600 (+ €600)

We’ll never drive in Uganda after dark again. We promised each other, and in the morning we set off really early. It didn’t work out. On the way to the Rwenzori Mountains (the Mountains of the Moon), darkness and a storm caught us.

If we thought nothing could be worse than driving through dirt tracks in the dark, today proved that flooded two-metre-deep potholes are a brutal school of offroad driving — a matter of life and death. This was only part three of our Uganda road trip, and gorilla trekking in Uganda was still ahead of us.

I didn’t feel like doing a two-day trek anymore. We checked into the hostel where the hike starts and declared we’d definitely go in the morning. Neither of us believed it though. We didn’t want to disappoint each other, but the depressing rain only brought the urge to get out of there as quickly as possible.

 

But the morning had a surprise in store — the weather was beautiful. Neither of us could find a single reason not to go, so off we went. You’re not allowed into the Rwenzori Mountains without a guide and porters. It also costs a lot of money. A two-day trip comes to $235 per person, plus you’re expected to tip the porters, who you’re required to have but aren’t paid by the company. They’re just people from the village.

Uphill, and then steeply uphill

“Now it’ll be flat for about four kilometres, and then we’ll start climbing.” Our guide explained, and we spent the whole time wondering why he called it flat when it was actually uphill. Then we understood — for him, “climbing” only means when you have to use your hands. Soon we were grateful for the porters. The sun was blazing and we were fighting our way through the jungle.

Our guide wasn’t much of a guide. His most frequent words were: “Break here?”

We only got something useful out of him when we asked if there were venomous snakes around.

“There are. We have the green mamba, black mamba, and spitting cobra.” His white teeth gleamed in a smile against his dark face.

“So just the most dangerous ones in the world,” Lukáš commented.

“Yeah, but we’d have to be incredibly lucky to run into them!” The guide smiled, and we quietly thought to ourselves that it would indeed be incredible “luck” to meet a snake that could kill you.

The Ugandan game of hide and seek

When we reach the halfway point and look like we’re about to give up the ghost, we decide we need a lunch break. The porters unpack the food, then disappear around the corner with the guide. We hear them laughing and joking, but as soon as the meal is over, they return, fall silent, and stay quiet as long as they’re near us.

We finally reach the hut. But we discover there’s no view from here. “We’d have to go higher for that, but it’s up to you,” the Ugandan tells us. So we drag ourselves higher, immediately cursing ourselves because we know our bodies won’t thank us for this in the coming days. After a total of 7 hours, we’re at 3,147 metres. It’s worth it.

But this is where the real theatre begins. “So, we’re here,” the guide announces, points to the hut where we’ll sleep, and then vanishes into a tiny shelter with our three porters and some other locals who were already there.

White European VIPs

“The website said that a common activity after hiking is chatting with the guide,” I comment, amused by the Ugandans hiding in their shelter. We see our guide just once more that day — for a “briefing,” which is simply the announcement that breakfast is at seven and we leave at 7:30. In the meantime, the porters occasionally emerge to bring us tea, biscuits, soup, and then a main course. Each portion is enough for five, and we feel embarrassed because we can never finish it. No one talks to us.

“We’re like VIPs here,” Lukáš and I whisper to each other, feeling awkward about it.

As soon as we finish eating, we quickly disappear into the hut. When we close the door behind us, laughter erupts. The Ugandans party until midnight, or maybe until morning. Until we emerge from the hut again and they’ll serve us like VIPs once more. In silence.

“Tea is ready.” The call comes at 6:20 and we wonder why they told us breakfast was at seven if they’re waking us at 6:20. We shrug it off and drag ourselves to the table, where they start piling on several courses of breakfast. First porridge, then eggs, fried potatoes, and toast. Lukáš even gets sausages. We even get butter. “They must have brought an entire kitchen up here,” Lukáš sighs over the food. We’re miserable about it, feeling guilty for leaving food behind. We secretly wrap up the leftovers and decide we’ll run it down in five hours and refuse the lunch break.

Malaria risk puts you off cooking

For the second day, we can barely walk. At Simba Camp on the edge of Queen Elizabeth National Park, we shuffle around as if someone had beaten us up — and that’s exactly how we feel. Even pitching the tent turns out to be a heroic feat. Luckily, we gave up cooking after the first attempt. It gets dark very early here, and with darkness comes a horde of mosquitoes and one of the highest malaria risks in all of Africa. So at least we don’t have to worry about cooking.

We’ve also run out of clean clothes. We’d naively assumed we could use washing machines at whatever hotel we camped next to. It turned out they obviously don’t have washing machines here, so you have to pay per item of laundry.

So we wash everything in our own basin and hang it on the trees around us. “It’s like a Ugandan Christmas tree,” I say, looking at the tree next to our tent and wondering whether the Christmas lights are already up back home in Europe.

Huge hotel complexes with no guests, sometimes no staff

Queen Elizabeth National Park is a bit of a disappointment for us. We don’t see many animals, our legs still haven’t recovered, and we know that gorilla trekking is fast approaching — and we’ll need our muscles for that Uganda gorilla safari.

Early in the afternoon, we look for accommodation. We arrive at a lodge that’s supposed to have a camping spot too. Loud music is blaring from reception, but the entire complex is deserted. We search the grounds but can’t find anyone. So we head to the next hotel with camping, turning off at a dubious sign reading “Queen Elizabeth Park View Tourist Hotel & Camping.” The road itself is terrifying — children just out of school stick to us, peering through our windows, pulling at the door handles, or running behind us pretending to push the car. There’s a frightening cliff beside us.

We finally reach the gate and dread the thought of driving back through the children.

Nobody comes. We’re about to turn around when I spot movement behind the gate.

“Someone’s there!”

First they tried to rip us off

When the gate opens, several Ugandans greet us. The complex is enormous with a view over the safari landscape. At first we regret not turning around. We’re the only ones here and the Ugandan isn’t thrilled that we only want to camp. “$20 per person,” he tries, but we tell him their website says $10.

“$10 is also fine.” With the feeling that he immediately tried to rip us off, we feel like intruders. But once the initial, predictably blunt performance about what we want for dinner and when we want it dies down — followed by apologies that they can actually only make one dish and dinner can only be at a specific time — we all end up sitting in the common room, chatting.

 

It turns out our host is genuinely interested in the world around him. He tells us about Uganda and its direction, and we learn there’s compulsory school attendance here. “So that kids don’t take drugs and girls don’t have babies at fifteen,” he comments, and goes on until we reach world politics and end up complaining about Kim Jong-un. Then he asks how to attract more European tourists to Uganda. We talk about roads, marketing, until we end up discussing Europe.

How can you live in Europe in that kind of cold?

“And what’s the weather like where you’re from?”

“In winter, temperatures drop below zero. Last year it was even minus 15 in our city.”

“UUUUH?” The Ugandan lets out the traditional local sound of astonishment. “How can people live in that?” He stares at us wide-eyed. “I’d just lie under a blanket all day and never go anywhere.” And he laughs. The idea of winter is clearly hilariously funny to him.

“Well, sometimes we don’t feel like getting up either,” I admit. We’re sitting in a room that serves as both reception and restaurant. In reality, it’s just a few sofas, a coffee table, and a TV. Like most hotel complexes here, this one is oversized but poorly thought out. The complex has at least 20 rooms, but parking for only five cars. The access road is dusty, full of holes, built more for a tank than a car, and runs along an enormous cliff.

The last guest here was a month ago. So we had about four Ugandans all to ourselves. Maybe more.

“We have heating at home,” Lukáš explains. The Ugandan ignores this and suddenly his eyes light up.

“And can cars drive in that? In that kind of cold?” The Ugandan is practically in stitches — I’ve never seen anyone find winter so funny. There’s clearly something hilarious about it that I absolutely don’t understand. We explain that cars drive perfectly normally in winter. This concern seems amusing to us in turn — frost and snow are a breeze compared to your average dusty road in Uganda.

Suddenly he falls quiet.

How Ugandans defend their gardens

“Hear that sound? People are running to defend the garden,” we pause for a moment, but only for a second. The power has just gone out and I can only see the white half-moon of a smile.

“Defend it. From what?”

“From elephants! They play drums for them!” We burst out laughing, then listen to the drums and singing of people in the distance before we all go to sleep. The next day, we don’t even mind that he probably added that extra $20 to our dinner bill — the amount he’d tried to charge us for camping. We give him a tip and sincerely wish that more people would visit.

Into the jungle to find mountain gorillas

The greatest experience is yet to come. We arrive at Bwindi National Park, from where we’re setting out the next day for our gorilla trekking in Uganda. We’re excited. The local camp is supposed to be top-notch (and priced accordingly), and people rate the encounter with mountain gorillas as the most amazing experience of their lives.

Rushaga Gorilla Camp is indeed beautiful, even though there’s no Wi-Fi and the food is the same as everywhere else — an imitation of American cuisine without taste or imagination. Ugandans aren’t great at organisation; we’ve had our gorilla permit for two weeks but don’t know where or when to show up. We try to find out here, but even information from the locals varies. One person says 7:30, another says 8:00.

At the meeting point, it takes another two hours to split us into groups and drive to the spot where we finally set off. They try several times to convince us to take porters along. (Whom we’d then have to tip at least $15.) We don’t understand why, when all we have in our backpack is water and a snack. We don’t understand why they’re not included in the price when we’re paying $450 (in high season it’s $650).

A gorilla came to touch us and wanted to play

We’ve been wading through the jungle for hours, sinking into mud while our escorts hack a path with machetes. Just when I’m about to give up, something huge and black flashes in front of us. Our hearts are pounding. Then we hear the roaring of gorillas and the cracking of branches. The Ugandans grunt and growl at them, trying to call them in their language. Lukáš and I are cursing ourselves for paying to probably die in the arms of a 180-kilogram gorilla.

I’m the only one with a camera, so one of our escorts holds my hand and pulls me along at the front, while with his other hand he breaks and hacks through branches. He sits me under a tree and points. Suddenly I see them. We all settle down in sacred silence and watch the gorilla family. They watch us. A two-year-old comes over to touch us, then jumps back and starts celebrating. She sniffs at us. She looks me in the eyes, then suddenly runs away, comes back, and sits at the end of our semicircle. She joins us, crosses her arms over her chest, and just like us, watches the scene around her for a while.

There are only about 800 of these mountain gorillas in the world, and they all live in two national parks in Uganda. One of those parks also extends into the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. You cannot encounter them anywhere else on Earth.

You should have a goat at home. Preferably two or three!

We’re running out of energy. We’ve reached Lake Bunyonyi and taken a boat to the Paradise Eco Hub, a charming and affordable little hotel with amazing reviews on one of the islands in this Ugandan water paradise. You can even swim here. We booked it through Booking.com so we’d have internet and could get some work done.

Our SIM card data was nearly gone and we needed to send a pile of emails. The internet didn’t work, of course, but it might not have mattered anyway. Our bodies decided they’d had enough and completely shut down for two nights and a day. So we spent those two days sleeping, eating, or chatting with the staff.

“Do you have goats at home?” an 18-year-old Ugandan asks me, pointing at a black goat.

“Sure, we have them,” I answer, and he looks surprised.

“And how many do you own?” Only now do I realise he’s not asking whether we have goats in our country, but whether we have them at home.

“Well, we don’t have any at home. But people in our country do keep them,” I explain.

“But you should have goats at home. A goat is a very good thing. You should have at least one, but preferably two or three,” the Ugandan instructs me, and I’m amused by the image of goats in our tiny flat back home.

Today I’m sitting in one of those expensive tourist hotels near Lake Mburo National Park, where we spend the day watching zebras. We came here for the internet — which of course doesn’t work — but we fell in love with this oasis of calm and decided to stay. Tomorrow is our last safari, and then we’ll slowly head home.

It was supposed to be a story about animals. When we set out that morning to find rhinos at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, I was already writing an article in my head about a green paradise in Africa. But then I encountered the other face of this Uganda road trip — the one that can cost you your life.

After watching the rhinos, we immediately set off on a gruelling multi-hour drive to Murchison Falls National Park, where our private boat to the waterfalls was leaving at half past three.

 

We pulled up to the gate and bought our park entry permits. For Ugandans, it’s $5 a day. For us, it was $40 per person plus another five dollars for the car — and if you exceed 24 hours, they charge you the full entry fee again. Remember that detail. We’ll come back to it.

Uganda’s Death Drive

An unpaved road riddled with deadly potholes winds through the park, with a speed limit of 40 km/h. We crawl along — the road is truly horrendous and takes an hour and a half to cover. Monkeys bounce around everywhere and we have no reason to hurry. Then a white minibus hurtles past us — tourists with a hired Ugandan driver. Hardly anyone self-drives here like we do. Driving is absolute hell: pothole after pothole, and now in the rainy season, the worst ones are muddy craters filled with water. That’s why most people opt for local drivers. It’s one of those things everyone tells you before a trip to Uganda. We didn’t listen.

“Ugandans drive like absolute maniacs,” we comment on the white minibus’s speed, continuing at our snail’s pace and laughing at the crazy monkeys. We have plenty of time.

Help Can Take Up to Three Hours

Shock. For a moment, I don’t understand what’s happening. We stop. Ahead of us, we see an overturned minibus with smashed windows. Blood glistens among the shards of glass. A bald man clutches his head, streams of red pouring down his face as he staggers aimlessly. Someone lies on the ground in a pool of blood. I notice the Ugandan driver sitting calmly on the grass nearby, chewing on a blade of grass, while the less injured passengers try to give first aid to the woman on the ground. They run towards us. They have no phone signal to call for help. We can’t load her into our car — we’re afraid of making her injuries worse. We quickly turn around, drive a few metres, and catch a signal. We dial 911. Nothing. A long silence. Someone finally picks up. And immediately hangs up. This happens several times.

We drive back for help. Thirty minutes back to the gate. We keep trying to call but no one answers.  

But We Told Him to Drive Slowly

At the gate.

“There’s been a serious car accident on the road. A woman is unconscious, unresponsive, there’s a lot of blood, and no one can get through. Please call a doctor or an ambulance.”

We unload all of this on the ranger, but he just stares at us, clearly thinking about something else entirely. We repeat it.

“The car accident from yesterday?” a female soldier who’d wandered over asks into the calm silence that’s now grating on our nerves. I stare at her wide-eyed and repeat everything again. “No, a car accident right NOW!!! The Ugandan driver was doing 80 km/h!”

“But we told him to drive slowly,” says Ranger Donald in a calm voice. It doesn’t look like he intends to do anything about it.

“Yes, we told him,” the soldier agrees, gazing off into the distance.

We stare at them, wondering if this conversation is actually real, and remind them of the situation — a woman lying unconscious in a pool of blood.

“Hmm. That is serious.” The soldier ponders this for a moment. Nobody does anything. We repeat ourselves a hundred times until Ranger Donald declares: “But there’s probably no one around here to call.” He shrugs and walks off to fetch the visitor’s book.

This absurd situation drags on for an hour. First they look through the registry to figure out who it was, debating whether they remember them. Only after half an hour do they finally call for help. The ambulance arrives after three hours — but by then the woman had regained consciousness and they’d managed to load her into a car leaving the park and rush her to hospital.

Punished for Helping Others

But our story doesn’t end there. Because of the whole ordeal, we missed our boat. And we needed to stay an extra day. Here’s where we circle back to the beginning: exceeding 24 hours means paying the entry fee all over again. We go to the rangers and ask them to change our arrival date — surely they won’t make us pay $85 for helping deal with a car accident in their park.

“We can’t change it. It’s an official document.”

We stare at the hand-scrawled scrap of paper from a receipt pad, wondering if they’re serious. There is no other record — no computer, no system — just this hand-written slip of paper.

“Then tear it up and write a new one.”

“We can’t do that. It’s an official document.”

We tried for a while, but as far as they were concerned, the discussion was over. Not for me, though.

“You can’t be serious. We’re here helping at a car accident in YOUR park, caused by a UGANDAN driver, and you’re going to make us pay an extra $85?”

“But you weren’t in the accident,” says Donald. I stare at him. Lightning bolts are about to shoot from my eyes.

“So you’re going to punish us for helping people? And now we have to pay $85 for another day?”

We argue with them for two hours. He spends an hour on the phone with his supervisor.

“The only thing I could do is change the date for you, but you’d have to come back tomorrow at the same time as today. I can’t change the time!” This is, of course, absurd for us — what would we do until tomorrow afternoon, and more importantly, we’d have to cancel our plans. We already knew we wouldn’t make it to see the chimpanzees.

The absurdity could have gone on forever, but a hand-written piece of paper simply cannot be cancelled or changed. So I told them exactly what I thought of them and their system, and we drove into the park. After another two hours of arguing with his supervisor, Lukáš managed to negotiate a six-hour extension until 7 PM the following day. And that brought us yet another nightmare. It’s the reason we ended up driving through hell at night. But that’s a story for another time.

Planning a trip to Uganda is complicated, and finding a decent guidebook is even harder. We’ll save you the trouble — the best one in our opinion is Uganda by Andrew Roberts, which you can order online. We couldn’t recommend it more highly.

When Hippos Wander Around Your Tent

We were exhausted, furious at this country, at the system, and ready to tell anyone with a smile on their face that they live in a green, cursed, malaria-ridden, chaotic hell.

But then we arrived at Red Chilli Camp.

Pumba — an adorable African warthog — trotted around us while we pitched our tent. In all the fury, we didn’t even stop to think it might be dangerous. It gazed at us with those big round eyes as if trying to win us over. The whole camp, with its excellent restaurant and jaw-dropping views, was a little slice of paradise in this unpredictable country. We forgave Uganda. We ate well and drank Nile beer late into the night — because this time a family of hippos had claimed our tent, and we didn’t dare go anywhere near them.

We met Joe and Alex from Britain, who’d been volunteering in Uganda and were now travelling. A photographer and a songwriter. Our poetic evening with the two artists ended when our tent was finally free, the hippos had gone off to sleep, and we crawled into our sleeping bags with peaceful hearts, knowing we couldn’t just write this country off.

 

Forgiveness — But Not for Long

The morning brought a gorgeous red sunrise. If there was any anger left in us towards this green paradise, it vanished with the first glimpse of that rich crimson sky.

At first light, we crossed the River Nile to reach the safari area. We all stand on the ferry — really more of a floating iron raft — gazing at the Nile through the morning mist as sunbeams fight their way through.

The romance ends the moment the raft grinds against the opposite bank. One of the rangers hurries us into the car, jumps in himself, and together we spend four hours rattling down dirt tracks on our first ever African safari.

Elephants, giraffes, antelopes, and warthogs pose for us as if they’d rehearsed it. In the afternoon, we hop on a boat heading to the waterfalls and experience the whole show all over again. The boat cruise to the falls is supposed to be the highlight of Murchison Falls National Park, but we’re a bit disappointed — you don’t actually get that close to them.

Drive Like a Maniac, But Try Not to Kill Us

We dock at quarter to six. Why am I mentioning this? Because we’d argued our way to a 7 PM extension, giving us just an hour and fifteen minutes to reach the gate. The drive normally takes an hour and a half.

 

 

“Well, if you drive a bit faster, you’ll make it,” the ranger winks as we step off the boat.

“Maybe, if we do 60 instead of 40 km/h,” Lukáš nods reluctantly. We’re not exactly thrilled.

“Nah, more like 80 km/h,” he grins. And we think to ourselves — some ranger, encouraging us to get ourselves killed.

 

But we drive as fast as we can. We’re not just fighting the clock — we’re racing the light. In an hour, we won’t be able to see the road at all. This is the road from hell. At least one crash happens here every single day, and driving faster than you should feels like utter madness. Tearing down this road in the dark is several levels beyond that.

Lukáš grips the steering wheel with white knuckles while I clutch the passenger seat and will the clock to slow down. We make it. It’s 6:57 and the gate opens. But our journey doesn’t end there. In the pitch-black darkness, we crawl down dirt tracks for another three and a half hours to the town of Hoima. We drive at walking pace. Everything terrifies us. The road — which can barely be called a road — would be passable for a tank maybe, but certainly not for our Toyota.

Around us lies what must be beautiful jungle by day, but now it just terrifies us. Electricity is still a massive luxury out here, switched on for only a few hours a day. Darkness is everywhere — but life isn’t absent. We see boisterous celebrations in villages huddled around tiny flickers of light, and the roads aren’t empty either. Silhouettes of people walking home stretch through this hellish jungle alongside us.

 

Ants for Breakfast

When we finally limp into Hoima, we’re slightly relieved that we don’t plan anything in advance. Otherwise, we’d probably have driven all night to Fort Portal, where we’d originally intended to spend the night. The Golden Summit Hotel in Hoima costs next to nothing and is rated as the best hotel in the wider area. But the wider area must consist entirely of sheds, because we can’t explain it any other way.

 

We never complain about hotels. It really doesn’t take much to make us happy. But this place started badly, continued badly, and ended badly — so badly that I can’t write anything except that we should have driven the extra seven hours to Fort Portal. First, the Google Maps address was wrong and we spent an hour trying to find the place. Then the reception had no idea where their own restaurant was (“Hmm, I think if you go round this corner, you’ll find it”). The room finished us off — furniture literally fell apart in our hands. The broken WiFi couldn’t surprise us anymore, but ants in the breakfast? That we genuinely didn’t see coming.

It was as if Uganda couldn’t decide what impression to leave on us. And we had no idea what we’d take away from it either.

 

Planning a trip to Uganda is complicated, and finding a decent guidebook is even harder. We’ll save you the trouble — the best one in our opinion is Uganda by Andrew Roberts, which you can order online. We couldn’t recommend it more highly.

“You absolutely must plan Uganda, otherwise you won’t make it back from Africa.” My long-time friend was doing his best to prepare me for our African trip. But in the end, we failed miserably at planning anyway. We booked accommodation for the first and last night, sorted out a car, and bought a gorilla trekking trip. That covered 3 out of 14 days. And honestly, that was more than usual for us. We were counting on mobile internet — though we had no idea how well it would work. Some people on Facebook had a very clear opinion about how our Uganda road trip would end: “You two will definitely die in Uganda.”  

At the airport: “Is Uganda good for tourists?”

Not planning wasn’t exactly a free choice. Fresh information about Uganda is surprisingly hard to come by — it’s not exactly the most popular tourist destination in the world.

Our conversation at the airport pretty much sums it up: “Do you live in Uganda?” “No, we’re going there on holiday.” “Is Uganda good for tourists?” “Well, we certainly hope so.”

Guidebooks are only available in English, and even getting hold of one proved a nightmare. We ordered from an online bookshop and waited three weeks, with them reassuring us every other day that it would arrive within three days. It never did. Eventually they admitted they didn’t have it in stock. Looking back, maybe they were just giving us a preview of how things work in Uganda.

That’s when the nerves kicked in. A week before departure, we had nothing. The internet offered only scraps of information. Because when tourists do go to Uganda, they travel with a tour company or a private driver. Not on their own, camping in a tent, and certainly not without a proper plan. But that’s exactly what we did.

We nearly ended up in an Egyptian prison

The adrenaline hit before our feet even touched Ugandan soil — we nearly ended up in prison in Egypt. After landing in Cairo, we spotted a massive sign right before the security checkpoint: DRONES PROHIBITED. There was no time to think or discuss. We’d noticed the sign about a minute before our bag went through the scanner. I stood on the other side of the conveyor belt, watching our carry-on with the drone go through the tunnel again and again, silently reciting every prayer my grandmother had taught me as a child.

“Open it,” said the Egyptian officer, pointing at something on the monitor. But it wasn’t the drone. What looked suspicious to her was the drone’s external battery. She examined it for a moment, then handed it back. We were free.

Africa’s greatest enemy: The drone

The relief vanished when we discovered there would be another round of scanning before boarding. We hadn’t found any mention of a drone ban on EgyptAir’s website. “Apparently it’s illegal to even own a drone in Egypt. It says here they can just lock you up.” “Fine, we’ll hand over the drone. Someone online says they just took their propellers.” Almost resigned to our fate, we stepped up to the second checkpoint. It passed through again.

But they confiscated it anyway. Right at Entebbe airport. It turned out that when it comes to Uganda, you can’t find accurate drone information online either. The lovely Ugandans were incredibly apologetic. “We have a special room for drones here, so you can just pick it up later.” We later found out that if you slip them 200 dollars (roughly €185), they’ll let you walk away with it. “We have about 54 tribes and they all have their own language. That’s why it’s good that English is the official language.” It’s four in the morning and we’re driving through dusty streets in a car that’s at least twenty years old. Our lift from Guest House Via Via is passionately telling us about Ugandan culture, describing the customs of individual tribes.

“And then there are tribes that practise circumcision. On women too. And that’s really horrific,” he comments matter-of-factly before moving on, while the road keeps getting worse and we’re hoping we’ll arrive soon. Then he stops by a concrete wall topped with barbed wire. We see the sign for our accommodation and an enormous gate slowly swinging open. “What’s the barbed wire for? Is it to keep animals out?” Lukáš ventures, though we both already know the answer. “No. It’s for people. Even this neighbourhood has its problems.”

To Ugandans, I’m just a walking dollar sign

We woke up to our first Ugandan morning in the former capital, Entebbe. I’m sipping coffee at the guest house, chewing on banana pancakes piled high with exotic fruit. It feels like paradise. Everyone is lovely to us, and I start saying they’re like the Canadians of Africa. But that only lasts until I realise that to them, we’re nothing more than walking dollar signs.

They emerge from a filthy shack — wearing their finest clothes Our car isn’t arriving until the next day, so we set off exploring on foot. Children wave at us, adults stare or wave too, as if they’ve never seen white skin before. Women here carry absolutely everything on their heads — straw, petrol cans, even logs.

Men do it too, but it’s the women who fascinate us more. No matter how rundown the house they step out of, they’re always elegantly dressed in colourful clothes with flawless hairdos. Standing in front of a dirty straw hut, these apparitions look like walking oxymorons.

“I’m a volunteer guide here. For free. But now pay up.” At the local botanical garden, we paid admission and a camera fee, already picturing a romantic stroll through the jungle surrounded by monkeys. But the moment we handed over the money, we noticed a Ugandan man standing next to us, telling us in his African-accented English that the tree ahead was a mango tree.

“I work here as a volunteer guide. I don’t get paid because I’m a university student. I want to become a ranger.” Neither Lukáš nor I are great at saying no to people, so we let him tell us about flowers, turning our romantic monkey walk into a botany lecture. “And now it’s time for you to pay me.” Lukáš stared at him, then handed over 10,000 Ugandan shillings (about €2.50). “That’s not enough. I normally get 10,000 per person.”

Learning to say no

People always try to get more money out of you. Sometimes they’re upfront about asking, but usually they venture into emotionally manipulative territory. So we’d spend a few minutes each day listening to how poor they are, or our guide-ranger would ring his wife in English right in front of us, saying they didn’t have enough money for Christmas. We might not have twigged he was angling for cash — if he hadn’t called her in Swahili just ten minutes earlier. Why would he suddenly switch to English? Other times they’ll invent road fees for the national park, or try to convince you that camping costs $20 (€18.50) per person when their website clearly says $10 (€9). We usually cough up the extra, but gradually our funds start running out. Uganda is paradoxically quite expensive for tourists. So we learn to say no. The Ugandans take it in their stride. “$10 per person works too.”

You won’t forget you’re in a developing country

Time works differently here. Buses leave when they’re full, so you might wait an hour — or an entire day. When we ask the receptionist what time the bar closes, she answers “Later.” At first we think it’s a joke, but “later” is a perfectly standard unit of time here. We don’t know how many hours that is, or whether it’s even a specific number, but supermarkets sometimes have it on their signs too: “Open until later.”

The bar is open until later Numbers seem to be a genuine Ugandan struggle. Entry fees are sometimes listed half in Ugandan shillings and half in dollars. Admission for people is in dollars, but the car fee is in shillings. If you want to convert it all into one currency, it takes them an awfully long time. Subtracting 13,000 shillings from 20,000 is a job for a calculator. Not occasionally — always. For some reason, they also refuse US dollars issued before 2011. They get a worse exchange rate in shillings for them. Why? We never found out.

In the morning, a Ugandan man delivered our car. Ugandans are generally not the best at organisation, but this particular guy was perhaps the most scatterbrained Ugandan we encountered on the entire trip. He had to come back to us several times. First he forgot to give us a phone, which he then sent over with another local. “I’ve just noticed he forgot to buy you a SIM card, so you’ll have to get one yourselves.” If you’re heading to Uganda, consider getting an eSIM from Holafly before you leave — it’ll save you the hassle.

But it didn’t end there. Four hours later, we’re chasing our forgetful friend through the streets of Entebbe again, trying to correctly interpret his African-accented English and hoping we’ll actually manage to leave today. He’d forgotten to hand over the most important thing of all — our gorilla trekking permit.

Why Ugandans are afraid of rain

When we finally leave Entebbe, it’s noon. To reach our destination, we have to drive through the capital, Kampala. It’s impossible to tell whether you’ve entered the city or not — buildings stretch on without a single gap, and the traffic just gets denser by the mile. Signs? Forget about it. Two original lanes morph into five through sheer Ugandan creativity, with taxis and boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) honking all around us. Lukáš’s knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel. African roads are nothing like European or American ones. Oh, and they drive on the left here. Then the rain arrives.

At first we’re delighted. With the first drops, the streets empty. When it rains in Uganda, people do absolutely nothing — except sprint for the nearest dry spot. Life comes to a standstill. The boda bodas vanish and we can drive freely.

Soon enough we understand why. We stop celebrating. Within 10 minutes the road is completely flooded and it feels like a biblical deluge has hit. The road beneath the water takes on entirely new shapes, and eventually we have to stop too. Getting caught in a downpour at the worst possible moment would become a regular feature of our trip. But we were glad for the rainy season. An hour-long shower once every four days is perfectly survivable, and in return, nature rewards you with lush greenery. Stunning, vivid green that in the dry season quickly fades to a barren yellow landscape.

Next time: wildlife encounters and the road of death to the national park…