Me and my gang
I’m in a gang. A bike gang to be exact. We’re not so much a gang though, really. Its more just a bunch of guys who are getting into dirt bikes and planning an epic adventure around East Africa.
So here’s the deal. In lieu of spending a bunch of money and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, something everyone here wants to do, a few friends decided to buy dirt bikes and take a trip over Christmas. One of them, Eric, sent an email, trying to talk me into it. It read, “We will break down a lot. We won’t know what to do. We will get lost. We will screw things up. We will figure things out somehow… it will be awesome.” I was quickly convinced to join.
I was convinced, but it actually took me some time to agree. You see, I had already promised the parents that I’d be home for Christmas. I desire to be a man of my word so I hated the thought of telling them I wasn’t coming home. But this is a once in a lifetime experience. Well, now that I think about it, hopefully it won’t be a once in a lifetime thing. I’m hoping when all is said and done this is in my top 20 life experiences, but for now it definitely has the potential to be in the top 2 or 3 for my life so far. But secondly, I’m a pretty injury prone guy. A few friends who know me well, upon hearing our plans, basically told me this was the craziest idea for the most injury prone guy they knew. Haha. But to ease things over with my parents I came home for a quick trip right now and got a bunch of safety gear in case of an accident. Boom, problems solved.
But I’m doing it. And right after deciding to officially do it, a beautiful bike came into my life. My buddy Jared, after buying his bike, was riding through town and saw his bike’s twin parked on the side of the road. He stopped, found the owner and asked if he’d be willing to sell. He said yes. Two days later I owned it. I like to call her Veronica. A mechanic I know called her, “The best bike I’ve seen in Gulu” which might not mean a lot, but it does to me. :) So I bought it and am trying to learn to ride it.. and how to repair it.
What excites me most about this trip is that we’re doing it together. Its the group of guys I’m “doing life” with, walking, learning, struggling and sharing experiences with in Uganda. It won’t be easy, we will get hurt, lost, in trouble etc. But we’ll be doing it together, striving towards the same goal of a) surviving and b) creating a memory and a story worth telling.
So here’s the route: Leave Kampala around December 13th, head to eastern Uganda and go over Mount Elgon into Kenya. Beautiful. Then head to Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya, and stay in a beach house with Eric’s family who will be there the week before Christmas. Classy. Then down the coast of Kenya into Tanzania and put the bikes on boats and hang out in Zanzibar for a few days. Awesome. Then back to the mainland, and down across Tanzania to Lake Malawi. Legendary. Spend a few days on the lake, then start the journey north, stopping at Lake Tanganyikain Burundi, seeing friends in Rwanda, then back to Uganda, about a month after leaving.
Epic.
PS I tried and failed at posting pictures of all of us, the bikes etc. So here’s a link to all my pictures from this year