South-eastern Uganda. A hundred mile bike ride sounds like a long one – unless you’ve been biking for thousands. To Kampala I rode mostly on a dirt track. It was the largest road within 20 miles. It was surprisingly poor, tightly packed with people. (Hard to find quiet places to pee – a good measure of population density!) There was no electrification. I saw three secondary schools.

I was cycling along and whaddya know but ahead of me was a tractor. A tractor!  I hadn’t seen a tractor in months. Wow! A tractor!!! Kenya had all sorts of golden nuggets. Paved country roads (not just the highways, and yes, plural, as in multiple!), food that was more than simple starches and mangy meat, a decent level of English comprehension, even buildings that were ten, maybe fifteen stories high. Kenya has had a stable (if autocratic) market orientated government (kind-of) since independence. You see that.

Though, Kenya is not America. The roads are potholed, most buildings in a state of disrepair and unemployed youth abundant. Lake Victoria is the most tragic. There used to be fish. There used to be ferries that would go as far as Uganda and Tanzania. Today the lake is carcinogenic. That night I camped out in a dilapidated lakeside hotel. I was comfortable, with a cold brewski in a cushy chair. An Indian businessman told me, “All the fish are gone. It’s pathetic – these people don’t even care.” And there’s little else to do but sit back, enjoy the beer, observe, listen and await the next racist comment.

From South Sudan, we traveled east, into Kenya. The border town is Lokichogio, nicknamed Loki. When things were at their worst in Sudan, the United Nations and dozens of NGOs were headquartered there to disseminate food, shelter and medical aid. Loki’s airport was said to be busier than Nairobi’s. It’s an ironic sad story, to Loki, peace brought an economic catastrophe. Most of the NGOs have left. The airport takes in but a couple flights.

Traditionally, the people of northern Kenya were pastoralists. Many still are. They are called the Turkana. It was not uncommon to see a man with a bow and arrows tending to his flock of goats. The women are bare-breasted with giant colorful rings around their necks. We were on shinny bicycles with a lithium powered water filter and a computer navigation system listening to satellites thousands of miles away. It was a contrast that escaped no one. They would beg for food, water, anything.

Desertification, high birth rates and economic opportunity are transforming their way of life. From Loki south there is one road. It is dotted with towns overflowing with migrants attempting to escape a rough life dependent on the whims of nature.  NGOs are omnipresent. Most vehicles are Land Cruisers, stamped Norwegian Relief Council, Caritas International, World Vision, etc. It’s something you see all too often in Africa, the hopes of whole towns pinned to the West’s charity.

South Sudan. It was real. It’s hard to say that little, harder to attempt an honest telling of our journey.

That week was epic. Excitement was in the air – literally flags fluttered from atop trees, mountains, pickups and people, there was celebratory honking, singing, fireworks and gunfire. It was a beautiful experience to behold.

And then you were forced to reckon with what South Sudan is, barely a nation. Less than 5% graduate from primary school. Tribalism rules; the government is weak. There is little to unite the people, many do not speak a common language.

A few people seemed violent. It’s hard to explain. You just got that sense. You would look at them and they would look back at you stone cold without expression or acknowledgment. It was like a poker face but probably more aptly described as a 50 year civil war face.

In South Sudan, you see how far we’ve come. You see what it means to be a nation. And how very important that struggle is, to do the necessary maintenance, that we remain one people, indivisible.

We took the MV Liemba from Mpulungu in Zambia to Kigoma in Tanzania. It was insane. When we go on a cruise, we expect sunsets and pretty scenery. This, however, is the MV Liemba: yelling, banging, crying babies, chickens, people sleeping on top of cargo, people sleeping on people.

It was an experience. Especially as a TV crew from the History Channel rented out the boat, kind of, and were very happy to use their power as they pleased. I learned a lot. I’ll write more later.

A day’s ride on the GNR. Hard to describe. Most the time it’s absolutely banal. But sometimes, like when the trucks pass each other and you have take a detour into a ditch, or when you’re riding after dark and you have no idea what crevasse lies ahead in the abyss, riding these roads can be absolutely terrifying.

True but hard to comprehend: The Great North Road is the one only single road servicing the couple million residents of Central and Northern Zambia. This is Zambia’s I95 – most everything else is a dirt track.