18 Feb 2011

Friday 18 Feb 2011
We left Buharamulo, Old Fort etc at 9 am this morning, heading for Rubondo Nat Park, which is a large island, just offshore in the South Western corner of Lake Victoria. About 75 km, on a mixture of roads. Started off with good road under construction, then old small gravel, then almost a track, past small villages, and people who run when they see a white face. Looks of surprise greeted us all over. Suddenly, as we approached the lake – surprise!!! A tarr road!!!! Not shown on map or GPS. We travelled along that for about 15 km, turned off, and found our way to the end of the road, and lakeshore, where there were a few fishing boats, and lots of people, none of whom could speak English. Eventually, one guy phoned the national park, a few km across the water from us. Yes, they could send a boat - $100. Yes, accom was 20$ per person. Please bring your own food. Excluding park fees. What about the bikes?? Nowhere safe to park them. So we turned back, went to the newly discovered tarr road, and continued up the Western lake shore. Eventually we got onto another section of tarr, under construction in places. Lots of mud on the detours. Our GPS indicated that some sections of this road where to be travelled under armed escort only. Sharon had a small fall, when we got to a mud patch when her front tyre slipped out. Left foot a bit sore, but ankle etc all fine. We carried on from there, to a fairly large town, called Bukoba, on the shore. Accom was not easy to find – after checking two “campsites”, a few hotels, we settled into the Bukoba Beach Hotel – R150 per night, incld breakfast again, hot water, clean, on the lake shore, with a view out of our window, looking at a large ship, which is the ferry that travels around the lake.
The terrain today was a lot better, with some sections of wild forest / bush, where one could possibly still expect to see some game. Not for long though, and soon we were back into populated areas along the lake, although never over-populated, or over exploited, like Lake Malawi. Visibility has been very poor, with high cloud, very hazy, some mist and some scattered rain. Temperature has been fantastic for riding, being neither hot nor cold. Unfortunately, the haze is making the pictures very dull. While riding, we saw land in the far distance, and looking at the scale on the GPS, I realized that this was only an island, about 1/10 th of the way across the lake! This thing is huge!
Just had a very nice hot shower, and will go down to the beach for a walk later.
One of the very interesting things to see is the number of small motorbikes and bicycles that are always around. Anything and everything gets carried on these. The Piki Piki’s are often taxis, apparently a cheap form of transport for the locals. We often see groups of 5 or 10 of them in the villages – the local taxi rank. Beds, crates of chickens, whole families, goats, a LARGE live pig, large bags of charcoal, up to 6 x 25l containers – full – all get carried on the bicycles and small piki piki’s. Unbelievable! L