Victorian Loop
Victorian Loop
Posted on: Thursday, July 25th, 2013 at 5:23pm
Time flies, even when you aren’t cycling it seems. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve been on the saddle full time, spending nearly all of my time at the southern point of Lake Victoria in the city of Mwanza, Tanzania’s second biggest city. It doesn’t seem like it, surely cities like Arusha have much more activity going on from the outset but if population is a factor then I suppose that what they say is actually valid. What’s it like? Dusty. Like most of Tanzania, lack of paved roads, erosion from mountains, and strong winds bring a huge amount of dust to this city, where leaving your bicycle parked outside for an hour will find it covered in a fine layer of silky smooth silt. Then it gets on your clothes, in your lungs, electronics. Rainy season doesn’t come for a while and that seems to be only a temporary solution before it starts back up again. It’s not all that bad. Mwanza is a port town, and quite scenic in some parts with its geological rock formations and the way that the city has been constructed. Shanty towns on the sides of mountains perched precariously above one another with no running water or electricity make the daily trek for services challenging for the hundreds of thousands of people that call these houses their home.
I made it here just before the end of June, after finishing off some hardcore cycling through Burundi, and its many hills. Burundi consistently left a bad taste in my mouth upon dealing with shop owners, innkeepers, restaurant owners – the feeling of always being shaken down for extra money left it quite bitter, and I vowed never to go back after one morning being surrounded by three men wielding bricks, with the owner of an inn stating ‘I will kill you’. That is a story that sat in my head for a long time, and it’s likely best I don’t repeat the lead up and how it all went down and let it be a bygone as something that just happened during my trip in Africa. I’m sure having my head bashed in with a brick would have made for good stories, and so since it didn’t happen we won’t go there. Different Cultures, Different mentalities, different upbringing, different set of logic. As my friend Gerrit in Zambia says ‘Some people just didn’t grow up using lego’. Truth. I’ve even put it all aside and willing to give Burundi one more try in the coming months as I make my way back to Zambia. What?
First things first – I knew it would come at some point in time, going back to Zambia – the country is good enough for a three-peat, and I had hoped it would be my most visited country in Africa (it turns out this is my fourth time in Tanzania, and there is likely two more visits in the coming weeks). I made a great set of friends in Zambia, enjoyed the people I lived with, and had the opportunity to rest for a while in the past, and figure that it would be a good time to settle and make a plan for the next phase of the trip. Recall I’ve been wishy washy on how I’ve wanted to do things, where I’ve wanted to go, that sort of thing over the past year and a half. Well, nothing has changed – I’m still doing it, just realizing that I can kill two birds with one stone with a revisit to Zambia, and find an easier crossing into Democratic Republic of Congo, as right now things in the east on the Ugandan, Rwandan, and Burundian borders are a mess, putting it lightly. But hold on, I have to get to Zambia right? Why didn’t I when I had the chance at the southern tip of Burundi, crossing into Tanzania and taking a ferry from Kigoma? Good Question. I’d have to say I enjoyed Peter Gostelow’s company so much I decided to go along with him back for the tail end the trip. There was also an opportunity to get some mail delivered from the UK tax and duty free – and while I didn’t need much, I jumped at the chance to get some stuff shipped over. I’ll get to that.
So off we went through Burundi, into Tanzania, not knowing if I had crossed illegally without an entry stamp as immigration just didn’t seem to exist at the border. It turns out it was 8km up the road in a more busier area. $50 gone out of my pocket for another 90 day visa and the search began to find a working ATM, a SIM Card for the telephone, and get some distance as there was about 400km to go and we were on a deadline. The ATM didn’t pan out – it took 300km to find a working ATM, luckily I was able to borrow some Tanzanian Shillings, and the SIM Card? I now own 4 Airtel SIM Cards. It seems that only these SIM Cards reboot my phone randomly when the data switches from 3G to EDGE. Other networks don’t suffer the same problem, but other networks also don’t offer such good pricing on voice/text/data plans ($4 for 2GB of Data, 5000 SMS, and 250 minutes to any network in the country) so I dealt with the problem. It helped if I burned through the limit I could just switch my card to another one and start the weekly plan all over again. It doesn’t matter to me, I knew no one that I wanted to give my phone number to, and anyone who stays in touch with me has me on WhatsApp anyways –no biggie. But all of these problems were a reminder of my last long term visit in Tanzania. Bad roads, little to no care from shop owners when you wanted to purchase something, water difficult to be found and hard to find reasonable food in grocery stores brought me right back to where I was a year earlier. Funny, I even celebrated my 35th birthday this year again in Tanzania, as I did the same the year prior when in Dar Es’ Salaam waiting to head to Zambia.
Waiting for mail to come in was tedious – Getting the mail to ship to the country was no problem, until customs got in the way – delaying the package for a week causing mass frustration. I waited patiently, working on outstanding projects on the website I wanted to finish (check out the new map/graph/stats thing going on at the bottom of the posts now!) and get around to editing the 2nd edition of the Book, after being embarrassed constantly that I allowed so many spelling/grammar mistakes into the first edition. I see where the value in a professional editor is – but I can’t justify the money for it– it’s double what the book has brought in overall [image error] In the process I went about losing my Leatherman Wave MultiTool – yup, going onto the third one. I left it at a telephone shop one day, and went back 5 minutes later and the sales clerk claimed he never saw it. When I went back the third time that day on an unrelated issue, he wouldn’t look me in the eye. What can you do. Then my phone, along with its rebooting, started getting corrupted and wouldn’t boot. Finally – the laptop power supply I have just up and stopped working. After paying $50 USD for a universal power replacement It soon ceased to work after less than 24 hours. Finally, today, the battery of the laptop is no longer recognized in the computer even though that if you pull the power plug out, the unit still functions – only the system doesn’t know it exists. I’m about done with dealing with technology components – just want things to work, and don’t have time to hack, tweak or fiddle with things. I only wish that a lot of the problems occurred before the mail package from the UK was shipped – I’d save a bundle, have better quality parts, and actually be able to replace things. For now I’m hobbling along.
So what did I order from the UK? A new headphone jack for my Samsung S3. It’s too big for my frame bag and when listening to music with speakers the cable pushed too hard on the jack damaging it. $6 replacement, easy. I’ve got right angle USB charging cables and right angled 3.5mm audio jacks coming over from the USA in a few days on another order (along with a replacement Leatherman) to make sure that doesn’t happen in the future. I also picked up a new Otterbox case for this Samsung S3. I’ve been carrying an extended battery for the longest time, and wasn’t satisfied with protection with its included casing. Instead I bought this new rugged case, promptly voided the warranty by melting the back plastic backing with a knife so the bigger dimensions of the battery could fit. With the silicone rubber outer you can’t tell what I did, but now I get a good 6 hours screen on battery life. On the voiding the warranty front, I destroyed any possibility of getting service on a pretty important part of my gear as well – the bike itself! After the manufacturer (and my previous bicycle’s manufacturer) sternly warned me that putting a kickstand on the bicycle could bend the frame, cause problems, and not get fixed by them, I went ahead and did it anyways. I have the Plescher Esge dual leg kickstand which is mounted delicately on the chainstay wrapped in rubber and tightened lightly so as to not crush the steel. They say it’s good for holding 25kg, but I’d argue that considering my bicycle is again more loaded than it ever has been and it’s working out fine. One of the wheels, either front or rear gets elevated with the kickstand is in use, and it’s great not having to find a place to lean it on, or worse, tip it over on the ground. Wish me luck that it works out. I had bad luck with “Click Stand”’s, folding bicycle kickstands that looked like tent poles, which couldn’t put up with the abuse that fully loaded African Bicycle Touring brings. I also said enough was enough, and upgraded my water bottle cages. Moving to a quite heavy steel cage made by BBB, the benefit of these cages is that they can hold regular 1.5 litre bottles of water which can be found pretty much anywhere in the world! My old bottles were a pain in the ass to clean often, becoming dirty and filled with algae, and only held 600mL in each of the three. I kept one, and the other two were donated to someone who needed them. I now have the capability of carrying 5.2 litres just in bottles on the bicycle, more than enough for at the end of the day when you want to clean, cook, and hydrate yourself. I often skipped one of the three in the past. Guess which one.
Some abnormal brake pad wear on the front after last years rim breakdown. I changed these pads 25000km in. The rear still have lots of life!
Other items of non significance to touring but certainly useful was 10 bandanas. I was on a lose one a week scenario in the past, and wanted to stock up. They’re cheap and the colours bleed but at least they protect my bald head when cycling. Another 1TB hard disk is coming along for backup and video storage – I generally swap out a hard disk a year for backup and storage, sending them back to Canada to satisfy my paranoia. 3TB on the bicycle should do me. Or maybe I should just delete the movies on one of them that I never watch anyways. I’d rather read. I have enough clothes to last me for months, and I even have my suit and tie and some dress shoes with me at this point in time. They were sent over from Nairobi, I’ll get around to wearing it sometime before burning them like I always wanted to as well. So with these parts (other than I suppose a new battery and power adapter to order) I’m on a no buying kick for the next year. Thank goodness – I’m running out of cash- need to find a way to make some cheese.
So this is why I’m now writing this post in the middle of Lake Victoria – stowed away on the MS Serengeti, a cargo ship crossing from Mwanza, Tanzania to Kampala , Uganda. The city has been in my mind since the day I left, and always wanted to come back and see if it meets and exceeds the good times I had before in the past, or if it was a one time deal. It was a bonus when I found out that one could get onto a ship to cross the lake as the ferry that used to transport the public sunk and killed hundreds of people a few years back. I had to ask the captain nicely at the ship yard, and wait patiently for the boat to leave (yes, it’s leaving tomorrow, I don’t know what time, just show up, no not today the cargo isn’t here, I will call you when it goes, etc.), but eventually found myself on board the boat loaded down with sacks of peanuts, Styrofoam, beer, and sunflower seeds. The captain appeared tipsy, unable to stand and we didn’t leave until later than expected, but I wasn’t too worried with the cargo we had on board. I held off on giving him the big bottle of gin I purchased as a thank you gift, it’ll be for when we are at dock after our 320km straight line across the lake. 30 hours is the estimate for the entire journey, and I was fortunate enough to have been given a room beside the captain with a bed, power plugs, a window, and a desk as I wait the trip out. The crew (approximately 12) have been more than welcoming, showing me their various duties, and not one has taken me aside as I’ve found in other situations trying to ask for tips or money. I’m even getting fed 4 times daily along with a beer per meal, so the 30,000 TSH (Under $20) I paid for this to come on is no different than living in a city, although you don’t have the flexibility to just pull it out and pee off the sidewalk into the road like you can on this boat, har har. So Kampala it is, I have some contacts at a backpackers who could use some fresh thinking from my end as they move physical locations, and I am going to try to trade some lodging in exchange for a bit of help, which at the same time would give me the opportunity to stop and focus & _finish_ some other nagging projects. Need to clear up loose ends if I’m going to meet my deadline of getting off the continent before 2014. Plus, why not? What else do I have to do at this stage. I’m timing things to beat the rainy seasons in Congo, need a month window to see if I can even get a visa, and have the other opportunity of taking care of someone’s kitten for a few weeks. Therapy at its finest. I’ll also get some bicycle touring over to Jinja as I skipped it the last time, and well, who knows. Fashion Show? Ballet? Ah, that was passé, last time, am sure this time will me full of surprises. I figure this is the best plan while I wait for more mail to arrive, and hope to head back into Rwanda (I feel I didn’t spend enough time in the country even though it is so small), go back into Burundi through another border on a three day transit visa, riding as fast as possible to get back into Tanzania (This is all because the road that parallels Burundi is a dirt track, and 2013 is the year of no dirt roads for me) before catching that ferry I spoke of into Zambia. Yeah, there’s likely to be another rest there, but after another 2000km I think its well deserved. The only sad thing is that I left Nairobi this year with great gusto eager to ride great distances over my measly 6000km total kilomtres for 2012 – it seems this year only will be 4500km. Focus Dave, 2014! That’s my excuse, I’m sticking with it. So, there’s your post for the month – I’m still alive, back soon!
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