We hit the road with a cool morning chill, making the descents rather cold. The cycling was flat and we whizzed down the highway, barely having to put effort into pedalling. We passed the first town without stopping for breakfast after I was outvoted. (And I even tried subterfuge by shouting out, "Yes!" when David asked me if the others wanted to stop.) At the second town there was adequate apathy so we stopped there and filled up on the usual—chai, omelettes and mandazi.

After breakfast, with the exception of Maxine and Nathan, we stayed in a draft line, taking turns leading. Watching it from the back, it had a sort of poetic fluidity to it as we snaked around obstacles of road hazards and other Afrian cyclists—saying the occasional "Bugandi" ("How are you?") to people. When I was in the lead uphill I'd inadvertently leave them behind, but David calling out, "Hey, Helium Man," (I was upgraded from "Boy") from behind usually slowed me down sufficiently. We made good time, covering 40 km in a couple of hours until stopping on the edge of Mbarara, one of the biggest cities in Uganda. Doug, Christine and I waited by the road while David checked out an inn... meanwhile I noticed my front tire a bit deflated. I gave it a quick pump and, to my relief, it seems to be doing fine.

Maxine and Nathan caught up soon after and David settled on a hotel off the main road—the Westland Hotel, which Christine liked to call the Wasteland Hotel. We each have our own room, which are big (relatively) and clean; Maxine lucked out and got the one with a toilet and shower (but to be honest, the shared showers are clean, with nice new tiles on the floor). We settled ourselves in; meanwhile loudspeakers in the distance played what I was told was essentially a preacher—at full blast. The sound echoed all around the area; it finally changed to music, but then back to frenzied voices again.

After the maids changed our sheets and everyone was ready, we walked through town, checking out the post office, a supermarket, pharmacy, book and craft store where I found a drum that I really wanted to get for a friend back home—I'm holding out for Kampala so I don't have to bus it around for hours. Found a couple of other gift ideas, too... We checked out a couple of restaurants until I found one with fresh passion fruit juice where we had big glasses before setting out again to find a place to eat. When we did, I ordered... chicken and chips and beer (only the 3rd beer so far)—the chicken had a great tasting skin—the best yet.

Full, we walked through the rest of town, through a crowded city market (again, nothing you'd want to take home—a sort of irony, really), checked out a nice air-conditioned, bike unfriendly (lotta stairs!) hotel called The Pelikan. Quite a few private guards with machine guns about the city. We wound up back at our own hotel where the maids were curled up on the ground on the balconys outside our rooms. We retreated to our rooms to rest, biding our time until supper time. I've come to the realization that there will ALWAYS be a "next trip." I don't think I could be happy not travelling SOMEwhere, sometime... and I'm sold on bicyle touring.

After a while I came out of the room, not wanting to nap and Maxine came out when she saw me. Shortly afterwards Doug emerged and they went to pump water, but Doug broke the sink when he leaned on it. Then came Christine, and we went to the front of the hotel for some pop. David joined us shortly and after waiting a while for Nathan (he disappeared—apparently has a friend here... we joked that maybe it was a girl) we left for dinner.

We came across a restaurant called The Little Rock which had a Western-style menu, but what we wanted wasn't available so, to the dismay of the waiter who tried to convince us to stay, we left and checked out a few other places before deciding on one. We ordered; I had fish (breaded) and chips. Shortly after the power went out in the city, creating only a minor delay of our food.

After dinner we picked our way through the darkened streets to our hotel, which had candles along the floor, lighting the way to our rooms. We sat on the balcony for a while and watched the orange moon rise above the horizon. Fittingly, some bats flew in front of it, setting the tone for a perfect cliché scene.

When this trip began it seemed like forever... now I could easily continue on for acouple more weeks. Oh, well. There's always that "next" trip!