A City of Seven Hills

View over downtown Kampala in early morning

East-Central Africa is known for its hills. Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is the city of a thousand hills. Kampala, the sprawling and verdant capital of Uganda, is known as the city on seven hills. Located in the southern edge of the country, just off the shore of mighty Lake Victoria (the source of the Nile River), Kampala is an unusually lush and green African capital. The city spreads over the original seven hills, as well as a number of others colonized by urban sprawl in more recent years. At night, it is a mesmerizing sight with lights twinkling on hills and valleys of the city.

Kampala is possibly one of the most energetic cities I've ever encountered. It also has some of the craziest traffic I've ever seen with a level of aggressiveness in driving that I've seen paralleled (perhaps) only in Cairo. Just as anywhere else in the world, driving is a deeply social experience. Unlike in the US, where (most) traffic rules are followed without question, Ugandans seem to turn things on their head and drive with very little of what Americans might call rules. Yet there is a very clear set of social expectations in driving. Traffic police, at the city's busiest intersections, are to be obeyed. Motorbikes are expected to use any means possible to slip through any open space. Drivers are expected to nose into any potentially available space with no concern for the fact that there are mere fractions of an inch between moving vehicles. You are expected to yield to someone who looks you in the eye (and therefore, people raise their eyes to others directly with caution). Yet somehow, despite what seems like chaos, everyone manages to get where they are going. 

The main junction of the Entebbe Road coming into Kampala

Like most African cities, Kampala greets a visitor with a telltale smell of burning firewood (mixed to greater or lesser degrees with automobile exhaust). In some places, such as Addis Ababa, this smoky smell is scented with the cooking spices of millions of people. But in Kampala, it is merely an earthy, smoky smell that is just distinct enough to remind you that you are in Africa.