Note from Kampala

We've just been on a drive around Kampala in the early evening as the sun set, and I was taken aback by just how large this city is. This is my second visit to the city in the space of two years, but it has taken this long for me to fully appreciate the city's true size, how spread out it is, and its magnificence. 

Previously, my knowledge of Kampala was limited to the Central Business District, Entebbe Road, (which is the direction towards where I have my lodgings—I'm lodged in the same place as last time); Masaka Road, Bwaise, the Express road from Entebbe, Namirembe, and not much else really. From the Expressway I always saw the roadsign with arrow pointing towards Mulungu, but we often came off the Expressway at the Kajjansi exit, with Mulungu still further forward; mysterious, out-of-reach. This evening that mystery was unravelled. 

I should start by doffing my hat to the architects profession of Kampala. They are doing an amazing job. I'm still picking up pieces of my jaw that dropped to the floor from how awestruck I was just from seeing such dazzling architecture as I did driving down this road; homes styled and built to such stunning effect, accentuated by a hilly landscape that makes for structures located on a higher elevation at the rear being just as visible as those at the front. It was like a mural of stunning architectural magnificence presented to my visual senses that left me totally stunned, and utterly dumbfounded that I knew nothing about this at all before now. And this was just the beginning as we drove down this Expressway towards Mulungu. 

For the duration of the drive until we reached Mulungu I remained in shock for having no idea that I actually knew so little about this city that I like, one that I have often described as one of my favourite cities. 

It was calming later on standing on the shoreline in Mulungu in the fading light of the dusk, an anticlimax to the earlier surge of emotion. I came away from the lake with a large, deep-fried Tilapia fish to console myself.