Dreaming about traveling again? This week I'll go over some of our favorite roads that we've come across in Africa. Obviously there's a lot of Africa we haven't seen, and these are just our humble opinions. But during our travels here, we've come across some real incredible gems that we would like to share with the world.

There's nothing better than being on a motorcycle, drifting down a perfectly twisty mountain road, and being surrounded by stunning views. So if you ever find yourself on the African continent and with a vehicle, these are definitely some places to check out.

​The following are our top 5 roads -

Almost exactly one year ago, we had just arrived in Uganda, and Tim and I began to realize that our traveling life as we knew it was going to change - and possibly come to a complete halt. It felt like every time we had access to internet and looked at our phones, the headlines were getting worse and worse. Airports were shutting down, country borders were closing, and cities were going into lockdown.

But luckily for us, nothing was locked down in Uganda yet, and most people were blissfully unaware of the storm clouds that were brewing on the horizon.

We were traveling with our American friend Leo, and had just spent the night in a hotel from hell (if you missed that story, check out last week's blog here). Needless to say, we hadn't gotten very much sleep, and had woken up early because we had a long day ahead of us - a ride through Queen Elizabeth National Park.

This week I'm taking us back into the past - to March 12, 2020 to be exact. It was one of the last days that borders were still open in Africa, but we didn't know it at the time. We were blissfully ignorant of what was to come.

Tim and I were in Rwanda, planning to head north into Uganda the next day, and we were traveling with our American friend Leo (for a recap of what we did in Rwanda, check out this blog post).

We stayed the night in a bar called One Degree South on the shores of Lake Kivu. We hadn't originally planned on staying in a bar overnight, and had just stopped there for lunch, but after meeting Hicham, the charismatic restaurant owner who was Lebanese/American and grew up in the Central African Republic, we didn't want to leave. Hicham and his wife were fascinating people. She was from Michigan and did charity work every day across the border in the DRC, and so we spent the night entranced by all their incredible stories.

You might have heard a few horror stories about Africa - violence, war zones, corrupt officers and guards, and when it comes to travelers, robberies where people's bikes have been torn apart, and all their stuff stolen. Traveling by motorcycle can always be risky, but we had heard that Africa was on a whole new level. At the same time, we always wanted let the cities and the people within present the truth of the matter, good or bad.

Thankfully, I'm happy to say that so far in Africa, nothing major has happened to us. Someone once tampered with our bike one night in Tanzania (but Tim heard him and scared him away), and there were a few places in South Africa where we didn't feel safe. But besides that, we've been very fortunate. Of course, we're always aware of what could happen, and are always trying to stay one step ahead the game.

This week has been a lesson for many of us on the power of nature. Back home across much of the US, winter storms have been debilitating, sometimes even deadly. And it just goes to show that no matter how much we try to control our surroundings, every once in a while, nature deals a heavy blow.

Here in Kenya, we learned this lesson twice this week, and the first time was with sewage.

We think we have it all under control - we flush our toilets, and it's gone forever. But we don't expect the entire town's sewage line to clog due to storms and washed up debris, and for everything to return to us and back-flow onto our property. But that's exactly what happened.

I was living my life quite happily not ever knowing about the strange things that people flush down their toilets here - batteries, chip bags, large screws, pieces of metal, wires, dirty diapers, and even avocado seeds! Who does that? And how did they manage to flush an entire diaper down the toilet?

Since today is Valentine's day, I've decided to focus on my favorite emotion - love. And because we're here in Africa, I'd like to talk about some things that I love about this continent.

All too often, Africa gets a lot of negative press. You hear about wars and corruption and poverty, but you rarely ever hear about the incredible things that Africa has to offer, and what make this continent magnificent.

​The following are my top 5 things that I love about Africa.

Our Sunday Scoop

A lot of people wonder what our typical day looks like here in Kenya. In some ways, it's probably not so different from yours in that due to the pandemic, we're unable to travel much. So we mostly just stay at home watching Netflix. But even though we're not on the road, it's always an exotic adventure to be in Africa, and some of the stranger things of living in Kenya include a nightly barrage of nightmarish screecher-creatures, and the occasional UFO sighting.

​Don't worry, I'll explain.

Before coming to Africa, I realized I had no idea what a typical African dish was. Everyone knows Chinese food, Mexican food, Italian food, and Indian food, but what in the world was African food? And why was it that we didn't have an African restaurant on every other block in America like we do with so many other types of cuisine?

Well, I was about to find out that we really should have an African restaurant on every other block, because African cuisine is delicious.

Unless a city has some particular draw for us, Tim and I try to avoid big metropolitan areas as much as we can. And since Nairobi is Kenya's capital city, and is known to be a congested industrial center famous for its slums and insane traffic, we were dead set on never going there.

But we also had some questions about visa extensions that needed to be answered, and no one in the Kenyan immigration offices were picking up their phones or responding to emails. We've learned that this is typical for Africa, and the best way to get things done is to show up in person.

Also, Nairobi has the only KTM dealership between South Africa and Egypt, and our bike's back brakes were getting soft. Some fresh brake fluid would surely make our motorcycle very happy.

So last Sunday, we headed off to Nairobi for a three day trip.

When the pandemic first hit back in March, we were in Uganda, and I was definitely freaking out. My first instinct was to go home to the US where the health care infrastructure is leaps and bounds what they have here, where the government can financially sustain a prolonged lockdown, and where most people can social distance.

Uganda, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Extended families often live cramped together in single-room dwellings, the vast majority of people can't work from home, and the health care system... well let me just put it this way - the entire country of Uganda had three ventilators. They've since received donations of many more, but the expectation was that once Covid-19 hit sub-Saharan Africa, this region was going to be a humanitarian catastrophe.

​But strangely enough, that didn't happen.