Red Faces

We leave the Jerhova Jire at around 10.00 on Monday. Martin has had a little chat with the locals and identified a route whereby we can avoid the busy Tororo border crossing into Uganda and simply slip through Mexican style along a virtually unused road.

Two hours later and we are at the busy Tororo border crossing we intended to avoid. What the #@#* happened there? ( we missed a left turn because speedy gonzalez was ripping up the lovely tarmac)

We are immediately accosted by a fixer/chancer who offers to guide us through the process, guard our bikes, change our money and supply us with somosas! We decline explaining that we have done this many times before but our man is undeterred and pretends to be helpful by walking ahead of us as we make our way to immigration, customs and finally the Police.  

 

Having completed the Kenyan formalities we ride over to the Ugandan side where the process is repeated, our "fixer" still in tow. We complete the formalities and return to our bikes where a guy we have never seen is standing alongside our bikes and proudly announces " okay, so my work is done" expecting us to tip him for allegedly guarding our bikes. We both burst out laughing, fire up the bikes, and ride out of the compound tipping our fixer 500 Ksh (GBP 4) for his "help".

 

Martin leads us out of Tororo and onwards to Mbale - our destination for the night which is only an hour away.

An hour later and we are in Iganga! 90 Km is the wrong direction. All Martin can say is "great road"

So we ride back on the "great road" which, by the way, is lined with a multitude of monkeys and orang-utangs where we originally began and this time took the "road" to Mbale.

(Martin continues...) Only have to divide most of the above by 10 but we eventually found the Mbale road. You could have missed it very easily it was dust, rocks and gravel! All the way! We checked and double checked, is this really the only road to Uganda's second largest town! Yes, we were told but the diabolical road gets much better in a few kilometres. No...it got worse, much worse. They are 'improving eet' but that means they have ripped the whole lot up and the rains have done their best, Including the most bizarre roadoworks traffic flow management which consists of a huge flashing arrow pointing you to the other carriageway which you have to negotiate with the other traffic still coming your way. The road all the way to Mbale was hideous! The worst we have ridden by a mile. Truly terrible.

We finally arrive in Mbale and the Mnt Elgon Hotel is a true and welcome oasis from the journey that should have been straight forward. 

That is the end of Kenya and we hit the 1,000 mile mark today. Kenya...massive respect...great people, incredible landscapes, stunning wild life and wonderful sense of humour. We hope your new president can help you fulfill your undoubted untapped potential. Uganda leg here we come. Very busy and packed with 'veeesits'

See below for the post Tororo road faces on arrival at the hotel... red faced in every sense of the word.