Woliso to Bure and a night at a very local hotel

---

We set out hoping to cover some ground in the knowledge we were told there was tarmac for a good portion of our journey today, who new it could be so bad.

We left Woliso early and made our way up gravel tracks to the rim of a blown out Volcano (known as a Caldera). The views were very impressive but as always even in the middle of nowhere people appeared and harassed us so we quickly moved on.

We did hit a tarmac road but there were so many washed away sections and massive potholes we only averaged about 20km/hr which was much slower than dirt tracks. Eventually the tarmac improved and we enjoyed at least 50km of excellent road before it took a real turn for the worse. However not before Alain missed a police checkpoint and nearly drove through it, thankfully they smiled and waved us on, but the checkpoints were getting more frequent.

If you were designing the worse possible road you would take a large layer of very fine dust, corrugated the road (like driving on never ending speed bumps) and disperse it with large rocks. As a result your ride would be terrible, you would have no traction and dust would go everywhere. We had to drive 150km on these roads and eventually one of Nelly’s tyres gave up.

We’re no sure when the rear tyre burst as we couldn’t tell as the ride was already terrible. Eventually something didn’t feel right and on looking it became clear we had driven several miles on a flat tyre as it was completely shredded. It took us ½ an hour with the entire population of the local village watching to change the tyre and get on our way.

We climbed some big hills and then down into some remote valleys, one with a large bridge (but obviously no tarmac) guarded both sides by the military. They did check us thoroughly but let us pass and be on our way.

The light started to fade and we were considerably behind our plan as the roads were so bad. I missed a massive hump in the road in the failing light and in the back Alain hit the roof quite impressively. Eventually as night fell we entered the town of Bure at which point the tarmac started.

After exploring several local (and to be honest, terrible) local hotels by the side of the road as we definitely couldn’t find a camping place, we found somewhere to stay. Best to say it was basic but it did the job.

---