Day 9
Country
We had plans to go to Queen Elizabeth National Park so we headed north. After about 40 kms the landscape changed dramatically from hill forests to savannah. When we reached the turn off for the national park we were stopped by the police who check our documents and before waving us through asked for “something nice” “some dollar”. We said we didn’t have any and they just let us go. The park entrance was about 15 kms down a dirt road. We stopped after couple of kms for a break and when I tried to put my bike on its stand the spring broke. Ron did a great job of bodging a repair with a piece of inner tube he found just lying there by the side of the road! That’ll do till we get a new spring for it. We started taking about how much it’d cost us to go to the national park and we needed petrol. Not a good idea to run out of fuel on a game drive. So we decided against it, turned back and headed out of the area. We got some petrol near the Congo border and had a rest. The heat was intense. Must’ve been in the mid-thirties. Wearing a bike jacket, trousers, boots and helmet in this kind of heat was exhausting. We were OK so long as we kept riding but as soon as we stopped the heat would become unbearable. We pushed on now looking for somewhere to camp. The volcanic crater lakes which was marked on the map looked interesting and we wondered whether we’d find any cam sites near there. Indeed we did. Well, its actually a holiday resort overlooking one of the 56 crater lakes in that area. It was a beautiful setting and was owned by a retired Italian diplomat. The rooms were very expensive (around $180 per night!) but they allowed people to camp on their grounds. As the camp toilet and showers were out of order at the time, they gave us a key to one of the rooms so that we could use the facilities there. The resort was practically empty with one guest other than us staying there. There were about 20 staff most of whom were either watching football on the box or playing pool. After pitching our tents, we went to explore the area by foot and walked to the shores of the lake and watched a couple of kids fishing. Apparently they still hear the volcano rumbling in the depths every now and again. And once in a while they find dead fish floating in the lake. Most likely killed by heat/gases escaping from the volcano which has been dormant for over 500 years. I had a nice shower and then played a few games of pool and surprisingly won most of them. Until, that is a 16 year old kid came to play. He played with one arm tucked behind his back and still managed to beat the living daylights out of my game! I said good night.
