Back through Uganda…

I stopped along the road to take the last of my Burundian Medicine... Stuff tastes awful, hence the Coke...!!

The ride back to Nairobi from Kigali seemed to take longer that it should have, but it actually worked out almost exactly as I had planned it…26 hours of riding… Love it when a plan comes together!!

Despite the fact that I was not breaking any new ground, (which bugged me a little), after crossing into Uganda, I settled into a good rhythm and we chewed up the miles. I hardly took note of the time, comfortable in the knowledge that I would be in Kampala long before nightfall…

The storm that awaited me just north of Ntungamo...

The road between Kabale and Muhanga twists and climbs with each passing kilometre, until you are up at over 2400 m.a.s.l., before it drops down again into a long valley, where it crosses papyrus swamps, which grow right up to the road… In some places they towered above us, and were so thick that you could have hidden a bus in them just a few metres off the main road…

Far ahead of me, huge storm clouds had been gathering since I turned the Big Fella in a north easterly direction, and pointed his nose in the general direction of Kampala… At Ntungamo, I stopped to refuel, and saw that the “weather” had now consolidated into a massive storm front that sat squarely in our path. The new highway began just outside of town, and I knew that I could make good time on this stretch of road. I put on my rain gear and zoomed out to do battle with the wind and the rain…

Do I look like I'm enjoying this....??

While it rained lightly, I rode like a bat out of hell, trying desperately to close the gap between myself and Mbarara before the weather closed in over me…  I didn’t have too long to wait… For the next 150 km I rode in pouring rain.

The villages turned into mud baths...

The few villages I passed through were partially flooded, their main streets churned to mud by the buses and trucks.I had to ride with my visor partially open to allow me to see where I was going, and this meant that the driving rain struck the lower part of my face… It felt as though needles were being driven into my skin, and after a few minutes of this, my face was numb…

I stopped at a service station in Mbarara, and chatted to the owner for a while, hoping that the rain would ease off… The garage had only been open for a day or so, and the owner was very excited by the prospect of a successful new business venture….

“We have a special on right now,” he told me… “Our fuel is the cheapest in town… Everybody else is charging Ush 2910.00 per litre… Our price is only Ush 2900.00…”

“That’s hardly a difference worth bothering about… Has this “lower” price attracted many customers?” I asked…

“Er…actually it has not…”

“I’m not surprised… I wouldn’t bother to ride across town to support you for only 10 cents difference on Ush 2900.00!! You should drop your price much more than that if you want to attract customers…” I told him.

“No…no… The other service stations would be very angry with me if I did that…”

Crossing the line....again...

I did not have the time to discuss marketing strategies with him, and I could see that the rain was not going to let up anytime soon, so bidding him farewell and wishing him good luck, I ventured out again and battled on through the downpour… On past Biharwe and Sanga, Kyazanga and Kinoni and finally, just east of Lake Nabugabu, the rain eased off a bit and I could relax a little… The tension in my shoulders and back slowly drained and I began to enjoy the ride again… By the time I re-crossed the Equator for the third time on this trip, it had stopped altogether, which was a good thing, as this section was all dirt… Construction on this portion of the A109, the main artery running right through Uganda from the Kenyan Border down to the Rwandan border, had come to a halt… It was pointless trying to build a road in the rainy season in central Africa…

Emmanuel poses proudly in his natty uniform at the Sports View Hotel, Kampala...

The bike was covered in mud again, but at least I was drying out, and by the time I reached the outskirts of Kampala 90 kms later, I was almost dry… It had taken me just over ten hours since leaving Kigali earlier that morning, to reach the Sports View Hotel on the Eastern edge of the city… Emmanuel the porter rushed out to welcome me back, the security guard at the gate had lifted the boom without asking me to fill in the bothersome forms that all vehicles need to complete before entering, and for the next hour, I was subjected to many “Welcome back’s” and “Where have you been’s” by the staff… The receptionist very kindly told me that she had reserved a cheaper room for me on the first floor, so that I did not have to carry all my stuff up six flights of stairs… Emmanuel breathed a loud sigh of relief…

Dinner in Kampala...more Goat Stew and Veggies... All good !!

The next morning, while I was loading the bike, a photographer from the local rag took a bunch of photos of me, while another guy from the local radio station begged me to come to their offices so that he could interview me live on radio… I explained that I was pushed for time and had to get back to Nairobi by the following day… He looked rather crestfallen at this, but brightened up when I suggested he ask me questions while I was loading, and wrote the answers down… This delayed my start by an hour, but I was happy to answer his questions and ended the interview by giving Uganda a big “thumbs up”, and promising to encourage other travelers to take time out to visit the country…

I punched the co-ordinates for the Klique Hotel in Eldoret into the GPS, and headed out of Kampala, bound for the Kenyan border. I passed through Jinja again, and while the Big Fella tucked into another 20 odd litres of fuel, I promised myself that I would return here one day to do some white water rafting on the source of the mighty Nile… The hills in this area are covered in Sugar Cane and Tea plantations, the valleys cloaked in thick indigenous bush, making it one of the prettiest areas in Uganda…

Sugar cane and Tea grow side by side at Jinja...

Clay pots, woven baskets, sleeping mats... Roadside market in Uganda...

I covered the 215 kms to the Kenyan border in good time, and arrived there just after lunch… The same little boy who had promised to have a bottle of water waiting for me, was there to greet me, and he pushed his way past all the other refreshment vendors, shouting,

“Mister, mister….! It is me, the one who said he would meet you here… Remember…?”

I did, and shooed the other guys away while I answered his questions and bought his water…

Immigration formalities were over quickly, and the same lady who had stamped my passport on the way out of Kenya, greeted me warmly and welcomed me back into her country… In fact, many people who I did not recognize, but must have chatted to me on the way out, shouted welcomes as I passed…

Calabashes, loofahs, brooms... It's all here !!

I couldn’t help grinning to myself as I rode past the long line of trucks waiting to enter Uganda, and headed for Eldoret…

The sun was shining… Life was great…!!

© GBWT 2010