Ssese Islands

8 days after my first sign of fever, I had enough treatment for malaria and felt well enough to travel again. I resumed my trip and my next destination was the Ssese islands. The Ssese islands are an archipelago of 84 islands in Lake Victoria. They are mainly just a place to chillout and take time out from the rigours of travelling around east Africa. I was in a matatu at 9.30am but it didn't leave till 11. It took about 1.5 hours to get from Masaka to the ferry, the dirt road was in pretty rough shape. I met Marko on the matatu. He was a Englishman on a whirlwind around the world tour in 2 months. We waited a while for the ferry to depart. It took about an hour for the ferry to reach Buggala island and then from there we had to go to the main island town of Kalangala. This took another hour on a bad road.
We finally reached Kalangala after about 6 hours altogether. Marko took a boda boda to the Hornbill camp, the same place I was going. I didn't feel like being overcharged at that moment and just started walking the 3 km to Hornbill camp. It was hot and sunny and I was beginning to regret not taking a boda but then a big truck came by and I hitched a free ride to Hornbill camp. The camp is owned by a German couple, Tina and Dieker. They are very friendly. The camp has a nice location with many trees and a sandy beach. I set up my tent on the grass. There were only 4 other foriegners staying there when I arrived.
I came to the Ssese islands just to relax with some peace and quiet and was shocked and disappointed to hear loud music start around 6pm. Tina told me that the 2 resorts on either side of them play loud music, sometimes till 5am! Hornbill camp and other camps around had 'noise terror' complaints in with the local administration but the outcome was still pending. The one resort was very far away but the music just carried across the water easily. Tina was apologetic but I knew it wasn't her fault and there was nothing to do about it. Thankfully the music didn't play late that night but other nights it went quite late.
I stayed at Hornbill camp for 5 nights. I went there just to do nothing and that's about all I did. There was decent food available at the camp and I brought cereal for breakfast so there was no reason to leave. I left camp after being there for 3 days just to go into Kalangala town to get a cold drink and some washing powder. I didn't find the people that friendly in town and was happy to get back to Hornbill. The weather there was similar to the weather in Masaka. Rain most mornings and then clearing up by the afternoon. Though a few days the sun hardly came out at all. Quite a few foreigners came and went during my stay there but not one of them I met was a true backpacker. They were all there to volunteer, work or do research. This seems to be the case across most of east Africa. There's not a lot of indepent travellers. It's quite rare when I meet someone who is 'just travelling'. Tina said she has noticed this difference in her clientele as well. There used to be more backpackers but now most everybody coming to the camp is doing something in Uganda.
There was no real significant events at Hornbill and days blended into each other. I met some cool people and had fun just relaxing. I left Hornbill camp on monday morning to begin the long journey back to Masaka. It took about the same 6 hours to get back to Masaka. I was in the front seat of a shared taxi with 3 others and about 6 or 8 people were in the back. I didn't even want to count how many where back there. They were all sitting on top of each other. Even the driver shares his seat with someone. Back in Masaka I went back to the Hot Ram hotel just to treat myself to a nice room for one last time. After I ate dinner and did a bit of email I went back to my room. The TV has satellite but its controlled by the staff in the restaurant and I would have to watch what they pick. When I was recovering from malaria here I just settled with what they picked for the first few days until they started putting on good stuff like National Geographic channel and movies. I got used to watching them and when they changed it I would go and ask them if they could keep it on a movie station. They usually did this for me and my last night was no different. I went to the restaurant and went through a bunch of channels. I was having a hard time on trying to find something I wanted to watch. I finally settled on a movie channel and they kept it on that all night for me.