The Minaret, the Market, and the Motorcycle: Three Days in Kampala
The first thing you notice about Kampala is the sound. Not one sound — a wall of them. Engines revving, horns blaring in patterns that might be language, gospel music from a speaker wired to a car battery on the sidewalk, and somewhere underneath all of it, the clatter of a chapati being slapped flat on a griddle.
I was supposed to be in transit. Kampala was a waypoint, two nights before the charter flight to Bwindi and the gorillas. That was the plan.
Plans are adorable in Kampala.
The Road from Entebbe
The drive from Entebbe airport is 40 kilometers. My driver, a broad-shouldered man named Joseph who spoke in long paragraphs, told me it would take one hour. It took two and a half.
The Kampala-Entebbe highway moves at the speed of negotiation. Every gap in traffic is an opportunity for a boda-boda to insert itself — usually sideways, usually at speed, usually carrying something improbable on the back. I saw a motorcycle carrying a wardrobe. An actual wooden wardrobe.
"Welcome to Kampala," Joseph said, not looking up from his phone.
I checked into the Emin Pasha Hotel ($140/night, worth it for the compound's quiet gardens) and walked to the nearest street corner for my first Ugandan Rolex. Not the watch. A chapati wrapped around a fried egg omelette with tomatoes and onions. UGX 2,500. About sixty-seven cents.
It was perfect.
Day One: The View from Up Here
The Uganda National Mosque — locals still call it the Gaddafi Mosque — sits on Old Kampala Hill like it owns the city. It does, visually. The largest mosque in sub-Saharan Africa, completed in 2007, with a minaret that offers what everyone agrees is the best view in Kampala.
Three hundred and seventeen steps.
I counted because about halfway up, my calves started a protest I couldn't ignore. A woman in a full abaya passed me on the stairs without breaking stride. I pretended I'd stopped to admire the architecture.
But the top. The top is worth every wheezing step. All seven hills laid out beneath you, the red roofs and green canopies and construction cranes and, in the distance, the shimmer that might be Lake Victoria or might be heat haze. The mosque is free to enter. Wraps are provided for anyone whose knees are showing. Non-Muslims are welcome, and the guides are generous with their time.
From there I walked downhill — everything in Kampala is uphill or downhill, there is no flat — to the Kasubi Tombs. A UNESCO World Heritage Site. The burial grounds of four Buganda kings under a thatched dome so large it has its own weather. Entry is UGX 15,000 (~$4). You remove your shoes, and a guide walks you through the Buganda kingdom's royal lineage.
The dome was damaged by fire in 2010, and the restoration is visible — new thatch alongside old, new wood alongside weathered. The guide spoke about the fire the way you'd speak about a family illness. Something survived but something was also lost.
Day Two: Into the Labyrinth
Owino Market. Also called St. Balikuddembe Market. Also called the place where you will lose your sense of direction within four minutes.
It's East Africa's largest open-air market. The stalls stack three high in places. The aisles are shoulder-width. The air smells like fresh tomatoes and diesel and fabric softener from the mountains — literal mountains — of secondhand clothing shipped in bales from Europe and America.
I hired a guide at the entrance. UGX 25,000 tip. His name was Brian, and Brian knew Owino the way a surgeon knows anatomy. He steered me through the produce section (mangoes for UGX 1,000 apiece), past the traditional medicine stalls (don't ask, don't touch), and into the electronics section where a man was selling refurbished iPhone screens with the confidence of someone who definitely obtained them legally.
"Don't buy the iPhone screens," Brian said.
I bargained for a bark-cloth wallet. Started at UGX 40,000. Paid UGX 15,000. Brian nodded approval. We'd been in the market for ninety minutes. My shirt was soaked through.
Afternoon: Endiro Coffee in Kisimenti. Ugandan single-origin pour-over. UGX 8,000 (~$2.20). I sat by the window and watched the intersection outside — a traffic circle that functioned on faith alone, boda-bodas threading between matatus while pedestrians crossed wherever the spirit moved them. Nobody died. Somehow.
The Boda-Boda Question
You cannot understand Kampala without riding a boda-boda. Over 200,000 of them operate in the city, weaving through gridlock at speeds that suggest the drivers have accepted outcomes you haven't.
The SafeBoda app is the answer. Fixed pricing. Vetted drivers. Helmets provided. GPS tracking so someone, somewhere, knows where you are.
Moses, my SafeBoda driver, had a philosophical approach to traffic laws. He respected their existence in theory. We crossed four lanes of standstill traffic in under a minute, my knees brushing side mirrors the entire way. UGX 5,000. About $1.35.
"You okay?" Moses asked at the destination.
"I think so."
"You get used to it."
I did not get used to it. But I did take three more boda rides that day.
Day Three: When the Music Starts
I'd booked the Ndere Cultural Centre for a Wednesday night show. UGX 60,000 (~$16) covers the performance and a buffet dinner. The buffet alone — matoke, groundnut sauce, rolex, grilled goat, posho — would justify the price.
But the performance. Fifty-six ethnic groups in Uganda, and the Ndere dancers represent as many as they can in two hours. The Acholi dance is athletic and percussive. The Baganda dance is regal. The Banyankole dance involves leaping that defies what I thought knees could do.
The audience was split between tourists and Ugandans. The Ugandans sang along to songs the tourists couldn't follow. A woman at the next table was crying during a number I didn't understand. The music was doing something deeper than entertainment.
I walked back to the hotel. The streets were dark — Kampala's streetlighting is a work in progress — but the air was warm and the rolex vendors were still out, their kerosene lamps making small pools of light on every corner.
The Morning After
I extended my stay by two nights. The gorillas could wait.
I visited the Afriart Gallery in Bukoto, where Ugandan contemporary artists are making work that rivals anything in Nairobi or Lagos. Free entry. I bought a print for UGX 200,000 ($55). I ate matoke with groundnut sauce at a chop bar in Wandegeya where I was the only foreigner and the bill was UGX 10,000 ($2.70). I climbed Rubaga Hill to the Catholic cathedral and Namirembe Hill to the Anglican one, because in Kampala you climb hills — it's not optional, it's geography.
And I drank sunset cocktails at the Sky Lounge on top of the Protea Hotel. UGX 25,000 (~$7) for a gin and tonic. The city spread out below, seven hills going gold in the evening light. Boda-bodas honking. Music from somewhere. Always music from somewhere.
Kampala is not a city that asks for your approval. It's moving too fast for that. But if you slow down — skip the transit-hotel mindset, eat the rolex, climb the minaret, survive the boda-boda — it'll give you something no polished capital can.
The flight to Bwindi left two days late. The gorillas were worth every penny of the $800 permit. But I thought about Kampala the whole time I was in the forest.
I thought about Moses and his philosophical approach to lane discipline. I thought about Brian navigating Owino like a man born in a maze. I thought about 317 steps and the view from the top.
I'm going back. Next stop: the White Nile rapids at Jinja — two hours east and a completely different energy.
