We started from the bottom now we’re…

 …here in paradise!

Today was the day we had all been waiting for, BIKE RIDE!  GoFreeUganda is a bicycle tour company whose mission is to create employment opportunities to people from all walks of life by offering the best and most adventurous bicycle tours in Uganda.  GoFree trains people from less fortunate backgrounds into professional and reliable tour guides, bike mechanics, and other professional jobs affording them the opportunity to find a way out of poverty.

When pitching this bike ride back in April, Dr. Swahn warned us that it was about 12km over rough terrain and wasn’t something to be taken lightly.  She wasn’t joking.  The roads were rocky and had deep trenches running throughout caused by water erosion from rain.  Before we could start biking we had to get there, there being across Lake Victoria.  We climbed into what is best described as a large canoe from a market port called Ggaba after walking through the fish market and motored across Lake Victoria.  They loaded us into one boat and piled our bikes into another.  Once everything and everyone had been unloaded the fun began.

I stayed in the “fast” group the whole way (actually I lead the group for much of the ride) and at times it felt like we were celebrities.  As we passed by houses or small communities along the road all the kids would come out and chant “mzungu” which means “foreigner.”  They would wave and laugh as we passed by.  I would wave and say hi, a couple of times I spilled into the trenches and once ran into a bush because I took my hand off to wave, which of course made the kids laugh even more.

Charles stayed busy all day riding up and down the road checking on everyone on a boda boda.  I kept yelling at him because EVERY TIME he passed by I was either walking by bike up a hill or taking a water break.  I SWEAR I was actually biking.  We all got caught in a rain shower, more so than others.  Us at the front caught just the front of the shower and powered through.  The rain was actually really refreshing and cooled everyone off.  For those further back several groups actually were invited into people’s homes to escape the rain.  They played with the kids teaching them “Namaste” and some ballet poses.  I’m actually really jealous that I didn’t get to experience that.  The worst part, besides the three big hills, was the last 1 km.  Being that it had just rained, the last 1 km was down a very steep hill, with a lot of tree cover and was super muddy.  I started going down on my bike but quickly found that my brakes did very little to prevent me from sliding in the mud.  So we all hopped off and very slowly made out way down with our bikes.  Once things flatten out a little, and also after seeing that Jibril was still riding his bike, I jumped back on and pedaled the rest of the way.

TO BE CLEAR, I was the first to arrive at our final destination, making me the champ.  However, Jibril was in front of me, which I was fine with, until he chose poorly and tried to ride through a big puddle and popped his chain.  I slowed down and asked if he was okay or if he needed help, to which he said he was fine and that he knew how to fix it.  So I kept going.  Rachel, Lora, Lauren, Dr. White, Aaleyah, Jibril and I were the first ones to make it to the resort.  The next group didn’t arrive until almost 30 minutes later.  We had biked about 10 miles in an hour and a half, according to Dr. White’s GPS.

 

Our final destination was Lake Side Resort and it was gorgeous!  I’m no poet, so I’m just going to show you how beautiful this place and view was.

 

 

 

 

It’s a toss-up whether we were lucky or unlucky not to have to ride our bikes back down to the beach after lunch.  Going down would have been considerable easier than coming up but to save time we all piled into a van, road to the beach and got back on our big canoes.

We were on our own for dinner and because we were so tired, Rachel and I stayed at the hotel and ordered food at the bar.  I think it was about 9:30pm when we started yawning and decided it was an acceptable bedtime.  Rachel said that she had convinced Charles to go for a run in the morning and they were heading out at 8am.  I laughed and said I’ll be dreaming about it from my bed.