Lat Zero - take two

I starting to get tired of border crossings.. We really haven't had a bad one yet, but they're always exhausting... you've got to double check everything... make sure you have a stamp, make sure it has the correct date, make sure they've given you 10 days entry at least, and not just 1.. and so it goes on...  On the Kenyan side we had to pay $20 road tax - very simple, just take the slips of your Carne de Passage document to the cash office, hand them $40 for the 2 bikes and wait for the receipt to be issued... Once I got the first receipt; for Kobus' bike, I noticed the last digit was 1 more than it should be - his registration ended in "CFM____7" yet on the receipt it was declared as "CFM____8"... I handed it back and asked that it be corrected - we keep one copy, that has to be shown at police road blocks to prove that you have indeed paid your road tax... and scary things happen when you don't have it, and we've heard many stories, where digits don't match and suddenly you face a night in jail or most of the US$'s in your wallet... Naturally I wanted to avoid either!

It seems the customs officer is a little slow - it took almost 10 more minutes to reissue the corrected receipt... now it stated "CMF____7"... Naturally i pointed out the second mistake... 10 more minutes and we had a receipt for the first bike...

Our rule of thumb for the trip was to set out 2-3 hours for a borders crossing.

 Road maintenance in East Africa, especially on minor roads, is not high on anyone's agenda. Here is a half a road... but we still prefer this over "spot the tar amongst the potholes" as we so often find...

In the previous blog entry I stated that if ever Kampala/Uganda saw me again, it would be too soon... I take that back... I've decided I DO want to go back.. most definitely... only this time I'm coming in the largest tank imaginable - let's see who intimidates whom then!?! ;-)

Ever since crossing into Burundi, we've not camped - we've moved into the rainy season, and we're wet at least once during our daily ride... sometimes a little wetter than other times, like today... I must have emptied a liter of water out of my one boot..

Anyway, we've stayed at some nice places, and very reasonably priced. Below is the view onto the portion of Lake Victoria that proceeds into the White Nile, as seen from the terrace of Gately on Nile in Jinja - highly recommended and they have a great kitchen too!

Of course you can't be in Jinja and not visit the source of the White Nile! From here the water mass flows for 4000 miles and takes approximately 3 months before it ends up in the Mediterranean Sea.

...and the Bujagali Falls just north of Jinja

Our first evening in Kenya was spent in Kisumu - we wanted to spend one last night on the shore of Lake Victoria. This was our last view of Lake Vic.

That evening turned out to be quite and interesting one.. We sat down at the bar, having a couple of cold ones before dinner, and we started talking to an elderly Indian gentleman, Koni - very pleasant, a civil engineer and very interested in games, riddles and mental puzzles. After solving most of the puzzles, I guess we graduated... Spontaneously he invited us to join him at the yacht club, where he would cook us a chicken curry, outside in the open air, beside the lake... how could we refuse!

It was simply fantastic! The evening ended with a couple (of generous) shots of Single Malt at his place, before he dropped us off at the hotel again... Just one of those memorable evenings...

Till next time!