UGANDA 2025: DOHA, QATAR

 July 17, 2025

Qatar is a tiny country in the Middle East that pokes out like a thumb from the Arabian Peninsula into the Persian Gulf. It comprises 4,471 square miles (slightly smaller than Connecticut) and has a population of about 3.2 million (slightly less than Connecticut).  Unlike Connecticut, 80% of its population is centered in one place, the capital city of Doha.

We arrived ini Doha at around 6:00 p.m., and by the time we got through immigration, it was beginning to get dark, which means the city was beginning to come alive. Our guide, Dharma, was a man in his early 40s from Nepal, of all places. He was friendly but very difficult for us to understand and misinterpreted many of our questions.

Doha is a visual paradise, and it quickly became apparent that the city is all about architecture. One of the first things we saw was Stadium 974, built in 2022 for the FIFA World Cup. Its name comes from the fact that it was built with 974 shipping containers.

Our first stop where we actually got out of the vehicle and stepped into the sweltering heat was the National Museum of Qatar, opened to the public in 2019. 

UGANDA 2025: A TRIP WITH OUR GRANDDAUGHTER

 July 15-17, 2025

In 2023 we took our oldest granddaughter Savannah on a trip to Colombia. She didn't get to choose the destination. We were already planning a trip there, and when we learned she was interested in the country, we invited her to join us. She was 16 years old and made a great travel companion, so we decided to take her younger sister Ella on a trip when she was 16. Because of the advanced planning, she got more say in her destination. In 2024, a year before we intended to travel, we asked her where she would go if she could go anywhere in the world. Without hesitation, she said "Africa!"

It didn't take Bob long to start exploring where we could go in Africa where he and I had not been before, and he decided on Uganda. Uganda?? Really??? Well . . . okay. Like Colombia, it straddles the equator, and we all survived that trip. How much different can it be?

A lot, as it turns out. Here are just a few significant differences:

-  While their populations are almost identical, hovering around the 53 million mark, Colombia is about 4.74 times larger in total area than Uganda. 

- Colombia has a richer, more developed economy. ($7,914 GDP per capita vs. Uganda's $1,073 GDP per capita)

- Uganda has a much younger population, in fact, one of the world's youngest populations with 43.5% of people under age 15!

- Uganda is landlocked while Colombia has both Pacific and Caribbean coastlines.

Before our trip, I knew very little about Uganda, other than that it was ruled by the brutal dictator Idi Amin during my teen years. Of course, I also had known little about Colombia other than that it had been the home of the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar who was particularly active during the 1980s and 1990s.

Gee, those both sound like great countries to take your granddaughters to, right?

GOING HOME (FINALLY): BAKU. AZERBAIJAN, TO LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, VIA DOHA, QATAR

After almost 24 days of non-stop travel, which included seven countries and an unprecedented number of miles covered (compared to all previous trips we have taken), I was SOOOO ready to go home, but we still had one more major hurdle to leap over: the flight home, which would entail five segments:

1. Arrive 2 hours early at Baku Airport for our international flight

2. Flight #1: Baku, Azerbaizan, to Doha, Qatar - 2 hours 50 minutes (1700 km / 1,056 miles)

3.  A layover of about 1 hour 35 minutes in Qatar

4. Flight #2: Doha, Qatar, to Los Angeles, California - 16 hours 10 minutes (3,360 km / 8,302 miles)

5. Drive home in mid-afternoon LA traffic - about 2 hours after retrieving our luggage and our car, which takes about 1 hour (85 miles)

If things went well, from the time we arrived at the Baku Airport to the time we arrived in our home, we would have been traveling for for 25 hours 35 minutes, would have covered 9,443 miles, and would have gone through a time change of 11 hours. (When we arrived at LAX at 2:05 PM, it was 1:05 AM the next day in Baku.)