Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Just as the crowd threatened to swallow us, one of the bikers wheeled around, ignoring
the exclamations of a particularly agitated police officer, and gestured at his seat. Another
was getting into position to offer Boston his when the police began to force the crowds
back.
'Come on, Lev. We need to arrive in style!'
The biker who was offering me his seat introduced himself as Commanda. The one who
was tempting Boston up to ride pillion was named Gangsta. Somehow, I doubted that these
were the names their mothers had given them. Still, the crowds were only getting thicker,
and somehow we had to make our way to the centre of the city. It wouldn't ruin the pur-
ity of the expedition, because we'd have to return and begin our walk here, at this same
roundabout. And so, with the crowd still chanting my name, I climbed up beside Com-
manda and, with a whoop, he wheeled his Harley around and took off up the road. Behind
me, Boston rode pillion with Gangsta while the rest of the bikers formed what I can only
describe as an honour guard.
It was not, all things told, how I expected to arrive in Uganda's capital city.
Stunned by the somewhat incongruous reception, I barely noticed the way Kampala
grew up around us. The police had cleared the highway and soon we were riding between
two whooping columns of Ugandan Hell's Angels, right into the city's heart. Sometime
later, with the tower blocks of newer Kampala giving way to the old town, where colonial
buildings still lined the streets and the evidence of Uganda's British past was increasingly
evident, the bikers deposited us in a square where yet more well-wishers had assembled.
So much for getting to know the real Africa - this was a cavalcade of celebrity, and I
wondered if it was the kind of reception of which Stanley or Speke would have approved.
I turned to say as much to Boston, but he was already swinging down from his bike and
striding into the crowd. It took me a moment to register where he was going, but then I saw
him put his arms around one of the ladies in the crowd, and for a second he disappeared as
he was mobbed by children. These, I understood, were the family who had been waiting
for him to come home. Lily, his wife, and his eldest daughter Penny, a resolute fourteen-
year-old, looked as embarrassed by all the attention as we did. Clinging to Lily's shoulder
was his middle child, Aurore, a beautiful, frizzy-haired girl of six who hid her face in her
mother's breast.
In an ungainly fashion I clambered off the motorcycle and, in seconds, the bikers were
off, riding in wild circles around the square in what I could only assume was further cel-
ebration. For a moment, I was lost. Coming out of the plodding serenity of our walk into
this carnival seemed to have taken all of five seconds; I was in danger of losing my grip
on reality.
Then Boston bounded back to my side. When everything around me was going crazy,
there was still the - relative - normality of Boston to keep me grounded.
