Looking forward to ...

Life is good, if not a little busy! I’ve decided to make the most of my remaining time in Uganda and have lots of ‘bucket list’ plans in the pipeline. I am now coming out of my phase of finding everything in Uganda triply more frustrating than usual to feeling a little melancholic about leaving. I'll be wearing rose tinted glasses until I leave ...

Sunday morning biking has been great fun of late. More often than not, I used to find myself the only girl in the group. These days, there are almost as many girls as boys, which means I am not the only one to complain about the swamps and single tracks. Funny how the male and female perspective is different on things – when I nearly went A over T today, one of the guys said I just performed a great front wheelie!

My biggest problem right now is that there are too many things to do and not enough time to squeeze it all in. Next week it’s the Irish Ball and I’m wondering whether I can manage to go to that, then go biking at the Lagoon Resort on the Sunday. I really want to do both, but I have a sneaking suspicion that next Sunday may be a little more sedentary! Watch this space …

Also on the cards is a trip up to Murchison Falls to camp on the Nile Delta. Yes – that’s me camping, in the middle of a national park, surrounded by wild animals from hippos, to crocodiles to lions.

If I survive that then it won’t be long until the Easter holidays when I head off Kenya for my final safari in the Masai Mara, followed by a third visit to the gorgeous Watamu on the Indian Ocean. Not very adventurous , I know, but it’s fabulous, so who cares? I’m going to be joined by a very old friend, so I look forward to showing her a few of the sights and scenes of Africa!

Feeling the heat!

You may have noticed that my posts have been a little thin on the ground recently. It's not for lack of trying, but the internet has no been very co-operative of late and has not been letting me write. Humph!

It's been a hot and hectic few weeks. The hottest I have ever known it to be in Uganda. To my knowledge, it has not rained in Kampala at all THIS YEAR! Temperatures in my classroom are soaring well into the thirties, and this combined with a couple of weeks of broken generator make it almost unbearable. I have had to disperse the children into shady and breezy corners in the afternoons just to make it through! I have been trying my best to drink gallons of water to avoid going home with a dehydration headache. Today clouds gathered around lunchtime, but to no avail.

The dry season has brought new challenges to the biking. Gone is the sticky and squelchy mud, replaced with deep patches of sand and dust. What they do have in common though, is that they can both make you wobble and fall off your bike if you're not careful! Today the leaves appeared to have taken on an autumnal tinge, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a thick layer of orange dust! It takes a serious amount of scrubbing to get rid of it too. I didn't quite manage today and when I looked down at my legs it looked like I'd done a really bad job with the fake tan!

We have one more week before we break up and I'm off to Ethiopia. One more place to tick off the bucket list! Plans are for a quick loop around the north, taking in Lake Tana, Gondar, Lalibela and the Simeon Mountains. My friends who have been before say it was one of the most inspiring and amazing holidays they have ever taken. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to a spot off cool mountain air in Addis!

Flaming Rain

"It's just a little drizzle," said one of the Belgians as we set off for our Sunday bike ride around Flametree Stables, 20km or so out of Kampala.
Clearly, he was unfamiliar with the Peter Kay definition of drizzle of being 'that fine stuff that gets you wet'. This was no drizzle, but a continuous, all day downpour.
And with the rain, came mud, and lots of it. By the end of the ride, my wheels were completely blocked and I had to shovel great big chunks out with my hands. I was ready to abandon my bike altogether and give the village kids a very generous early Christmas present.
As usual, the planned 40kms turned into 48km as we had to divert along different routes.
In spite of the rain and cloud, Factor 30 and wearing a coat for most of the day, I still managed to get sun burnt ... how is that possible?
Here's a few pics from along the ride ...

An old friend ...

8 men + 2 women = too much mud for my liking ...

Swamp number 1

Mud enforced walking

Shakespeare's Sunday Cycle ride

I think I shall adapt the words of William Shakespeare to describe this morning's bike ride which consisted of 30km and 3 hours of pouring rain:


I am in MUD (and rain)

Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Back on 2 wheels again!

This morning, Dora the Explorer and I took a leisurely bike ride. The phrase of the day being "I'm sure well end up somewhere that we recognise!" Yes ... eventually we did, but not before being nearly knocked to the ground by errant runaway trucks and squeezing our way through 'da jam'!

Easter on the Equator

Easter Sunday - a day that should surely be spent gorging on Easter Eggs ... except I thought it would be a great idea to cycle to the Equator!

The route was planned along the back roads since cycling along the main road with all the kama kazi trucks hurtling along en route to Nairobi would be a death wish. We took the bus to the starting point just outside of the city and expected the ride to be just over 50kms. Thanks to Google maps and a Garmin, we were able to plan a route taking us through a series of villages and to eventually arrive at the Equator for coffee and muffins at the cafe and of course, a silly photo in the sign. I'm not sure what went wrong, but within 5 minutes we were lost. In the end we had to rely on directions from a toothless local dressed in a dishdash as all the modern technology seemed to be failing us. Every time we thought we were within reaching distance of the Equator, the Garmin would update itself and add on another 15 to 20 kms to the journey. After one or two diversions, the total distance was 84.5kms!

It was a beautiful but very hilly ride, taking us through quiet villages that are barely touched from outside. We passed children dressed in their Sunday best and women in vividly coloured Gomesi (the traditional silk dresses with exaggerated shoulders - power dressing was clearly a fashion in Uganda long before the 1980s). This Uganda seemed unaffected and a million miles away from all of the recent troubles and riots seen in Kampala and major cities across the country.

Proof of the distance travelled!

Lush Ugandan countryside

Biker's tan!

Women wearing the traditional Gomesi

Save the Easter Bunny!

We made it ... now let's grab a coffee!

Seven hours after setting off, five tired, sunburnt and dusty cyclists arrived at the Equator. The silly thing is, that by the time we got there, we were all too exhausted and hungry to be much bothered about having a picture taking by the big sign - all we cared about was getting a big smoothie and guac and chips!