With heavy rain from last night making the dirt track back to the main road one large mud pit, we carefully slid and slipped our way back to the tar, and made our way back to Eldoret to pick up the B2, which would see us to the A104 we’d use to reach the Ugandan border. We were making our way West and were heading to the small border town of Busia, just South of the main border crossing at Malaba. Formalities should be a little more lax at the Busia crossing and we were hoping to somehow get through to Uganda without having to hand over road tax certificates, which legally we are required to do. This means we wont have to pay another $40 road tax when we transit back across Kenya on our trip South back to SA.

The border was busier than we’d expected but still manageable. As we kicked down the side stands and turned off the ignitions a throng of over eager young men all offering their services as ‘border crossing assistants’ jumped us. It just doesn’t matter how firmly or frequently you explain that their services aren’t required, you’re going to get them anyway.

With the ‘help’ of one of the guides we had our Carnets and passports stamped out of Kenya, baffled the road tax guard enough for him to forget to request our road tax certificate (result…) and completed all the necessary signing and Visa buying on the Ugandan side for them to let us in. All in all it had taken us 2 and a half hours.

The Ugandan countryside was a stark change to the Kenyan landscape. Lush green vegetation to the left and right and watery rice paddy fields being worked as far as the eye could see. The views are more ‘Vietnam-Platoon’ than the ‘dry scrub-thornbirds’ of Kenya. Busia was bustling. Dirty low buildings with brightly coloured fronts offered everything from fruit to phone cards. It was interesting to note the local ‘boba boda’s’ (taxi service), 100+ bikes with make shift padded seats over the back wheel ridden by young men all wearing the same shocking pink shirts and everyone of them spotless.

In spite of the lush look of the place the harsh reality that is Uganda’s past hits you straight away. At the Ugandan/Kenyan border dozens of young men, in hand operated three wheeler pushbikes made their way slowly along the road – all of them had no legs. A legacy of war and land mines. A middle-aged man who had legs but could hardly walk as his feet were falling apart watched us from a distance–it looked like leprosy!

Many children here still don’t go to school and so simply sit at the borders waiting for English people in the hope that they will be able to ‘take’ them to England – Lisa had one such boy today who’s mother was still in England and who’s father was not around – he hadn’t heard from his mother at all. This is a difficult but harsh reality.

As we headed towards Jinja, the schools were turning out and 100’s of children lucky enough to be schooled spilled onto the road. Lisa and I commented on the smart appearance and the vibrant colours of the uniforms, strangely contrasting with the dirt and dust of their surroundings. It was almost impossible to imagine kids in the UK looking so smart at the end of a school day.

Jinja is a small town on the North shore of Lake Victoria and just North of Jinja is Bujagali Falls, a stunning area of about 1km of raging white water where the Nile River cascades down from its source, the Lake. It sounded like a good place to head towards and we already knew from Marcus that friends of his had opened a new campsite ‘Nile River Explorers’. Having been misdirected 60 Km up the wrong side of the Nile, by 6pm we’d u-turned and were parking up. The views are…sorry to use the word…’awesome’ and the sound of the roaring water just deafening! The River Nile is the longest river in the world as from its source here in Africa to where it spills out into the Mediterranean is 6600km!!

By 10pm we’d thrown some food together and were down by the Nile’s edge watching the World’s elite Kayakers, doing their thing in the torrent of white water under a full moon and a couple of spotlights. A pretty cool way to finish a day.

Uganda Country number 34.

Checked over the bikes and took in the view.

Clothes washing has been a priority.

With a birthday party in the town, winding up at the site, the festivities finally wound up at around 5am.

Following a disturbed nights sleep and with a few goodbyes said we were soon back at the junction with Jinja and heading West for Uganda’s capital Kampala. The ride was steady. The notorious A109 between Jinja and Kampala is one of the most deadly in the World, not a comforting thought. The road dives and lift and curves through various small villages, each one nestled back into lush greenery or rigid sugar cane crops. Thousands of bright green, unripe bananas sit in huge bunches on the floor next to wooden shacks. The owners all-hoping to make a few shillings.

70 miles after leaving Jinja we passed the dirty sign welcoming us to Kampala. It feels strange and a little uneasy to be in the capital city of a country so haunted by its past, steeped in the bloody infamy that was ‘Idi Amin’ tyrannical reign of terror. Idi’s gone but things are improving only slowly. Corruption at the highest levels still hinders real progress and is a constant hot bed of discussion.

Things started to feel familiar as we downed our black visor and prepared to commence battle with the madness that is Kampala’s traffic. Again we were doing battle with Matatu’s, mopeds, bikes, coaches and taxi’s well past their sell by dates.

After trying to find some Ugandan cash we were heading for ‘Garden City’, a large and very new shopping centre, built and owned by Janet Museveni the wife of the current president. The fact the source of the building funds have yet to be disclosed and the site for Garden City is smack in the middle of protected wetlands just adds fuel to the already fanned corruption debate.

We arranged to meet Lynda, a friend of Ruans (Ruan from South Africa) who’d met up with Caroline several months back in SA and who was living in Kampala. A friendly face in a new country is always welcome and we’d arranged to meet up at 2:30pm. We had decided to quickly pop into the local supermarket at the shopping centre but parking up we drew the usual crowds and so despite being early in order to meet Lynda we were 15 mins late…we can never get away from interested crowds wherever we are!

By 2:45pm Lynda had pulled up and greeted us with an enthusiastic hello. Minutes later and we were following her back to her newly acquired house for a bite to eat. The offer of a warm clean shower was snatched at, as Lisa and I fought as to who was going first.

Lynda’s enthusiasm wasn’t faltering and her genuine manner was warming. Sandy her housemate and Charlotte, her mother were introduced and so the evening was set. Great conversation, too much red wine and relaxed laughter, what a wonderful way to spend our first night in Kampala.

With our tent erected in the garden, we were again counting ourselves lucky to be enjoying such trusting hospitality.

As the evening progressed we changed subjects and touched on our lack of financial sponsorship. This touched a nerve with Lynda, who works here to secure financial resources for large projects. After explaining our unsuccessful approach, Lynda has determined to call a few people tomorrow with a view to arranging us some meetings with organisations who may be interested in supporting us…we’ll see!

True to her word we’ve arranged to meet at 2:30pm with the Polle Moeller Foundation, a charitable arm of the Mitsubishi Corporation.

diary and web page day.

(Lisa writes)

Another police stop but this time instead of being waved through with the usual friendly waves we were stopped. We were then asked the standard questions: ‘Which country do you come from?’ ‘Where have you come from today?’ ‘Where are you going to?’ but as Simon relayed these questions to me as he couldn’t remember the names of all the places (well, apart from the first question of course!) the policemen insisted to Simon that I should lead as how could he as he had no idea where he had come from or where he was going!

Approaching Mbarara we thought we would find yet another small town of shacks and goats but were pleasantly surprised to find that Mbarara is a fairly relaxed and easy going place with many cafes for the locals (not tourists!) and shiny new fuel stations and banks. As we’re in dire need of another coffee a stop was called for.

Pulling up on the side of the road we made sure we could see the bikes and watched as a crowd drew and who stood admiring the bikes at a distance all the time we were having coffee and samosas.

When I (Lisa) left the café the men standing around the bikes and sitting on the trucks nearby jaws dropped. If it was possible to have your jaw drop to the ground and eyes out on stalks – just like Jim Carey does in the film ‘The Mask’ – these guys would have done it…I really enjoyed the looks on their faces as I heaved my heavy bike off its side stand, kicked it into gear and sped off – heaven forbid! - in front of Simon!

From Mbarara we headed up to Bushenyi with the aim to ride through the Queen Elizabeth National Park and then camp in Kasese. We entered Queen Elizabeth National Park just as dusk was approaching and so were expecting to see a few more animals. We weren’t surprised to see many impalas, baboons and buffalo but were especially pleased to see a herd of shy kudu, who initially started to run but stopped in their tracks and turned round to come back as I (Lisa) began to whistle to them. I think they wondered just what kind of animal I was!

Time was getting on and we didn’t feel like riding through a National Park at night so needed to increase our speed towards Kasese. Whom should we meet at this point coming up behind us but Sandy, Lynda’s friend from Kampala!! After a few brief words and with Sandy expressing doubt at any camping in Kasese, we left and dodged around the potholes at an increased speed- missing most but hitting a few ‘full on’ – ouch!

Kasese came and went with no camping signs in sight – it was now dark –and we were heading towards and through the Rwenzori Mountains, the legendary “Mountains of the Moon”. This was the area that the rebels of the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), probably based in Congo, controlled some areas of western Uganda – particularly this area and these mountains! All is now supposed to be well, but we still didn’t think it a good idea to be travelling at night in this part of South West Uganda.

No camping or lodges were obvious but with our concentration solely on the road so as to not get run off it by the mad coach and matatu drivers who drive along at 100 mph with no lights on (!), it was possible we had missed any signs that may have been along the road. Pulling up in a well lit petrol station we found we had travelled quite a way and were now just outside the town of Fort Portal. Looking at our map I realised with disappointment that during our night time trip we had passed right by the Rwenzori Mountains, which apparently have spectacular views of its highest peak permanently snow and glacier covered, peak Margherita at a height of 5109m.

After a friendly local guy gave us directions and took us to the correct turning in town we headed the last 20-odd km to a campsite just outside Kibale Forest National Park and on the crater lake of Nyabikere (lake of frogs). It was now 10:10 and we had left Kampala at 11:30 this morning – The feeling of cleanliness of having hot showers never lasts long - we were tired and very dusty as the road out to the campsite was thick with red dust but, however, a good condition dirt road.

We were greeted by the very friendly owner of CVK (Crater Valley Kibale Forest Resort at GPS: N0 29.861 E30 19.850), Mrs Pelusi Ruyooka who, after switching on her car lights to help us with the tent erection went and made us a lovely plate of chips – all at 11 o’clock at night! Chips and a beer hit the spot and still dirty and dusty we went off to bed. By the way they do have very good hot showers here but we were just too lazy to use them tonight!

We awoke to the sound of a large lorry trying its hardest not to run over us! The Spanish were leaving. Great, we thought, a campsite all to ourselves! Not to be as 2 seconds after one truck left another was pulling in.

Sticking our heads out of the tent to make sure we, and the bikes, were out of truck range we were amazed to see the beauty of the area we had arrived in late last night.

Washed and feeling a little more refreshed than when we arrived last night, we were soon up. It was time to explore.

The lush green vegetation is everywhere and sets a perfect backdrop. To our front the lake spreads out before us, shimmering like a large silk sheet, its eerie stillness creating a mirage effect as it reflects perfectly the copy of the emerald mountains around it. The large drooping palms of the banana trees sitting at the waters edge, dripping lazily into the water just seem a little too perfect. To our back and just across from the dirt track the manicured fields of the tea plantation stretches out as far as we can see.

And so our morning was spent walking down at the water edge and occasionally resting amongst the large wild ‘cheese plants’.

With an early start we were soon back at Fort Portal, crossing the bridge and riding North to Murchison Falls. That was our initial plan, however, calculating that it was going to cost us $20 each to get into the National Park, where the falls reside and another $10 each for a pass for the bikes, things changed and instead we cruised at a leisurely pace marvelling at the immaculately groomed fields of the tea plantations, which contrasted so heavily with the hulking unkempt shapes created by the rain forest around. We were heading back to Jinja via Kampala.

The good tar road stopped abruptly not long after leaving Fort Portals boundaries and the twisty, bumpy, dusty dirt road we were now riding required a great deal more concentration. Wow what a ride! We slid, bounced and skidded our way through 120 miles of dusty track running right through the heart of one of Uganda’s rain forests. Ancient looking trees bent under the weight of a thousand snaking vines hanging from the branches and 10 metres from the tracks edge into the forest the light was cut out. The dark brooding interior looked as menacing as it did magical. And here we are riding our bikes through this glorious countryside. Thinking on it was making the hair on my arms stand on end with excitement. This is so cool!

Eventually our roller-coaster ride finished and newly laid tarmac brought us to a small village. It was time for a stop. And so parking up in front of a small hut and ordering two cokes and two chapattis we threw off our by now very dusty and sweat covered bike jackets and plopped ourselves down for the viewing pleasure of the locals, who simply stared….and smiled…and stared….and smiled and st…you get the idea. One lady in particular caught our attention. She seemed absolutely transfixed by Lisa. First from the left side she approached Lisa up to about 3 feet away and then backed off, only to walk to Lisa’s front and do the same. Not quite happy that she was seeing ‘this women’ correctly she walked round to Lisa’s left side and with the same expression of confusion and delight, again walked up to Lisa, made her inspection and then backed off, not once taking her gaze from Lisa. The idea that a ‘mere female ‘ could have a motorcycle let alone ride it and dressed like we do with our helmets and bike kit was just all too much. Our attempts to say hello and break a bizarre silence fell on deaf ears. We were just a little too different.

By 5:30pm we’d done battle with Kampala’s ‘death wish’ traffic and were arriving back at Jinja. ½ an hour later we were heading down the rocky track to our stop for the night, but this time past NRE site and rode the extra 1km down to Speke camp site and made camp metres from the roaring water of the tumbling Nile. We cooked our dinner in the dark, discussed what had been an exhilarating days riding and then simply sat in the darkness, mesmerised as our tent was illuminated by the 100’s of brightly glowing fire fly’s, which had decided to put on a show.

You can find Speke Camp at GPS: N0 28.944 E33 09.484.