After breakfast at six (it was included and is served early because most visitors to the guest house are there for gorilla trekking) we took our time to pack up everything. Around 9h30 we said goodbye to George and Alice (thank again for the coffee!) and hit the road. A minute later it started raining, so we stopper under the roof of a small shop in the village and soon had a crowd watching us again (the one guy pulled closer a cool-drink crate as a chair as he watched us from less than a metre away!!) We decided to not care anymore and started laughing out loud as we conversed in Afrikaans. In the beginning we were very self-conscious, but now we just go on as if we are alone.
On our way to the border Tania stopped me and suggested we share another burger at the Lava Café where we had lunch yesterday. It was the first burger that tasted like (or better than) the burger at home and she hasn’t eaten much the past few days. Good thinking it was, as we spent the rest of the day in hard rain and we only had one sachet of pasta left in our (now wet) food saddle bag.
The best burger this side of Noordoewer:
The border crossing was easy (except for the pouring rain- the buildings are far apart) and we met a Hilux full of South Africans. The four guys have been on the road from Amsterdam for eight weeks and still have four left to get to Cape Town. We had a lovely chat and I recognised Johann from my honours year at the University of Stellenbosch. He helped me count the money as I exchanged from the guy under the tree (there was no Bureau de Change). After getting the Carnet stamped and paying US$20 each for road tax we swapped over to the left hand lane again and hit the mountains. The landscape is absolutely breath-taking, but sadly we couldn’t take any photos as the camera had to be stowed under my rain jacket, where it got wet anyways. Let’s hope it keeps on working until we get to Egypt! The first couple of kilometres have been sealed recently, but they are still busy with the first two passes, so we had to dodge construction vehicles and stay right side up in the mud. We hit 2 450m above sea level at some stage.
Descending the second pass it is tarred again (it runs through an indigenous forest for a while) and the most stunning biking road yet, apart from the rain. When we reached Kabale at 16h30 we were soaking wet, even under the rain coats and booked into a room for the night (Tania’s sleeping bag is wet because we had to discard the black plastic bag entering Rwanda as plastics bags are illegal there). The double room cost around R30 (less than US$4)… for both of us! It is less than a tenth of what we paid in Rwanda and less than half what we paid per person for camping in Namibia and Zambia!!
We made pasta on the floor and will be going to bed early to head out early towards Masaka tomorrow. Hopefully the rain will have cleared up by then.
Since we don’t have any pics for the day, here is our progress so far marked on the map:
Over and out.
Shame, man! Bly oor die droe bed vannag! Ek kan weer eens nie help om op te let: julle staan en Lag onder die skuiling saam met die toekouers, nie en huil/kla nie! Ek neem aan Tania se maag is weer sterk? Lekker zzzzzz XX
Dis nog steeds vir my ongelooflik hoe ver julle gevorder het- in Midde-Afrika – en dit in net bietjie meer as ‘n maand MET 200cc bikes!!!!! Lyk asof julle nou meer reën kan verwag, maar dis beter as stof of hoe? Net bly julle het ‘n droë warm bed vannag en dat dit goed gegaan het by die grens. Voorspoed en hoop dit reën nie môre nie – nuuskierig om omgewing foto’s te sien.
Lang stretch more – hoop die weer is beter! Baie bly om te hoor ‘n dollar rek verder daar, as hier by ons.
Wat julle eintlik moet doen is om soos “howler monkeys” uit Suid-Amerika te begin skree en arms woes rond te swaai. Dit sal nie vir reen en modder werk nie, maar dalk die skares uitdun.