Day 204 - 210
Sleeping location: Liz and Paul’s apartment, Kampala, Uganda
Distance (km today/total): 0 / 13658
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 103200
Rebeccas: 1
Distance (km today/total): 0 / 13658
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 103200
Rebeccas: 1
Day in three words: Kampala week 2
The second week in Kampala was much the same as the first, but with added Rebecca after she arrived on Saturday afternoon. She got her admin sorted and then also helped out at the clinic for the last few days. We made the most of Kampala’s bars and restaurants and both became quite attached to the high (read: the same or less luxurious than back in London) life, so it may be a shock to get back on the road. On Friday we travelled to an airbnb on a tiny island on Lake Victoria to have a few days of R&R, and celebrate our official 1yr anniversary, before setting off again.
Saturday - found that Maggie’s new tyres had both mysteriously deflated since fitted. Perhaps she got too attached to the old ones and is acting up. I can’t head off with unreliable tyres as I only have a finite supply of inners so I need to get to the bottom of this. Went to very swanky (for Africa) mall which allowed me to buy most things I needed, plus some snazzy blue shorts, which I didn’t really need but they’re snazzy and blue and actually fit me so that’s good. In the supermarket I bought some Nile Stout beer and was then photographed by a brand representative for use in their new advertising campaign. VIP treatment beckons across Africa. On the way home we saw the president’s motorcade, which travels with a mobile toilet for use by the president only. Rebecca arrived and we had a joyful reunion then went out for dinner and drinks in some local spots.
Sunday - had a lie in then were invited to lunch with Liz and Paul’s friends at a very fancy Indian restaurant, then a cup of tea at their very fancy house. Back at home I refitted the tyres with new inners to test for problems. They stayed up but there’s no sign of damage on the old inners, so it’s mystery. My only theory is that the old inners were inside the old rims/tyres for so long that they got sort of fused, and removing them caused some kind of weak spot to appear. In the evening we went to a great bar for six nations then football with craft beer and tacos. It was just like London really.
Monday - on the way to work there was some kind of flash mob of people wearing orange on motorbikes in order to advertise an energy drink. They caused general chaos on the already rammed roads and were annoying; I have no idea how this is supposed to sell drinks. Maybe their core demographic is annoying people. Any the clinic I got to watch some baby screening, which involved playing sounds (that sound like a little ghost) so that the baby learned to associate them with some motorised dancing toys, then playing the sounds without the toys, at different volumes and frequencies, to see if they react. LTCH is the only place in Uganda that provides this type of testing even though it only costs £2 a go.
Tuesday - in the evening Rebecca and I went out to a Belgian place for our delayed Valentines meal. We had three steaks between us, as per the tradition established on our previous Valentines meal, plus a lot of lovely Belgian beers. It was all excellent but so expensive that afterwards we felt quite guilty.
Wednesday - after work we went to another shopping centre to pick up supplies for the weekend and the rest of our necessary items. I got new inners and a poo trowel 3.0 which I have ingeniously attached to the outside of my pannier with a caribener and some superglued velcro. This may rattle but hopefully a whole lot less than poo trowel 2.0 (an empty tin can). On the way we went through a lot of traffic and encountered a lot of people trying to sell things to the stationary cars. As well as the usual fruit and drink we saw: memory cards, belts, watches, wooden statues, loofahs, toilet paper*, stickers, educational posters and (our favourite) full sized floor rugs.
In the evening we met a guy called Adrian via Warmshowers (an online community for cyclists), he is living in Kampala and gave us some advice and general good chat over beers. It was nice to meet someone new and like-minded. We will be using WS more as we continue as there are far more people on it in Southern Africa. During this a huge palm frond fell off a tree and crashed to the floor about a metre away from me.
Thursday - spent my day at the clinic trying to update all their computers to new windows/office software, but it was a total nightmare with the slow internet and crappy old virus-ridden laptops, so I ended up taking loads home to try and do it there. In the evening we went to see the Sonic film as Rebecca worked extensively on the visual effects in it. It was actually quiet decent for a kid’s film and good for Rebecca to remember all of her on-set experiences (including getting chatted up by one of the actors). She was excited to see if her name was in the credits, which it was, but then much less excited to realise that they had spelled her surname Fields rather than Field. This was bad for her but also very, very funny. Afterwards we met Sam, who last night’s Adrian put us in touch with, who is trying to set up a cycling tour business in Uganda. We was a lovely guy and had lots of great route info for the west of the country, so we asked if he wanted to join us for some of it and he seemed keen. It would be great to ride with someone new, even though he will almost certainly be a lot faster than us.
Friday - spent all day in the apartment trying desperately to update the laptops with varying degrees of success. At times I had five open like some kind of cliched hacker. In the end I couldn’t finish everything so we will stay an extra day next week to tie off all the loose ends. In the evening we got a lift to the boat to the island, which involved driving very fast down a very new, very empty expressway. It had toll booths but they haven’t bothered to man them yet so it’s currently free. Seems like an odd choice of resource deployment to me. This being Africa, in half an hour we went from this to a woman having to chase ducks off the dirt road so we could get past.
The lake was choppy so the boat ride to the island was quite slow and bumpy, but beautiful, with huge turbulent skies and kingfishers darting into the water near the boat. As we neared the island Rebecca pointed out a huge fancy house and joked that it was ours. Turns out, it was. I had booked the airbnb and knew that it was big (it sleeps 10 in fact) but not this big. (I think the pricing is done on a “per person” basis so it was only £120 for 3 nights). It was very peaceful and very beautiful, perched on top of cliffs right on the water. There weren’t even mosquitoes so we slept with the bedroom doors open and were lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves.
*I assume for later use - the jams aren’t THAT bad
The second week in Kampala was much the same as the first, but with added Rebecca after she arrived on Saturday afternoon. She got her admin sorted and then also helped out at the clinic for the last few days. We made the most of Kampala’s bars and restaurants and both became quite attached to the high (read: the same or less luxurious than back in London) life, so it may be a shock to get back on the road. On Friday we travelled to an airbnb on a tiny island on Lake Victoria to have a few days of R&R, and celebrate our official 1yr anniversary, before setting off again.
Saturday - found that Maggie’s new tyres had both mysteriously deflated since fitted. Perhaps she got too attached to the old ones and is acting up. I can’t head off with unreliable tyres as I only have a finite supply of inners so I need to get to the bottom of this. Went to very swanky (for Africa) mall which allowed me to buy most things I needed, plus some snazzy blue shorts, which I didn’t really need but they’re snazzy and blue and actually fit me so that’s good. In the supermarket I bought some Nile Stout beer and was then photographed by a brand representative for use in their new advertising campaign. VIP treatment beckons across Africa. On the way home we saw the president’s motorcade, which travels with a mobile toilet for use by the president only. Rebecca arrived and we had a joyful reunion then went out for dinner and drinks in some local spots.
Sunday - had a lie in then were invited to lunch with Liz and Paul’s friends at a very fancy Indian restaurant, then a cup of tea at their very fancy house. Back at home I refitted the tyres with new inners to test for problems. They stayed up but there’s no sign of damage on the old inners, so it’s mystery. My only theory is that the old inners were inside the old rims/tyres for so long that they got sort of fused, and removing them caused some kind of weak spot to appear. In the evening we went to a great bar for six nations then football with craft beer and tacos. It was just like London really.
Monday - on the way to work there was some kind of flash mob of people wearing orange on motorbikes in order to advertise an energy drink. They caused general chaos on the already rammed roads and were annoying; I have no idea how this is supposed to sell drinks. Maybe their core demographic is annoying people. Any the clinic I got to watch some baby screening, which involved playing sounds (that sound like a little ghost) so that the baby learned to associate them with some motorised dancing toys, then playing the sounds without the toys, at different volumes and frequencies, to see if they react. LTCH is the only place in Uganda that provides this type of testing even though it only costs £2 a go.
Tuesday - in the evening Rebecca and I went out to a Belgian place for our delayed Valentines meal. We had three steaks between us, as per the tradition established on our previous Valentines meal, plus a lot of lovely Belgian beers. It was all excellent but so expensive that afterwards we felt quite guilty.
Wednesday - after work we went to another shopping centre to pick up supplies for the weekend and the rest of our necessary items. I got new inners and a poo trowel 3.0 which I have ingeniously attached to the outside of my pannier with a caribener and some superglued velcro. This may rattle but hopefully a whole lot less than poo trowel 2.0 (an empty tin can). On the way we went through a lot of traffic and encountered a lot of people trying to sell things to the stationary cars. As well as the usual fruit and drink we saw: memory cards, belts, watches, wooden statues, loofahs, toilet paper*, stickers, educational posters and (our favourite) full sized floor rugs.
In the evening we met a guy called Adrian via Warmshowers (an online community for cyclists), he is living in Kampala and gave us some advice and general good chat over beers. It was nice to meet someone new and like-minded. We will be using WS more as we continue as there are far more people on it in Southern Africa. During this a huge palm frond fell off a tree and crashed to the floor about a metre away from me.
Thursday - spent my day at the clinic trying to update all their computers to new windows/office software, but it was a total nightmare with the slow internet and crappy old virus-ridden laptops, so I ended up taking loads home to try and do it there. In the evening we went to see the Sonic film as Rebecca worked extensively on the visual effects in it. It was actually quiet decent for a kid’s film and good for Rebecca to remember all of her on-set experiences (including getting chatted up by one of the actors). She was excited to see if her name was in the credits, which it was, but then much less excited to realise that they had spelled her surname Fields rather than Field. This was bad for her but also very, very funny. Afterwards we met Sam, who last night’s Adrian put us in touch with, who is trying to set up a cycling tour business in Uganda. We was a lovely guy and had lots of great route info for the west of the country, so we asked if he wanted to join us for some of it and he seemed keen. It would be great to ride with someone new, even though he will almost certainly be a lot faster than us.
Friday - spent all day in the apartment trying desperately to update the laptops with varying degrees of success. At times I had five open like some kind of cliched hacker. In the end I couldn’t finish everything so we will stay an extra day next week to tie off all the loose ends. In the evening we got a lift to the boat to the island, which involved driving very fast down a very new, very empty expressway. It had toll booths but they haven’t bothered to man them yet so it’s currently free. Seems like an odd choice of resource deployment to me. This being Africa, in half an hour we went from this to a woman having to chase ducks off the dirt road so we could get past.
The lake was choppy so the boat ride to the island was quite slow and bumpy, but beautiful, with huge turbulent skies and kingfishers darting into the water near the boat. As we neared the island Rebecca pointed out a huge fancy house and joked that it was ours. Turns out, it was. I had booked the airbnb and knew that it was big (it sleeps 10 in fact) but not this big. (I think the pricing is done on a “per person” basis so it was only £120 for 3 nights). It was very peaceful and very beautiful, perched on top of cliffs right on the water. There weren’t even mosquitoes so we slept with the bedroom doors open and were lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves.
*I assume for later use - the jams aren’t THAT bad
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