Friday 15th July

Greetings from Mbarara, a bustling university town we reached today after covering 43 miles at a good pace.

We stayed in a very pleasant hotel in Ibanda last night – quiet, with working electricity and warm showers.  The food was good as well.  We are learning to order when we arrive in a hotel so we don’t have to wait for ages while it is cooked.

We had a more leisurely start this morning – breakfast wasn’t till 8 and we did the bike maintenance afterwards, rather than the previous evening as we have other days.  The bikes are running well but everything was covered in dust and the dust absorbs the oil so the chain and gears don’t run smoothly.

We stocked up with water from a shop. Fortunately it is widely available, even in small villages.  It takes about 7 litres to fill all our bottles, and as you gather we get through it during the day and have to refill in villages.

we started with a long down hill out of Ibanda on tar, which was a good way to start.  We were all a bit tired after yesterday, but we set a fairly good pace.  On tar we ride as quite a tight lie of 4 to get the benefit of slipstreaming.  It really does make a difference to the amount of effort you have to put in.  We swap leaders regularly.

Tom spotted some avocados on a roadside stall and we bought a couple for about 10p, then stopped by some rocks, which we sat on to eat them – they were great.

The terrain gradually flattened out so we began to get wider vistas of the African plain with hazy blue hills in the distance.

About midday we stopped again for a snack.  We had some sweet buns and I had a couple of tins of mackerel fillets in tomato sauce, as emergency rations for the previous evening . unconventional but very tasty.  You will gather that food is important when you are doing daft things like this. – our bodies are still catching up with the demands from yesterday.

The traffic hasn’t been bad and the roads are wide enough that we haven’t had problems.

On down the tar to Mbarara.  We have found nice hotel in the back roads which should be quiet.  We sat in its garden for a late lunch and catching up on fluids.  The food was the best we have had and we have ordered  Fish tikka masala for tonight.  remains to be seen what it is like.

Tomorrow is Katy’s birthday.  Not quite sure how we will be able to mark it.

We have opted to take the more direct route tomorrow.  There were quite a few unknowns about the other route and we hope the road isn’t too busy.  We tried a bit of it and is seemed okay, but we will be on for several hours as it a bit over 40 miles again.

Thank you for your interest and support.  We have now reached 69% of the target.

Thanks to Ed Lamb for uploading my txts. Not sure when I will next have access to the internet.

Ewan