Long Haul Back to Nairobi…

I was up early this morning, feeling as sick as a parrot… I spent most of the day being ferried around by the hotel driver and Jimmy, one of the managers at the Amohoro Hotel… Jimmy spoke more than passable English, so he had to come along and translate for me… We had to go to three different banks before I could draw some money, and then spent an hour at the local hospital, having some blood tests done for possible Malaria, and seeing a doctor about the serious bout of flu I had on board… Blood tests were negative, which was a huge relief, and I was given a prescription for medicine to begin taking immediately…

I had hoped to spend the day exploring Bujumbura, but I was feeling too tired and sick to do any of that, so went back to the hotel, lay down on the bed, and fell fast asleep… I woke up hours later and felt as though somebody was sitting on my chest…  It was raining outside which meant going for a walk, which I felt like doing, was out of the question…  No point in giving the viruses running around in my body a stronger foothold!!

Bujumbura was the “terminus” of this particular ride, and I now had to make the long haul back to Nairobi… There are not too many tarred roads in this part of the world, so my route back will probably have to follow the same one I took to get here in the first place… Not ideal, but that’s the way this particular cookie has crumbled…

I am planning to do the 1 465 km in four straight days of riding, and at the average distances you can cover on the roads in East Africa, that means about 26 to 28 hours in the saddle over the next four days…

You need an iron butt for this kinda stuff, Dudes !!

© GBWT 2010