33. The Cure for Hiccups: a Strong Gin & Tonic.

25.06.24 – 30.06.24 : Elburgon – Jinja

Dawn is altogether too early for disagreements. The brain isn’t quite firing as it should be and you’re easily pulled into circular arguments. This morning’s circular argument was with Faye, the Eel Hotel receptionist, who had assured us the day before that there’d be electricity throughout the night. In the morning, having woken to find our battery packs completely flat, I stormed downstairs to express my frustration and—rather optimistically, on reflection—negotiate a discount. 

Had it been a more palatable hour—noon perhaps—I might’ve perused a more imaginative line of reasoning.

Imagine Faye, if you will, that you’re a collector of exotic fish. You’ve gone to the local monger—or whatever you call the place that deals in the living—in search of an electric eel. When you get home and unpack said eel, you discover, to your horror, that you’ve been swindled. Rather than an electric eel, you’re now the not-so-proud owner of one of its less voltaic cousins—a Congar perhaps or, God forbid, a Moray. You’d be well within your right, wouldn’t you agree, to expect a refund? 

But, rather than diving into a flowing river of imagery and wordplay, I was instead sucked into the argumentative eddy of you used the thing so you have to pay for it—an all-too-familiar rebuttal that you might recognise from the three-hour-chicken debacle of Nairobi. Clearly this was the backbone of Kenya’s Hospitality 101 course.

After a futile struggle, I once again conceded defeat to this indefatigable argument. Though this time, I wouldn’t be leaving without some compensation. Now, I’m rather exposing myself to some all-too-valid criticism here, not least from my unfailingly law-abiding mother. But hopefully, I’m still on the right side of thirty to benefit from the concession of youthful mischief in the court of public (or motherly) opinion. While the dust of the debate settled, I snuck into the well-stocked bar and pocketed a miniature gin—the gesture of mea culpa I felt we deserved—to be shared in a moment of need further down the line. 

We set off on an adjusted trajectory to the Ugandan border. The clashes between police and protestors of the previous day had sparked more demonstrations. This left our initial route too exposed, given it passed through some of Kenya’s largest settlements. Not keen to chance our luck again in another of the country’s urban powder kegs, we decided to avoid main roads altogether and weave a path through a more rural landscape. Granted, in the villages we’d generate much more attention—a quartet of western cyclists stands out far more in the remote settlements than on the highways or in the cities—but hopefully this attention, in turn, would generate the usual curiosity rather than the newfound hostility.

A typical rural welcome.

This was wishful thinking. As we soon discovered, the ripples of yesterday’s protests were felt throughout the country, even on its fringes. That morning, as we passed through a hamlet perched on steep banks above the road, I was suddenly struck by a rock. Turning, I spotted a crowd of men, dressed in the black uniform of the protesters, staringly silently down at us from above—hands folded behind their back in mutual exculpation. A sharp blow of karma, perhaps, with no youthful concessions after all. 

Karma, that day, was on a retributive roll. A little further up the road, I felt its sting once more. We’d crested a climb and been met by one of Kenya’s seemingly endless vistas. As we basked in its vastness, I cast an idle eye over my wheels, checking their integrity. These cursory checks had become something of a ritual after the string of rim-related problems I’d encountered in West Africa. Though this time, my investigation revealed the ultimate horror: a hairline fissure on the rim, emerging from one of the drive-side spokes. This microscopic crack marked the beginning of an inevitable process of mechanical failure, and the end of my fourth wheel of this trip. It also presented a significant logistical obstacle. As I know by now, shipping parcels to East Africa is a far less simple endeavour than it was in the West. This was one more logistical hiccup than my saturated patience could handle.

Said endless vista: a truly beautiful backdrop for receiving bad news.

I spent the rest of the day hanging back from the group, riding in sullen silence. Our network of tarmacked tracks eventually deserted us, as did any glimmer of good-humour on my part. My sulk soon degenerated into out-and-out frustration as I painstakingly navigated Madonna and her fragile wheels through the patchwork of ruts, ridges and rocks that scored what was left of our road. At one point, I passed a tiny child—four or five at most—wearing a sweatshirt that had here for your shenanigans stamped in cute calligraphy above a rainbow. By now, my patience for Kenya’s shenanigans was at absolute zero. I scowled at the sweatshirt, careful to avoid eye contact with the adorable child lest she worry she was the intended recipient. That evening, having had our plans upended by the slow progress on gravel, we appealed to a local police station for a place to camp. My good-humour returned just long enough to charm the officers—who were sufficiently inspired by our tales of adventure to offer up a luxury pitch between the overflowing toilets and the rubbish heap—before retreating again into the shadows. I tossed and turned on my mattress, head swimming with import tariffs, HS codes and processing times, before drifting into a fitful sleep. 

I woke up on the same side of the bed as I’d drifted off—the gloomy one—and, while packing up, dragged my feet just enough that the others got fed up with my lethargy and left. This allowed me to ride once more in my own company. For those of you wondering, this wasn’t an act of reckless self-sabotage. In fact, it was a conscious—if fruitless—attempt to recreate the conditions I’d felt during my solo stint. You see, when you’re on your own, you don’t have the luxury of someone being there to hold your hand. Whether or not you feel like it, you have to feed yourself, drink enough water, find somewhere to sleep and, crucially, ride. Granted, your loved ones might endure the occasional mobile rant, but they’re powerless to turn the pedals for you. In company, this changes. You can easily slip into apathy, outsourcing your basic survival to the group, and hang out in their slipstream if you can’t be bothered to ride.

That day’s lift; thank-you, come again… I just might!

I was determined not to let this happen, so I rode on, sullen and solo, but crucially under my own steam. That was until we reached the equator—a landmark denoted by a natty sign and a nattier experiment (you know, the one with the plugholes)—where the others had paused to take a picture. I was ushered hastily into frame. This sparked an eerie feeling of déjà vu. Some 15 years earlier, at the volatile and self-centred age of nine, my grandparents celebrated their golden wedding anniversary—50 years of marriage—with a gathering of the whole family. At one point, we took a photo with each of us arranged according to the family tree. This photo was then framed alongside its illustrated companion—a souvenir of the day and the celebration. Unfortunately for me, that day I’d been in a foul mood. Moments before the photo was taken, I’d received a thorough dressing down from my Dad—in an adjacent room with excellent acoustics, as I remember, for all the family to hear—before being hastily ushered back into frame for my scowl to be immortalised in the family archives. Talk about the wind changing direction. Keen to avoid a repeat of this enduring humiliation, I feigned as convincing-a-smile as I could muster, and kept my sunglasses on to prevent my eyes from giving me away. 

The new…

…and the old! check out the sourpuss just below “below.”

Now that I’d caught up with the group, they shared the good news. In a momentous victory for Kenya’s TikTok revolutionaries, President William Ruto had announced that morning that the finance bill, which had been at the centre of the country’s unrest, was not going to be signed into law. This meant that the day’s planned protests were unlikely to go ahead, leaving the border town of Busia safe for us to pass through into Uganda. We rode together for the rest of the day and my spirits lifted as we did. Sometimes, some quality time spent with old friends beats a fraught internal struggle for emotional control. This was one of these times. 

We spent our final night in Kenya sheltering from a torrential downpour in a restaurant whose power had gone out. We peered for a while at the menu in the dim flicker of candlelight—just long enough to begin to salivate over its tempting options—before being told that it was really more decorative than useful, and the selection that night was meat and/or vegetables and rice. Still, they had until-recently-refrigerated beer, and even managed to whip up a juice or two in the brief moment the power returned, so we left satisfied and turned in for our last night in Kenya. 

At least they saved me from accidentally ordering the garlic-topped brownie… and is that lettuce?! But don’t those fruit curves sound seductive…

Early in the morning—but not so early that we’d risk encountering the staff pre-coffee—we made it to the border and crossed, without major hiccups, into Uganda. From Uganda though, the hiccups came thick and fast. Just beyond the border, we stopped for our routine currency withdrawal and SIM registration; the first passed by uneventful, the second was a frightful faff. Still, by midday we all four had SIM cards and Tom had even managed to restrain himself from any major cake demolition. 

Perhaps a Jam Lips Puff Oven would have been better.

While we’d waited for the endless forms to be filled in—with information that we were sure would never be read again—we began to notice a rather strange quirk of Uganda: the complete ubiquity of guns. Be it supermarket, restaurant, petrol station or mobile phone shop, each is patrolled by a guard, or several, armed with an eclectic variety of rifles, shotguns and submachine guns. At first, it was somewhat unsettling to be confronted by these catalysts of chaos. That was until we got a better look at them. Each was at least fifty years old—some even had bayonets!—and were wielded so casually that it was impossible that they were in any imminent danger of being discharged. It was common to see them resting muzzle to foot, to friend, or even—quite alarmingly—to face. At one point, I was sure I spotted one particularly placid guard taking a nap with his rifle propping up his chin. Clearly these weapons are, like the menus of Busia’s restaurants, little more than decorative. They’re probably expected to do about as much harm as a pair of snazzy epaulets or an aiguillette—you know, that loop of ceremonial-looking rope—less, in fact, given the latter could conceivably be used as a garrotte.

After surviving our phone shop ordeal, we hit the road and made frustratingly good progress—given that 10 kilometres down the road, Seamus discovered that his bar-bag had been left unzipped and his recently restocked wallet had fallen out. While Tom and Nadia marked the day’s high point, Seamus and I retraced our steps to Busia. Unfortunately, the wallet was nowhere to be found—which is unsurprising really. Ever a vision of humanity, rather than dealing with this inconvenience by sulking—as I might’ve—Seamus took the loss on the chin and merely expressed that he hoped it had gone to someone in need. Although he did—as I also might’ve—promptly consume an entire pack of Oreo’s.

With the resolution of that hiccup, we continued happily onto the next. Over a long and undulating stretch of highway, our group had spread out. We briefly lost sight of Nadia so I paused for a moment while she caught up. At this point, it's worth mentioning that Uganda’s drivers are among the worst I’ve ever had the displeasure of sharing a road with. Not five minutes after Nadia and I had reunited, we heard the familiar honk of an impatient vehicle looking to overtake us. So, naturally, we diverted our course onto the rubble of the road’s hard shoulder. In a flash, the honker—a moped ferrying several passengers—sped by on my inside, missing me by a whisker. Unfortunately Nadia was just ahead and, before I could warn her of the imminent danger, the moped clipped her handlebar and sent her careering into the road’s guard rail. She hit the barrier head on and flipped—with, it must be said, incredible flair—over it and onto the grassy bank below. She remained clipped into her pedals all the while, which meant that both she and her bike performed a complete 360 degree somersault. It was the most dramatic crash I’ve ever seen, but somehow, thanks to a stroke of immense good fortune, both Nadia and her bike emerged mostly unscathed, save a few superficial blemishes.

Nadia was truly impressive in the aftermath, and immediately snapped into the familiar role of doctor, assessing herself for damage, while I stepped into the less familiar role of mechanic, giving her bike a once over. These checks were performed in the inevitable company of a group of intrigued onlookers. After both body and bike were given the all clear, and the crowd had dispersed, we pedalled gingerly up to meet Tom and Seamus. With the light fading fast, and our chances of surviving the unlit roads looking slim, we decided to search for a lift in the next town. Having spied a suitable-looking lorry, and persuaded its driver—a cheerful transporter of soft-drinks called Sam—to take pity on us, we were invited aboard. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Once we’d ferried the bikes up and into the trailer, lashing them to its skeletal scaffolding, we clambered into the cab and perched on the bed at the back, steeling ourselves for the journey ahead. Steeling was required not because we were uncomfortable in the plush cocoon of the cab, but because of the immense emotional toll it takes to leave your bike alone in the rattling mayhem of the trailer, while the truck charges, like an unfazed bull, through all manner of obstacles. Still, peering through the cab’s windscreen at the chaos unfolding on the road ahead—a lethal combination of terrible driving and worse visibility—we felt that this simmering state of minor anxiety was far more manageable than its alternative. In fact, its alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

Nadia providing a visual representation of bike-related anxiety from the back of Sam’s truck.

With frayed nerves but, crucially, in one piece, we arrived in the heaving throng of Jinja. By now it was 8pm and pitch dark. Sam pulled over and we hurriedly disembarked to unpack our bikes. As we left the cab, I called for the group—knowing some of our tendencies—to do a final check for any forgotten belongings. Though, in my infinite wisdom, I forgot to practice what I’d preached. It took until we’d unloaded all four bikes, navigated our troupe across the main road—which required parting a veritable Red Sea of mopeds—and cycled a few kilometres towards the centre of Jinja for me to realise my mistake; I’d left my headphones in the cab.

After a day full of trials and tribulations, I was in half a mind to cut my losses and let them loose on their own adventure through East Africa. But headphones are among the inner circle of essential essentials in a bike tourer’s arsenal. They lubricate long stints in the saddle with podcasts, get the legs firing up mountains with music, and allow you to make out most of what the person on the other end of the phone is saying despite the inescapable din of Africa’s high streets. I wasn’t going to let them go that easily. 

I wheeled Madonna around, leaving the others in the surprisingly quiet centre of Jinja, and headed back into the fray. I rode out of the saddle, ducking and weaving through the web of traffic. Reaching the lay-by where we’d unloaded our bikes not 10 minutes ago, my heart dropped. The truck had gone. As I sifted through the rubbish around my feet—a futile gesture that got me thinking about needles and haystacks—a man sidled over. I recognised him as one of the several fistbump-ers I’d encountered in the brief moment between dismounting the truck and remounting Madonna. He was the bearer of good news. The truck had left, yes, but this man claimed to be a personal friend of Sam, the driver. A quick call revealed that Sam was, apparently, still close. The friend then suggested that he hop on his moped and I tail him on Madonna. Good plan, I said, as long as he really is close.

Sam was not close. 10 kilometres of hair-raising, jaw-clenching, adrenaline-pumping, riding passed and still he was nowhere to be seen. At this point, barely having navigated the heaving traffic on tarmac, the road mysteriously disappeared to leave a strip of orange gravel in its place. Unperturbed, the traffic—and the moped—charged on, leaving me no choice but to follow. I’d not swapped details with the friend, so I clung to his taillight like a babe to a breast; lose sight of it, and all hope of recovering the headphones would be lost. Visibility, like the road, soon deserted me—evaporating in the cloud of dust kicked up from the dirt—and the traffic dissolved into mere shapes careening through the gloom. By some miracle, I held the wheel of the moped until finally it slowed and stopped. I looked up to see Sam beaming down at me from his cab, headphones in hand, and relief set in like a sedative. 

A view from the bike.

After I’d steadied myself from the high-speed pursuit, and thanked all parties profusely, I steeled myself to sink once more into the ocean of chaos. Plugging in one of my recovered headphones, and leaving one ear free for crucial spatial awareness, I let Grian Chatten’s haunting Irish melodies soften the clamour of my surroundings, and set back off into the night. 

In a quieter part of town, I stopped at a petrol station and bought some chilled tonic water and ice—though, unfortunately, fresh lemons were a squeeze. Having reconvened with the group at our base in Jinja’s suburbs, I uncorked Eel Hotel’s complimentary gin and poured four strong measures. In case of hiccups—for any of you that suffer them—I can recommend no better cure.