Teacher on Two Wheels

Sunday 3/21/10 Gulu, Uganda

Four days.

620 miles

Top speed of 40 mph

One puncture

Three nights in three cheap hotels

One long day in the rain

Lots of thoughts of potential future motorcycle trips

*****

I got a late start, so late I started wondering if the universe, in some sort of subtle manipulation of time (Did it always take me this long to pack?), was sending me one clear message:  Don’t go.  Once I left—after the failed attempt at fixing my rear taillight, after the rain stopped, after I picked up snacks—a familiar exhilaration coursed through me.

Again I found myself time-rich and plan-less, situated neck deep in one of man’s most nourishing and unpredictable realities, the vast sea of the traveler’s unknown.  In this space, both euphoria and crippling fear sneak about; both hope and dread float in the breeze; both the ecstasy of discovery and the horror of disorientation intertwine to marry caution with excitement.  Having never set off on any sort of motorcycle trip before, this departure was laced with more anxiety than usual.  I knew (and still know) nothing about motorcycle maintenance.  I had no planned route; no map.  All I knew was that I wanted to head south, and I knew I only had four days to play with.  I set off on a Saturday morning knowing I had to be back in work on Wednesday.

As I pulled onto Kampala Road, that madhouse stretch of tarmac that connects Gulu and Uganda’s capital, I shifted into fourth—my bike’s highest gear—and pulled hard on the throttle.  I picked up speed and listened as the small engine beneath me raised its cry to a high whine.  Air whizzed by and into my helmet.  The greens of the head-high cassava plants and grasses of sugar cane at the road’s edge began to soften and blur. Read More…