June 2026
In 2025, after our trip to Uganda with our granddaughter, we planned a return trip to Uganda in July 2026 with one of Bob's law partners and his wife with the specific purpose of going gorilla trekking. We set up our tours, purchased our flights, and were ready to go.
My brother and his wife and my sister and her husband had planned a trip together--a Viking ocean cruise from Instanbul to Athens in late June 2026. One day in spring during a family chat my sister-in-law shared their travel plans and said, "Anyone who wants to come along is welcome to join us." Within days my other two sisters and their spouses had joined the cruise. At that time our Uganda plans were set and we could not afford the time nor the money to do two large trips in one summer. I was feeling really sad to be the only sibling left out of all the family fun.
HOWEVER . . .
The ebola virus hit the Democratic Republic of the Congo early in the year, the country bordering the area of Uganda we had planned to visit, and a few cases spread into Uganda. We watched and waited, and even though the risk to us would be low, we were pretty sure the outbreak would affect our trip.
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| Map of Ebola outbreak. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, where most of the ebola outbreaks have occurred, is the large country to the west of Uganda. |
Then the wars in the Middle East sealed the deal. We were going to have a 14-hour layover in Dubai on our way to Uganda, and the Dubai airport was occasionally being threatened by the conflict in the Middle East. Also, the U.S. began to impose crazy travel restrictions for anyone traveling to the Middle East and Uganda or the DRC, and so when the Dubai Airport kept closing because of bombing threats, when Qatar Airlines made a rather substantial change to our flight in late May, and when other routes really were not feasible, it gave us an out. While we didn't get refunds, we were able to postpone the trip to 2027. (Unfortunately, none of the issues that caused us to postpone the trip have really changed, and ebola outbreaks continue, so stayed tuned!)
HOWEVER . . .
Our trip had blown up about three weeks before my siblings' cruise. Once we were sure we weren't going to be able to go to Uganda, I called my siblings' contact at Viking to see if there were any open spots on the ship. He told me it had sold out long ago and that it was very rare that anything would open up this close to the embarkation date. Darn. So close.
One of the reasons this trip was so important to me is that my sister-in-law had been battling cancer for two years and was not doing well. It was on all of our minds that this trip could be the last time we spent together as a group of ten--the five siblings and the five spouses.
HOWEVER . . .
Three days later the Viking rep called me to tell me someone HAD cancelled and if I could pay in full in the next hour, the spot was ours. At the end of an hour he would have to release the spot to the internet. I couldn't get in touch with Bob, but I was sure he would be fine with it, so I paid the full amount. We were in! We scrambled to make necessary changes in our schedules as this trip was three weeks earlier than our Uganda trip, but miraculously, it all worked out perfectly.
AND SO . . .
We had an uneventful 13-hour direct flight from LAX to Istanbul on June 20-21, arriving at 7:15 PM Turkey time. (Three of my four siblings and their spouses had already arrived earlier in the day.) We took a taxi to the Erboy Hotel and ate dinner at the hotel's roof top restaurant, where I had a delicious vegetable soup with lemon and an okay seafood salad, and Bob had fantastic roast lamb.
We returned to our room and crawled into bed around 11:00 PM, but not for too long, at least for Bob, who had booked a 5:00 AM birding tour. Yes, he is that crazy about birds, and no, it did not tempt me even a little bit. I slept until 7:00 and had a wonderful buffet breakfast at 8:00. I was ready for the fun to begin.
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