Greetings from Kigali in Rwanda. Firstly, we would like to thank everyone for their kind donations to our charities. We do however have quite a few mystery donators. If you would like to have your name shown, please let us know who you are. Even if you’d like to remain anonymous on the website we would still like to know who you are, so fire us an email.
We would also like to thank everyone for their support and encouragement. The amount of positive emails and comments that we have received has been overwhelming, and very much appreciated. It certainly helps when things are tough. Responding to emails however, is often time consuming and challenging. We do read every single email with great interest, but don’t always have the opportunity to respond.
Kenya to Uganda
Our last few days in Kenya were pleasant, but we were a little hesitant as we approached the border to Uganda early one morning. Border crossings are never enjoyable. We usually do our best to speed through them as quickly as possible. But to our pleasant surprise, this crossing went incident free and was very smooth. Because we hadn’t been stamped in to Kenya yet (their wasn’t any immigration at our entry point), we got stamped in and out at the same time. We purchased our Ugandan visa and got stamped in to Uganda. Changing our Kenyan shillings for Ugandan shillings was simple, and the usual “border pests” (we use this term for the dodgy characters that spend their days generally being pests around boarder crossings) were relatively easy to shake off. Wow, this was possibly our easiest border crossing ever. The officials were even quite chilled, one quite seriously asking Christine if this was a training ride for the Tour De France.
We have seen many different carrying methods around the world, but common so far in Africa is on your head.I am always amazed at the skill and balance as women carry all sorts of things on their heads. Also common in Africa so far is women doing the majority of the work, hence men never carry anything on their heads. One day this got to me a bit, and as I cycled past a man watching 3 women slaving away in the fields digging and ploughing, I politely suggested that he stop watching and maybe help out a bit. This wasn’t received very well from the man, but the woman thought it was a great idea.
Welcome to Uganda
We had been looking forward to Uganda for some time, and it didn’t disappoint. Immediately, we welcomed the lushness and greenery after spending most of the trip so far in dry desert environments. It was so refreshing, and the scenery reminded us of the northern Vietnam/Laos and southern China area. We even had rain; something we dreamt of as we battled the dry heat earlier in the trip. In fact, it rained almost every day in Uganda for a short period. We didn’t mind this at all and it was lovely cycling along in the rain.
Riding along in the rain was a pleasant change.The kids of Uganda were a delight. They were so friendly, and lined their villages to yell out “Mzungu” (which means white person – we are no longer Farangis), or “Jumbo” (meaning hello white person). They often got a chant going, and we had many occasions cycling slowly through a small village with all the kids chanting “Mu-zun-gu, Mu-zun-gu”. On one occasion, a young boy quite innocently yelled out “where are you go white man?” which I found quite amusing. They got so excited, and some of them looked like they were about to wet themselves. Their excitement often reminded me of a similar excitement kids in Australia would get when they would hear the unmistakable tunes of the Mr Whippy truck circulating their neighbourhood. What a lovely experience for us though, and it sure beat having them chase us or throw mango pips at our wheels. The kids in Uganda also reminded us of Laos, just so friendly and purely viewing us as a novelty rather than a potential money box.
Riding past school children was always fun. They were always in uniform and usually barefooted. They were always friendly though.
Even the kids are responsible for water collection. Although it rains a lot, they lack basic methods of capturing and storing rain water. Walking or riding to the river and filling up containers is common.
Groups of kids like this would gather along the road to yell out“Jumbo”,
“Mzungu” or
“How are you?”
The exception to friendly kids was in our last 100km before we reached Rwanda. For some reason the kids hassled us for money and pens and chased us. On one occasion I had to put my angry pants on and chase a boy after he tormented us up a hill yelling out “mother fucker give me money” and then hurled a rock past us. I didn’t chase too much because it was on a hill, and I didn’t want to ride down and then back up again. The boy knew this, and when he was at a safe distance he was waving to me and laughing. I’m sure he had his entertainment for the week. The area this occurred was in the small pocket of jungle where most of the few remaining mountain gorillas are found. Tourists pay a whopping $500 to track them and view them for one hour. Almost every tourist that came to this area went to view the gorillas, except us. We thought that maybe the kids knew how much Mzungus were paying and decided that every Mzungu could spare some money or pens for them. For us, it is so uncomfortable when every kid you cycle past (and there are lots of them) asks for something and expects us to give. We dealt with this by ignoring, and sometimes I squirted the chasers with my water bottle which surprised them a bit. Anyway, it was only on one day in Uganda that this happened. For the rest of the country, our experiences were all positive with the kids, which was one of the reasons why we loved cycling through Uganda.
This was the stretch close to gorilla country where the kids weren’t pleasant. It was a shame, because the scenery was spectacular as we went up and down through the mountains.Something that Uganda had which we also welcomed with open arms is their seemingly endless stocks of fresh fruit. We rarely cycled for more than an hour without seeing beautiful pineapples, bananas, passion fruits, watermelons and mangoes presented neatly at roadside stalls. So cheap too; six big bananas cost all of 30c. This was an absolute dream for us, and our nutrition was suddenly much better. Also much better was our bowel movements. A month on stale white bread and packet biscuits wasn’t good for our digestive system, but in Uganda we enjoyed regular and healthy toilet visits. There is nothing like fresh fruit to bring back some regularity!
Lots of fruit helped restore some nutrition back to our diets.
This is definitely the land of bananas, which is a bike tourers dream. The green ones are cooked in banana leaves and then mashed up to form what’s called Matoke. Ugandans eat this with everything. Here green bananas are ready to be transported by bicycle.It was also easy to camp in Uganda, and we spent many nights in our tent. We spent one night camped in the yard of a Belgium man who has settled here with his Ugandan wife. He was a bit of a reggae fan, so we spent the night jamming on bongo drums around a bon fire. Interesting though, was his watchman (the name given to the man who supposedly stays up all night protecting someone’s property). Instead of a gun or baton, the usual choice of weapons for a watchman, he had a nicely crafted bow with a stash of sharpish arrows. He wasn’t a very good watchman though, as we had to find and wake him in the morning to let us out.
Along with the kids, the people were so friendly in Uganda. We were still enough of a sideshow to stop every single person in their tracks as we cycled through a village, but they were friendly. They didn’t invade our personal space, they didn’t yell out anything untoward, and they were never aggressive or hostile. And, they didn’t ask for money. What a pleasure.
While camping in Kampala, we had a few cheeky visitors.As you can see, Uganda was an absolute treat for us after a tough start. We loved the people, the landscape, the food and the kids. The hills were never ending as we either slogged up or rolled down them, but this was what made it so beautiful. There were however, a few things that we didn’t love …
Crazy Ugandan drivers
From the moment we left Kenya, we were confronted with possibly the craziest drivers we have ever shared the road with. The Ugandan drivers (all men too by the way) were dangerous, fearless and often downright stupid. Also existing on the roads in Uganda is a food chain. And yep, we were at the bottom. We knew we were down the bottom when we observed locals on their bicycles jumping off or escaping into the roadside at the sight or warning horn of an approaching vehicle. As you could imagine, there is no such thing as a cycling lane in Uganda. Actually, there is usually barely enough room for 2 vehicles to pass each other, especially if there are trucks or buses involved. This meant that we were often squeezed off the road and into the muddy crap on the side. Sometimes we would bravely (or stupidly) hold our ground and force them to go around. But this tactic was fraught with danger, and often we had to regrettably accept the rules of the road in Uganda and retreat off the side. Thankfully, the heavy traffic only existed on our first two days in Uganda as we rode the major road linking Kenya to Uganda. When we headed to the west of the country, the traffic became much lighter, although the drivers no more sane.
Wedding Anniversary
As you may or may not know, we are not ones to celebrate such occasions. Being here and having such an adventure together means much more to us than counting up the years we’ve been married. However, our ex students would be interested to know about our celebration. We had a nice campsite at the start of the Nile River, and instead of local food, we opted to cook up a vegetable feast on our stove. It was delicious, and as we clinked (actually, it was more of a clunk) our plastic cups together filled with chocolate long life milk, we did say to each other “happy anniversary”. This was actually a nice end to the day that didn’t begin so well. In the morning, we were debating with each other whether to detour to the location where the mighty Nile River begins (Christine’s preferred option), or carry on along the road to the next town (Ross’s preferred option). I lost, and we headed for the Nile. Heavy rains had turned the dirt road into a sticky thick red mud slosh.
The road progressively got muddier and eventually became thick red sticky muck.I wasn’t that impressed and I was cursing Christine as pushing our bikes became a mission with the build up of mud between the mud guards and tyres. The thick red paste filled our cleats and stuck to everything. Hoses are rarely seen here, so I knew that getting all this mud off was going to be a tedious manual task. Anyway, I’ll spare you the specific conversation content, but the bikes got cleaned and I’m glad we went there. After receiving advice that the resident crocodiles were only found further downstream, we enjoyed a nice swim in the Nile. So that was how we spent our 5th wedding anniversary!
Into and out of Kampala
Like border crossings, riding into and out of capital cities is also a part of bike touring that we like to do in as least time as possible. Kampala, the capital of Uganda, was quite a daunting prospect. It is renowned for heavy traffic, and along with the crazy drivers and our ever present gawking attraction, this made for a challenging task. It was basically 20km of madness in, and 20km of madness out. Fighting the traffic, trying to navigate through the sprawling streets and sucking in gulps of diesel and petrol fumes made it unpleasant. But we did get a bit of an adrenalin rush as we dodged and weaved strategically through the endless traffic and regular potholes. This often attracted more attention, and sometimes admiration, which was fine except when it was coming from a driver. You can’t afford any distractions when travelling around in Kampala. Unfortunately, on our way out of Kampala we cycled past a crowd gathered on the side of the road. Inside the circle of onlookers was a young girl lying down motionless. As we sped past we could not tell if she was dead or just unconscious, but she was more than likely mowed down by a careless Ugandan driver.
Our first traffic lights for the trip, although nobody seemed to pay too much attention to them.
Fighting our way out of Kampala.We did however really enjoy Kampala. It had a good feel to it for a city, and we were able to find and do almost anything we needed. Emailing, supermarket shopping, posting, getting visas, purchasing maps, using a washing machine (for the first time this trip) and phoning home were all tasks we were able to do easily. Also on offer was ample restaurants serving up all sorts of local and international food. And wait for it, the best part was that Kampalans share with me a love for ice cream. We were a bit gob smacked by all the varieties of food and options in the restaurants and supermarkets. This excitement lead to some over consuming of good food and ice cream as we ate ourselves silly. So much so that when we left Kampala we agreed to take it easy on the tucker for a while. Things change quickly over here. It was only a few weeks ago that we couldn’t find any food, and here we were contemplating cutting back!
Other Mzungus
We had been longing for many weeks to meet some other travellers, someone who we could relate to and share stories with. Well, this opportunity presented itself often in Uganda as routes through the country are firmly entrenched in the East African tourist trail. The mixture of beautiful scenery, interesting culture, wild animals and budget friendly travel makes Uganda a popular trip for tourists combining trips to Kenya and Tanzania. Our encounters with other travellers however, were a bit hollow and left us wanting to get back out on the road. This is not to say that we are snobbish or arrogant, but we are just having a totally different experience to others who travel by bus, truck or car. We did meet some lovely and interesting people who were able to give us lots of good tips among enjoyable conversation. Apart from being in the same country, it is hard for us to relate to a young backpacker who rides in a truck with 20 other backpackers from tourist destination to tourist destination. It is a totally different experience from the one we are having and hence our encounters were a little shallow. This is fine though, and every now and again it is nice just to be around other travellers. Most of the people we have met can’t believe what we are doing, and are always full of admiration and encouragement. We were glad to get back out onto the road though and spend 4 slow days getting somewhere that the truck covers in a speedy ½ day.
Game Ride
During our time in Uganda, we visited the oddly named Queen Elizabeth National Park in the far west. It was a great experience, and our first “touristy” activity since being here. Cycling in National Parks in Kenya and Tanzania is strictly prohibited, but as we pedalled up to the Park Gate, the ranger was very relaxed about the idea of us cycling around. He basically left it up to us if we were willing to cycle through the park which consisted of animals such as elephants, hippos, leopards and lions; all potentially dangerous to vulnerable lunatics on bikes. Excited by the idea of encountering wildlife from our saddles, we nervously cycled into the park and along the dirt track that dissected the savannah. It was about a 7km ride in to the major base where we would camp for the night. On the way in, we had up close experiences with some buffalo, bushbucks and kobs (deer looking creatures). We saw elephants and hippos in the distance, but going off track was strictly not allowed and incurred a huge fine if caught, so we settled for observing them through the binoculars.
Impala look up curiously from feeding in the long grass of the savannah.
Christine scared this African buffalo while taking this picture. She also got a big fright herself. I watched on in amusement as the buffalo ran one way and Christine the other.We set up camp in a secure area. Secure accept for the resident warthogs which were grazing around our camp site. Apparently they would sniff out any food you had and go for it. They weren’t shy at all, and we had to be very vigilant with our food. It was quite comical to be guarding our food and chasing away warthogs; certainly a different experience from aggressive kookaburra’s which we are used to in certain places back home. After securing our belongings, we set out on an afternoon exploration. It was relatively unsuccessful apart from sightings through the binoculars. But we went to bed excited about cycling out the next morning when animal sightings were most likely.
Warthogs definitely aren’t the most attractive creatures, but this little fella was cheeky enough to try and sniff out our food. We had to chase him away.We awoke and packed up quickly in the dark. As we sat around and waited for the sun to come up (we didn’t fancy riding through the park in the dark), all the other tourists were leaving to go on game drives in their 4WD’s. Their vehicles all had the roof cut out enabling them to stand up and poke their heads out the top to view the animals. As usual, we were going to be different and rather than a game drive, we dubbed our safari a game ride! A few people had told us that we weren’t allowed to ride, but the ranger said that it was up to us. We found it strange though, because walking around was definitely prohibited, but cycling was OK. Were we really any safer on our bikes as opposed to being on foot? I know I can run faster than I can ride with all my luggage on the bike, so we were definitely approaching our game ride hoping that the animals would all be friendly to us. You probably all think we are crazy, and this is possibly true, but for us it is the ultimate in freedom and independence to have the opportunity to experience African wildlife from our saddles. We also didn’t like the idea of joining all the other punters in their 4WD’s and paying lots of money to be driven around.
The sun came up and we left the safety of our camp site and headed along what is known as the Channel Track. The Channel Track is 24km long and separates the open savannah with a huge channel of water flowing from one lake to another. The track is where we were most likely to see animals, and it was also convenient because it would take us back to the main road and out of the park where we could continue on our journey. We cycled quietly along the dirt track, wide eyed with anticipation at what might present itself around each bend. We were scanning around, searching for movement. We moved slowly, and even stopped for some breakfast on the side of the track. Christine also bravely left the road armed with the trowel and toilet paper to find a spot to go to the toilet. Throughout the morning, we saw more warthogs, bushbucks and cobs, and a hippo from a distance. We also accidentally spooked a massive herd of buffalo who charged off; luckily not in our direction. It still gave us a fright though. It was quite an experience to see a herd of buffalo thundering past in a puff of dust. We disappointingly didn’t see any elephants or leopards. We saw tracks and dung, but I think we were just unlucky. Or maybe we were lucky. As we reached the gate we met a Scottish lady who travelled the Channel Track a few days earlier in a mini bus. They met a huge lone elephant on the track who wasn’t very friendly. She told us how the elephant chased the bus away. At this point we were secretly thankful that our encounters with elephants in the park were through the binoculars and from a safe distance. Our quest for freedom and independence would have turned to absolute stupidity had we been chased on our bikes by an unhappy elephant. We didn’t see any leopards or lions this time, but we have our sights set on another park in Tanzania which will hopefully bring some encounters with big cats. We thoroughly enjoyed our game ride, and as we pedalled off back along the main road we found ourselves initially bored by the surroundings. We quickly adjusted to kids yelling out and crazy Ugandan drivers.
An impressive looking male bushbuck.Welcome to Rwanda
We had another simple border crossing into Rwanda. We had to pay a huge US$60 each for our visa. This is because Australia gives no aid to Rwanda, whereas many other nations, including the UK, receive their visa for free. Christine thought she would try and bluff the immigration officer by explaining to him that Australia was part of the UK because we have the same Queen. The man laughed and told her to hand over $120, and then told her to tell our government to start giving some aid and then our visa will be free. We left the rocky and bumpy road behind in Uganda to join smooth tarmac on the Rwandan side. Our first impressions of Rwanda? Crowded (Rwanda has the highest population density in Africa), people friendly but intense, gone again was our personal space, the hills continued (Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills) and the language was now French. So far, it has been popular for the people in Rwanda to run and ride with us, and to gather around when we stop. They have been friendly, and although the intensity of the people makes it difficult and often not very relaxing, there hasn’t been any hostility. We had a nice descent into the capital, Kigali, which is where we will catch up on some jobs and also visit the Kigali Memorial Centre. We have been looking forward to seeing this place for some time as it documents the horrific genocide that took place in 1994 when approximately 800,000 innocent victims were slaughtered, often being butchered to death. It is apparently quite graphic and very powerful and sad, but will give us an insight into the recent history of the country we are in. Much of the population has been affected by what happened in 1994, with high numbers of people having seen dead victims and having members of their family killed. It will be quite a moving experience, and probably similar to when we visited the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Where to now?
When we met German Man way back in Ethiopia on day 3, he quipped, “oh, you guys are still fresh, you’ve only just started”. We didn’t like this as we felt a bit green, like we were just starting high school in year 7, and German Man was a seasoned year 12 student. We are now two months, 4 countries and 2500km into our trip, and feel like we have really sunk our teeth into this adventure. It is a satisfying feeling, and we no longer feel like the African newbies. Travelling slowly through different landscapes and cultures has given us a definite sense of journey in every meaning of the word. We now reflect on Ethiopia, and it feels like so long ago. That is a sign that the journey has well and truly begun.
We now have to work out our route through the rest of Rwanda, Burundi and then Tanzania. We first have to find out if Burundi is safe, and then think about Tanzania. It is such a big country, with no obvious route to Malawi. From our research so far, we are starting to get that feeling of rough roads, minimal supplies and facilities and plenty of “middle of nowhere” sections; the feeling of adventure!
The slow demise of Christine’s sleeping mat
If you remember back to our campsite at the Kenyan Police Post after our adventurous day coming from Ethiopia, well it was extremely hot. So hot in fact, that the sand our tent was pitched on hadn’t cooled down from the scorching daytime sun and was like an oven all night. This caused Christine’s trusty sleeping mat to develop a bubble. Ironically though, in the confusing darkness we unknowingly ended up sleeping on each others mats. So it was me who was on the mat when the bubble developed. Since then, the small bubble has turned into a large mound that Christine can neither get comfortable on if it is at her head or her feet. So while I’m snoozing away on my flat mat, she is battling the bulge. Now, before you all throw your arms up in disgrace at me not offering my mat to Christine, because after all it was me who was sleeping on it when it developed it’s bubble, we agreed that it was an accident and that it could have happened to either of us. So why not alternate you might ask?? Good question, and as I sit here and write this I don’t have an answer, nor can I bullshit my way out of it. So from now on we will alternate and take it in turns to battle the bulge. The thing is, the closest dealer for this specific type of mat is all the way down in South Africa, so it is going to be a bit of a mission to get a new one.
The small bubble has grown each night, and is now a huge bulge.Only in Africa
We have decided to create a section where we can share some of our more random observations of which we see so many as we cycle each day. Each update we will add 3 new observations.
1. Bicycle taxis are common in this part of the world where someone rides with a passenger sitting on a cushioned back rack. We watched as one passenger was side saddling while breast feeding. The bike was going pretty fast and the road was bumpy, so her boob was bouncing everywhere and because the baby was attached to the boob, it was also bouncing all over the place.
2. Vehicles in Uganda were always full. And I mean full. We once counted 10 people in a small 5-seater sedan. They were all adults and it included 2 in the drivers seat.
3. Fighting crime in Uganda was interesting. Although we didn’t see this, thieves in the capital city are often dealt with by mobs who strip off all their clothes leaving them naked in public. Slightly more serious is in the countryside where thieves are often killed by mobs and left to be viewed by the village.
0 comments:
Post a Comment