Day 226
Sleeping location: Satellite Hotel and Great Lakes Museum, Uganda
Distance (km today/total): 115 / 14407
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1500 / 112400
Losses: margarine tub and empty haribo packet
We were woken by scampering feet and opened the tent door to see a troupe of baboons wandering the site. They had designs on our food and had already got our tub of margarine and an empty haribo packet, then as we watched another took Rebecca’s tupperware up a tree because it smelled like food (it was subsequently dropped and recovered). We had to pack up and move everything away from the tent whilst also guarding our possessions. One tried to get to the main food bag a couple of times and I had to try and scare him off, which worked, but he lunged back both times. It was quite scary as they are the size of a medium dog and have big sharp teeth. After failing they just hung around the camp, eating the margarine straight from the tub with their hand (but only in small doses as they are clearly worried about the impact of saturated fats on their health) and generally causing chaos. Two youngsters had a long fight on the metal roof and made an almighty racket. Eventually they left when a kid chased one with a broom to get his flip flop back, but not before the huge alpha male ran across the grass to “remonstrate” with him. I asked the lady who lived there whether they did this every day, and she said yes with a very exasperated look on her face. During all of this the B&W colobus were calmly scampering around in the trees, causing no trouble to anyone. What the baboons could learn from them.
After this fun circus we set off around 10, and then spent a bit more time in a nearby village getting some breakfast rolex and playing with the very cute little kids. We didn’t get properly underway until almost 11am. Again the cycling was beautiful, through rolling hills and a mixture of forest and tea, banana and coffee plantations. In the afternoon this transitioned into an area of big knobbly grass- and tree-covered hills very redolent of the Brecon Beacons. The road was generally smooth and quiet with a wide shoulder and it was nicely cool and overcast. It was very pleasant cycling. The people were also generally very nice. Kids were mostly delightful and often excitedly wave and smile, and are very interested in Yoshi now he’s up front. Adults were also friendly but often bad at translating this into an appropriate medium for a passing cyclist, so often interactions were confusing for both parties and much better when we were stopped. Apopros of nothing, I saw a sign for a school sponsored by the “Mustard Seed Ministry” which made me laugh.
Sadly in the afternoon a couple of things soured the pleasant mood. Firstly, coronavirus suddenly feels like a real problem. It hadn’t really affected Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially not East Africa, so it had felt like somewhere else’s problem, but all of a sudden there are cases in Rwanda and Kenya and Tanzania. This looming threat has also led to people occasionally shouting “coronavirus” at us, mostly in a joking way though, for now. We can’t do anything yet so we will just keep on rolling and see what happens. The second problem was my first crash of the trip. I had nipped off the side of the road to avoid some speed bumps, but when I came back onto the tarmac I failed to see that there was a quite big height difference to negotiate. Essentially my wheels hit this barrier and stopped, but my weight kept going, and I went down onto my right side and skidded along the tarmac. I wasn’t badly hurt but suffered painful grazes in six different points on my right side, plus the associated tears in sleeves/gloves. Both right-side panniers were knocked off Maggie and her brake levers were knocked out of alignment but there was no real damage. She’s an absolute babe. I wheeled her up against a wall and used some (painful) wound cleansing wipes, popped some paracetamol and reattached and realigned everything on Maggie. During this process I was in a bit of a daze but was aware of a) a truck full of young men who spent the whole time laughing and joking, and b) about 100 schoolchildren who all stopped and stared before being chased away by someone, I don’t know who. After I’d recovered I had a massive go at the dickheads in the truck for just standing there and laughing rather then helping or seeing if I was OK. They were very sheepish. The most frustrating thing about the crash was that I had held my unblemished record over all kinds of dreadful surfaces and was hoping to keep it alive right to the end, but lost it in such a stupid, innocuous way.
Towards the end of the day we were aiming for another ioverlander place, confusingly entitled “Great Lakes Museum”. We headed for this but were most perturbed when it turned out that the place listed thusly on google maps didn’t exist, and the real place was 3km up a long gradual climb. I arrived in the semi dark and Rebecca in the full dark. Thankfully it was a pretty nice place and we got a pleasant “bungalow” and rewarded ourselves with several beers and some decent food in their restaurant. To say we only properly started cycling at 11am, 115km and 1500m of climb is damn good going.
*During this chaos one of the baboons somehow adjusted Rebecca’s brake lever into a position which she actually preferred. That night she asked me to adjust the other one “the way the baboon did it”, which took some force. They really are strong beasties.
Distance (km today/total): 115 / 14407
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1500 / 112400
Losses: margarine tub and empty haribo packet
Day in three words: The first crash
We were woken by scampering feet and opened the tent door to see a troupe of baboons wandering the site. They had designs on our food and had already got our tub of margarine and an empty haribo packet, then as we watched another took Rebecca’s tupperware up a tree because it smelled like food (it was subsequently dropped and recovered). We had to pack up and move everything away from the tent whilst also guarding our possessions. One tried to get to the main food bag a couple of times and I had to try and scare him off, which worked, but he lunged back both times. It was quite scary as they are the size of a medium dog and have big sharp teeth. After failing they just hung around the camp, eating the margarine straight from the tub with their hand (but only in small doses as they are clearly worried about the impact of saturated fats on their health) and generally causing chaos. Two youngsters had a long fight on the metal roof and made an almighty racket. Eventually they left when a kid chased one with a broom to get his flip flop back, but not before the huge alpha male ran across the grass to “remonstrate” with him. I asked the lady who lived there whether they did this every day, and she said yes with a very exasperated look on her face. During all of this the B&W colobus were calmly scampering around in the trees, causing no trouble to anyone. What the baboons could learn from them.
After this fun circus we set off around 10, and then spent a bit more time in a nearby village getting some breakfast rolex and playing with the very cute little kids. We didn’t get properly underway until almost 11am. Again the cycling was beautiful, through rolling hills and a mixture of forest and tea, banana and coffee plantations. In the afternoon this transitioned into an area of big knobbly grass- and tree-covered hills very redolent of the Brecon Beacons. The road was generally smooth and quiet with a wide shoulder and it was nicely cool and overcast. It was very pleasant cycling. The people were also generally very nice. Kids were mostly delightful and often excitedly wave and smile, and are very interested in Yoshi now he’s up front. Adults were also friendly but often bad at translating this into an appropriate medium for a passing cyclist, so often interactions were confusing for both parties and much better when we were stopped. Apopros of nothing, I saw a sign for a school sponsored by the “Mustard Seed Ministry” which made me laugh.
Sadly in the afternoon a couple of things soured the pleasant mood. Firstly, coronavirus suddenly feels like a real problem. It hadn’t really affected Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially not East Africa, so it had felt like somewhere else’s problem, but all of a sudden there are cases in Rwanda and Kenya and Tanzania. This looming threat has also led to people occasionally shouting “coronavirus” at us, mostly in a joking way though, for now. We can’t do anything yet so we will just keep on rolling and see what happens. The second problem was my first crash of the trip. I had nipped off the side of the road to avoid some speed bumps, but when I came back onto the tarmac I failed to see that there was a quite big height difference to negotiate. Essentially my wheels hit this barrier and stopped, but my weight kept going, and I went down onto my right side and skidded along the tarmac. I wasn’t badly hurt but suffered painful grazes in six different points on my right side, plus the associated tears in sleeves/gloves. Both right-side panniers were knocked off Maggie and her brake levers were knocked out of alignment but there was no real damage. She’s an absolute babe. I wheeled her up against a wall and used some (painful) wound cleansing wipes, popped some paracetamol and reattached and realigned everything on Maggie. During this process I was in a bit of a daze but was aware of a) a truck full of young men who spent the whole time laughing and joking, and b) about 100 schoolchildren who all stopped and stared before being chased away by someone, I don’t know who. After I’d recovered I had a massive go at the dickheads in the truck for just standing there and laughing rather then helping or seeing if I was OK. They were very sheepish. The most frustrating thing about the crash was that I had held my unblemished record over all kinds of dreadful surfaces and was hoping to keep it alive right to the end, but lost it in such a stupid, innocuous way.
Towards the end of the day we were aiming for another ioverlander place, confusingly entitled “Great Lakes Museum”. We headed for this but were most perturbed when it turned out that the place listed thusly on google maps didn’t exist, and the real place was 3km up a long gradual climb. I arrived in the semi dark and Rebecca in the full dark. Thankfully it was a pretty nice place and we got a pleasant “bungalow” and rewarded ourselves with several beers and some decent food in their restaurant. To say we only properly started cycling at 11am, 115km and 1500m of climb is damn good going.
*During this chaos one of the baboons somehow adjusted Rebecca’s brake lever into a position which she actually preferred. That night she asked me to adjust the other one “the way the baboon did it”, which took some force. They really are strong beasties.
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