Captain(s) Log: January 2020

The Captain(s) log was always intended as a capture of some of the random thoughts, frustrations and experiences we go through as we travel along but lately it seemed to evolve more into a replica of the travel diary, this month we have tried to get it back on track.  Hopefully, in a succinct form, it helps to show the good, bad and sometimes ugly side of full-time travel. 

2 January

Slightly frustrating CITY day. To fill gas bottles required 24 hours and we endured the Kampala traffic as we criss-crossed it trying to shop & find a place to stay.  Mr Jones did however get his sparkle on @ Buddy’s car wash! 

4 January

Feeling like second class citizens, camped at a lovely lodge on shores of Lake Victoria but the campsite is a 10 minute walk down the hill next to staff quarters, it feels like the campers must be hidden away.

9 January

A campsite of SA standards, Kluges Farm, means a planned stop of 2 days become 5.  Got admin done, relaxed by pool each afternoon and did a short forest walk. 

10 January

Crater lakes scenery was pretty awesome but only enough to hold us for a couple of hours, one crater is another crater. Disappointing accommodation options after driving further south. 

11 January

Heart attack material woken by gunshots and a trumpeting elephant at 2am!   Definitively makes for a different travel diary entry. 

14 January

Mapping software glitches aaaargh!  We have struggled so much with routing in East Africa, if its not maps.metrying to send us down footpaths, then its google choosing tiny little back roads in towns and today Tracks4Africa taking us on a narrow dirt road with big drop offs when there was a perfectly good tar road we could have stayed on! 

15 January

Bucket list item ticked, mountain gorillas!  A great experience but at the same time rather saddened by human nature and the “dog eat dog” mentality of humans to get a picture of said gorillas. While there were only 8 of us in the group some were almost stepping on each other to get a pic or hogging the best spot, guess they never heard of Ubuntu!!!

16 January

First impressions of Rwanda – WOW. A lovely and simple border (Cyanika) crossing and then just amazed by the energy of the people, scenery and cleanliness as we drove towards Kigali. And Kigali: modern, clean, organised and trendy.

22 January

What an interesting few days we have had. Firstly a wonderful weekend in Kigali with Dion, then Mr Jones “appearing” in a music video shoot and now finally on Lake Kivu.  So nice to be next to the water again.

23 January

Sitting on the shores of Lake Kivu, camped on a hotels terrace just above the water watching the twinkling lights (including functional street lights) across the bay.  Once again Rwanda WOW

24 January

Grumpy after a long day as we have discovered issues with Mr J: looks like we may have a F@&@ universal joint on the rear prop shaft and a bearing issue at the water pump or the water pump is packing up.  Also the one boot on the steering drop arm is perishing. Guess we won’t be crossing the border tomorrow….

25 January

Thank goodness for Dion Thompson, after a failed attempt to fix the prop ourselves, “we called a friend” and headed back to Kigali and a proper mechanic for the prop shaft. Stuart applied a bush mechanic fix to the perishing boot, lots of new grease and duct tape to hold it in.  Water pump bearing noise we will monitor.

26 January

Broken at the end of a hard and eventful day:  a double transaction on credit card; being declared “illegal entrants” upon trying to leave Rwanda; horrific Tanzanian roads; finally ending the day at a dodge motel/bar in a tiny cross roads village.  

27 January

Another hard day of terrible roads (8 hours for 330km).  The stark contrast to Rwanda in both infrastructure and the nature of people could not be more evident.

28 January

Rest day on Lake Tanganika and it is raining, grrrr!  Was hoping for some sunshine so we would swim and perhaps even use the SUP.

31 January

Shattered, been another hectic few days:  the “road” from Kigoma down south was more camel trophy stuff than either of us needed; followed by another ugly hotel parking lot camping experience and then a nasty border crossing into Zambia.