It is a slow morning, but it will get faster - today we will be in three countries. After breakfast at the truck, we spent the rest of the morning working on our journals. We then had a quick lunch, again at the truck, after which the motorcycles we had asked for showed up. Five bikes showed up, but there was problems with one of them, so we sent it back for another. After getting organised and then going to fill them up with petrol, we were ready for our great adventure of the day.
Around 1 PM we head off for the border with Congo. As this is the first time that three of us (Ika, Jacqui and Lars) have been on a bike, we started off a bit slow. But as we got more comfortable, we sped up. The major problem was the condition of the bikes. While in general they were in good condition, we had problems at times getting them started and making the gears work properly (we were very careful to make sure the brakes worked before we left). But we were able to get to the border after a 15 km drive on dirt roads.
Along the way, the locals must have thought we were quite a sight. They would all run over and shout and wave. Some wanted money and others just to say hello. I believe that they also marveled at the fact that there were women riding the bikes. Along the way there was one police check point, but he let us through. We got to the Uganda side of the border at 1:45 PM. We stopped the bikes, got off and went and asked the Uganda officials if we could walk over to the Congo side. They said it was no problem, but that the officials on the Congo side were not very friendly. They also allowed us to take some pictures of the sign at the border.
We the walked across the border through no-man's land. This was a dirt path lined by tall trees on each side. We came up to the barrier and walked around it and into Congo. We wandered around for a while and then went and spoke to the officials. They only spoke French and they were not very friendly. He would not let us walk in any further nor take any pictures. He may have been asking for a bribe to let us walk to the next town, but we were not sure. We the wandered back to the Uganda side.
We got on our bikes and headed back to town. At this point we were zooming along at quite a good pace now that we were much more used to the bikes. It was good fun. We decided that we would also try to make it to the border with Rwanda. We took what we thought was the way and headed up this road, but it quickly turned into a dirt path and we were turning the bikes into off road bikes. After a while, we decided to turn around (the bikes kept stalling going up the hill on the rough, dirt path.
On the way back, a local gave us directions which took us on another road. This was a better dirt road, but still rougher than the main dirt road. We went around corners and up and down some hills - and it was on one of these hills that we had problems. It was quite steep down and the road was covered with small round stones. Jacqui slipped and fell off her bike on the way. No major damage - Jacqui was OK with just a few scraps and on the bike we had broken the small windshield. What to do. After a short rest, we headed on to the border.
We finally made it to the border with Rwanda shortly after 4 PM. We did the same thing as at the Congo border. Got off the bikes, got permission from the Uganda officials (who, again, were very friendly) and walked over into Rwanda. As we walked through no-man's land, the dirt road became paved. On the Rwanda side we wandered around, but could not find the immigration official, so we did not take any pictures without asking permission. After a short stay in Rwanda, we walked back to Uganda.
We got back on our bikes and headed back to town. This time we found the correct way and it was a much quicker ride back. We arrived at the camp site shortly before 5 PM and then began the fun of negotiating compensation for the damage to Jacqui's bike. Our driver, Gilly, helped us out and we were able to settle on an acceptable figure. We then took a shower to wash away all the dust that we had gotten all over while driving on the dirt roads.
That evening we had a huge feast. A whole pig was roasted on a spit over a fire, and that was accompanied by chapatis, stir fry vegetables, gravy and baked potatoes. We took it easy for the rest of the evening and had an early night.