Update 13:

Quick on the heels of Update 12, and likely there will be a 14th fairly soon as well.

Most of you know my immediate plans, at least those of you who have seen me, and those that I have had the fortunate chance to talk to by phone in the last few days. For the rest of you however…

I arrived in Vancouver almost two weeks ago. First thoughts that ran through my brain as I stepped out of the international arrivals at YVR:

1. Wow the air is so clean here, it smells like… trees, and rain, and flowers, and no black diesel fumes. Wow.

2. Why oh why didn’t I grow enough kahuna’s to give that wretched KLM flight attendant my number.

3. That I get to see my friends and family very soon. With Karny and not Fat Todd picking me up at the airport.

Since then I have visited a whole lot of amazing friends. Watched three sets of the Celebration of Light fireworks, played “Pitch’n’putt”, went the old companies company BBQ, got soaked on my bike, biked from N.Van to W. Van to English Bay, to Strathcona, not sober, another bike trip from Main to English Bay and back, again not sober, had many dinners, breakfasts, sushi, and coffee “dates.”

All in all, I am again left questioning why am I leaving again? Yet I know very well the answer, and look forward to the next set of adventures, that start tomorrow.

I have kitted up my motorbike with hard cases, a windscreen and new exhausts so that I can talk a wee road trip across Canada. Luckily for me the two events that I most wanted to be back in Canada are happening around the same time, Mr. G and Ms. S are getting hitched in Vermont in the middle of the month, and my sister is having her second baby towards the latter half of the month.

I figured what better time to hop on Yvonne and go for a ride. So, I have intentions of visiting family in Calgary, Chicago, Southern Ontario, and then Montreal. If you are on the way and want me to swing by, or if you have a friend along the way that has a free lawn that I could camp on for a night, hit me back. I was supposed to leave today but had a few technical difficulties and will be leaving first thing tomorrow morning.

I intend on doing about 600km/day. Roughly two tanks, tomorrow night I should be somewhere in the BC interior, Thursday night Calgary, then somewhere in Saskatchewan for Friday night, Manitoba Saturday. I will try and keep a fairly regular posting along the road, for a few reasons. My Vancouver mobile phone will accompany me should you need to contact me urgently.

The beginning of September I plan on getting back on the bike and heading back to Vancouver via the Eastern USA seaboard, then along the south and finally up the west coast hopefully arriving at the end of September, just in time to do another mission with MSF.

Let me know if you know of any great scenic roads as I am not partial to the TCH for the whole trip.

Update 12:

I really didn’t write much about Uganda, and since I was there for a couple of weeks in total, I feel it only fair to add a little blurb on the little bits of it that I did see.

The flight from Congo to Uganda was largely uneventful, except that the person that took off and landed the Beaver aircraft was not the pilot. He was some dude that had his pilot license and asked the pilot if he could fly the plane for a bit. Sitting right behind the pilot watching the pilot do the cross on the forehead and chest right after he puts what looks like a crash helmet on definitely made me worry for a second or two, or the rest of the flight. All in all though the flight was only moderately wobbly, and I didn’t need a sick bag, so I can’t complain too hard.

Getting into the Entebbe airport I quickly figured out that there was no one to pick me up, calling my responsible dude in the Congo he gave me the number for the taxi company that we are allowed to use. A few minutes later I am in a pretty sweet taxi heading into Kampala, the best touch was the in-dash TV that we could watch when stuck in rush hour traffic.

A quick administrative debriefing in Kampala the next morning, and then off to Jinga to whitewater raft the source of the Nile (touristy I hear you say, well that’s because I was a tourist, duh). Getting to Jinga via one of those oh so iconic symbols of African transportation; the 14 passenger Toyota minibus loaded with more than 14 passengers. Met up with a nice group of people, went down some class 4’s (they said class 5, but I think not). Ate a great BBQ, watched the $45 video they made of us rafting, got drunk, and went to sleep.

In Jinga I met a Memphisian who wanted to go to SIpi falls as well, and since her friends no longer wanted to head that far a distance for such a short time, it turned out that we went with each other to check out the cascading waters. Setting out this time on the back of boda boda’s (125cc Chinese motorbikes) to fetch one of those wretched, made for mini people, mini buses, and finally getting into a 5 passenger Toyota Corolla wagon with 8 folks on board. The minibus ride was cramped, Nutella slept most of the way, I read my book. The station wagon ride was messed up, the woman beside me was very well endowed and her boobs kept bouncing off of my side, not as much fun as it would seem let me assure you.

In Sipi we stayed at this awesome retreat called Sipi River Lodge. The owners are ex-whitewater kayakers, probably skiers, climbers, the kinda people that I tend to associate myself with. They were really cool dudes, they had not even opened to the public yet, so we were some of the first paying guests. Awesome setting at the bottom of the second set of falls, trendy style construction, great food, not uber expensive. We went abseiling off of a perfectly good 100m cliff; I will admit that I did not enjoy walking off of the edge. Hiking in the high heat and humidity also proved to be a fairly sweat inducing activity. If you enjoy the chill side of life plus a bit of hiking then you might want to check these guys out. http://www.sipiriver.com/

The reason that this trip was made possible was Nutella’s research. She had found a magic mystery bus that drove past the resort at 2:30am and would pick us up especially if we called in advance. Now I really don’t like to travel at night. But without taking this bus I would not have been able to go to Sipi, so clambering on this bus in the wee hours of the full moon lit night I found a tiny seat with my and Nutella’s name on it. I couldn’t sit up straight because my head hit the roof, so I would lean forward onto the seats ahead, which made the dude beside me use my back as a place to sleep, soon enough the dude was fast asleep using half my back, and Nutella was sleeping on the other half. A remarkable four or five incident free hours later we arrived in Kampala, said our goodbyes and found our ways back to our respectable houses.

I was lucky to see one of the Bunia staff in Kampala that morning, so we went for lunch at, I kid you not, I feel like Chicken Tonight. She came with me to the airport and we said goodbye, or until next time.

As I went through airport security, the guard told me that I had to open my bag as he needed to see what was at the bottom. I knew right away what he was looking for. What I didn’t know when I bought the hand carved hippo teeth as presents for my family in the Congo was that they are kinda like Ivory and that it is fairly illegal to transport. Anyway, I got on the flight without hassle and without Ivory, sorry family no presents.

Nairobi airport in Kenya was fine, the only cool thing was once a Congolese operated ancient Russian Antanov aircraft went past the windows and shook the heck out of the airport. 747 buzzed by silently and this not so big prop plane shook the fillings out of the old folk’s teeth.
Geneva was nice, I had a few days where I did not have to work, so I toured Geneva, searched for motorbike parts, ate well, went to a few live shows, and played street basketball. The shock of Geneva was how little people smiled, laughed, or visibly enjoyed life. I am sure they do, maybe just not in the way that the African nations that I had gotten accustomed do.

I met a gorgeous flight attendant on the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Vancouver; she kept coming over and talking, asking questions, bringing me milk, and chocolate. I knew that she had more than a day in Vancouver, but I pussed out and didn’t give her my number, I guess that whole world is still quite foreign to me.