Buses, Boats, Bikes and Boda Bodas

This past week the Faders had a fantastic week of vacation in which we did quite a bit of traveling, including all of the above modes of popular African transportation. We started off going to Hell's Gate National Park. My brother-in-law and I rented bikes for the afternoon and rode through the park, seeing zebras, warthogs, hyraxes, gazelles, and other animals.


We also took a boat to an island in Lake Naivasha where we could walk around with all those same animals.



After saying goodbye to Heather's sister and her husband, we took a night bus 15 hours from Nairobi to Kampala, Uganda, to visit my brother who is drilling/fixing water holes there with the Peace Corps. To get to my brother's house from Kampala, we took a 2 hour ride on a matatu (van with 15-23 people crunched in it) to Mubende, and then another 1 hour ride in a matatu further into the bush, and finally a 8km boda boda ride from the town to his village. Boda bodas are a popular form of transportation here which is a motorcycle with up to 4 passengers (plus the driver). In this case, the driver, Heather, Abi, and I were on one, and the driver, my brother, Anna, and our bags were on the other.



The following day we took boda bodas to a village to fix their bore hole. This time we also carried heavy tools and some 8 foot metal rods for fixing the water hole.



We returned to Kampala on Friday and then traveled 2 hours south to Lake Nabugabo, to a campsite where we met up with some of my brother's Peace Corps friends for 2 nights. We had a great time, and the lake was beautiful.


Then north again to Kampala for Sunday night, before going to Jinja Monday morning and rafting on the Nile.


Monday night was back on the night bus from Jinja to Nairobi (only 10 hours this time) and then a 3 hour trip back to Tenwek on Tuesday with our van. All in all, 48 hours of this past week were spent in various vehicles with our 2 little girls, who were excellent travelers. They especially liked the boat and the boda bodas. We are thankful for safety in all of this traveling, and we are very thankful for such a wonderful vacation with family! We will also be happy to have a break from vehicles for a while.