A couple of weeks ago, on our way to Sipi Falls for a weekend vacation, we stopped for lunch in Jinja, which was about a quarter of the way there by distance and almost halfway there by time thanks to Kampala traffic. We parked on the street in front of the restaurant, looked around for a no-parking sign, didn't see one, so figured we were good to go.
After some delicious hoagies, we came back to the car. After we got in, we saw a woman with a clipboard that said something about Tourism Company on it trying to say something to us. Now, we'd been here a few weeks, and we knew that people walk up your car and try to sell you things all the time, so we shook our heads and didn't make eye contact, like you do. Then we saw a little paper on the windshield and assumed it was a ticket (not great, but fine), but there was no way we were getting out of the car with this woman standing right there.
So we pull out, get to a gas station, and look at this paper. It's not a ticket, exactly. It's a parking receipt with the name of the tourism company on it. Apparently...that company won the contract for parking in Jinja, and we were supposed to pay $0.50 to park where we did. Whoops.
(There were no repercussions, either because they didn't have the resources, it wasn't worth it for $0.50, or we have diplomatic tags on the car. But I'm still feeling guilty.)
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