Up Friday morning at 5:30 (3 hours sleep; 6 hours sleep TOTAL over the last THREE nights) to take showers and head out for the airport for our flight to Entebe, Uganda. Rechecked 60 bags, stood in more lines and waited for our flight to leave. The flight from Ethiopia to Uganda took 2-3 hours. Most of us slept the first hour or so. However, we were all jolted from our sleep by some severe turbulence. I have been on many flights and have even experienced significant turbulence. This situation was very scary. At one point, the plane dropped so much that the wine from a glass hit the ceiling of the plane. This same wine landed on/in Sandra Watkins’ hair and clothes. One of the flight attendants fell and was hit by the cart from which they were serving. They (the flight attendants) all went scrambling and running to put the stuff away and get buckled. When it was all over, the pilot told us it was a volatile cloud that was undetected by radar.
(I found out later that the commode, yes, the commode, came off its perch during the incident. The flight attendant found it in the floor of the bathroom blocking the door!)
What I saw from the airplane during the last hour of this flight was dramatic. In one hour, I got an amazing view of the vast Sahara Desert (the largest desert in the world), the Nile River (the longest river in the world) snaking its way through the Sahara, and Lake Victoria! It felt so “historic” to be looking on such grand natural features that have endured thousands and thousands of years and have touched so much life in so many ways.
Lake Victoria - The larges natural lake in the world. Our drive from Entebe (where the airport is) to Jinja took about 3 hours. We skirted Lake Victoria the entire time, and yet, if you look on a map, this barely touches the distance around the southern side of Lake Victoria. It is huge!
One interesting thing I noticed about Lake Victoria. It seemed so underutilized. Notice in this picture taken from the airplane - there isn't a soul on the lake.
After arriving at Entebe, we deplaned out on the tarmac – it felt very 1950/60s. On our drive to our “resort”, we saw so many “African” things: monkeys at the airport, vast tea and sugar cane fields, weaver birds building their nests in the trees, dirt roads with miles and miles of make-shift buildings made out of wood scraps and corrugated metal. We are indeed in Africa!
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