Thursday 21st October - Our Journey to Uganda begins

Thursday 21st October - Our Journey to Uganda begins

4am on a freezing cold October morning our group of 14 intrepid Travellers meet, tired but excited, ready to start the long journey to Global Care centre in Rukingiri, Uganda. Our flights taking us from Birmingham to Amsterdam, then to Entebbe, Uganda and after that a 400Km bus journey to Rukingiri.

We easily recognised each other as we each wore our green Global Care sweat shirt but more importantly were each weighed down by two huge suitcases, each weighing 23Kg. In total the luggage we were taking out to help Global Care with their work, weighed over 640Kg and included an electricity generator and TWO cement mixers. More of the cement mixers later in the blog.

There was an early onset of stress when it was realised that one of the group had left his passport in the car which was parked some 15mins away, this was compounded when we were told the flight had been overbooked and some passengers would not be allowed on, despite having tickets. A mad dash to the car park and return with the passport got the young man checked onto the plane and through security with minutes to spare.

The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful, taking off in the dark and landing in Amsterdam just as the sun rose above the horizon in a splash of vivid red colours, a beautiful, beautiful sight.

Without any incident we transferred to the plane that would take us on the 8hr flight to Entebbe. The plane was only half full and there would be lots of space to spread out and relax once we were airborne. Airborne??? “This is your captain speaking, we will have a slight delay while the engineers change one of the wheels, this is perfectly normal part of the plane’s maintenance schedule” So about 40 minutes later, after some banging and clanging and the plane rocking around once or twice, we see a large lorry drive from underneath the plane with a HUGE wheel in the back. Ten minutes later we were on our way.

The flight was very good, the scenery spectacular and varied. The route took us over the alps with snow covered mountains reaching up close to the plane, tiny villages nestling deep in very steep valleys. Down Italy and then across to Solerno, crossing the toe of Italy before across the Mediterranean, crossing the coast of Africa to fly across the desert, mile after mile of sand, with very sign of man made structures.

In the last two hours of the flight we encountered some turbulence and then off to the West, we saw vast, dark storm clouds with lightening flashes coming from within them.

Later we saw the sun set with a blood red sky as a backdrop to the black storm clouds.

We landed just 30 minutes late, everyone excited at having arrived safely in Uganda. Once we got through immigration, a process that takes about an hour, we went to the baggage hall where ALL our luggage was waiting for us. Then out through Customs to be met by Gertrude’s huge warm smile. For a number of us it was meeting an old friend, to the others it was meeting a wonderful lady who would become a good friend.

Then a short ride to the local Guest House where we arrived at about 9.30pm, some 16 hours after meeting at Birmingham. A very quick snack then we all went off to bed, tired and happy, despite knowing we had to be up again at 5am for the last leg of our trip, the 400Km (250Miles) bus ride to Rukingiri.

We were safe, we were warm, well fed and happy.