Sunday 5/18/200- Wednesday 5/21/2008
The 1.5 hour drive to Jinja was rather smooth, considering the road is newly laid tarmac. We met several brave travelers planning on doing kayaking, white water rafting and ATV riding on the bus. Katie and Dermot were excited for the trip, although Katie must admit that she was wishing for her 22 year old naivety….
We arrived to a rather succinct process of signing your life away, pay by credit card/travelers checks/cash/anything… then grab tea/coffee while you wait. Jane was our trip leader for our 4 boats heading down the 30 km Nile River Trip. Somehow we lucked our and got Jane (who we called G.I. Jane) for our raft guide. Originally from Cape town, South Africa, she was one seriously bad a** chick. We had seven in our raft: Jane, 2 Florida State students, a woman who worked for the state department, a Phillipino chemist and us; quite the melting pot. We reviewed basic strokes, what to do if you fall overboard, and of course, what to do if the boat capsizes (which it is almost guaranteed of doing on the trip).
The day seems like much of a blur, as the adrenaline that we received from going down these insanely huge, class five rapids was unlike anything we have ever experienced. You feel no pain, no cold, no …anything really….just pure, unadulterated thrill for being alive. Of the 12 rapids (including rapids called 50:50, Silverback, Dead Dutchman and “the Bad Place”), we capsized on two of them. Of course, the worse flip was the first rapid, where Katie was held under the rapids for a good 5-7 seconds… although it felt like hours. She was rescued by a professional kayaker who paddled her back to the boat.
One of the most incredible rapids was a five series set of huge waves, the tallest around 20 feet tall, then 15 and so on. Somehow, we did not capsize, but we all understood a small glimpse of the movie “A Perfect Storm.” Believe it or not, we really enjoyed the whitewater rafting experience, and we bought the DVD to show any family/friends once we return home. To check out pictures, visit their site: raftafrica.com
Back at the Explorer’s Campsite, we enjoyed a BBQ and said our good-byes to our fantastic rafting team: Dustin, Alli, David and Kristen. We ended up meeting two folks from Dermot’s “rescue” boat that picked him up after we capsized the first time. Bonnie and Matt were previously living in Cape town (and gave us some awesome tips & suggestions), before they decided to move back to Canada (Bonnie’s home). However, they took the ‘move’ to a new level, as they are driving “Foxy” their Land Rover with a pop-out tent from the roof across the world! They started in Cape town, up through Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, then over to Jordan, Syria, Turkey and up through Europe! We were absolutely amazed to hear of their travels, as they took ‘going around the world’ to a whole new level. They are looking forward to stocking up on petrol (gas) in the Middle East!
The next morning, we took advantage of the painfully slow, but working! (so we’ll stop complaining) Internet, and we made a few plans for our next few weeks in Africa. We had a very tasty lunch at the Black Lantern—real, delicious chicken was just what the doctor ordered.
Our big adventure of the day was our Twilight tour with Mawasi, our ATV guide. We drove our semi-automatic ATVs through corn fields, backyards of local’s houses, through school yards, the middle of town—pretty much everywhere and anywhere in Jinja. The ATV company helps to support the town, so the ATVs are very welcomed (by most), and many children scream and yell “Jambo” or “How are you!” with excitement as you pass. You have to try your best to wave without having your ATV crash due to the uneven, water laden tracks.
The highlight of our ATV tour was getting to have dinner at the Moses’ house. Moses is a mathematics teacher in town, and he has five lovely children. All of the boys had different soccer jerseys on, so Dermot was an instant hit with his Liverpool Jersey. It has really proven to be an International conversion groundbreaker. We had a heaping dinner composed of rice, mashed bananas, corn meal, sweet potatoes, an African root plant (forget the name), as well as spinach, shredded vegetables and to top it all of peanut sauce. Typically, they serve tons of meat as well- but Katie requested vegetarian food to go easy on our stomachs.
Our last morning at the campsite, we packed up and said goodbye to our double cottage called “Fish Eagle” and took advantage of our free 9 km ride into Jinja. We moved into our double room and then ventured on the 15 minute walk into town. We grabbed brunch at “The Source,” where Katie set up camp to update the website and do some trip planning. Dermot set off to explore the golf course in town.
Minus the power outage, Katie was very productive at the very slow Internet connection. She got her first call on their Ugandan cell phone from Father Evarist (from the USA!) to check in about their upcoming trip to his hometown in Nakaseke, Uganda. They spoke for only a few minutes, but Katie and Dermot are so incredibly appreciative for his help in coordinating their volunteer visit to Mazzold College (a Ugandan High School in his hometown).
Dermot returned from his 9 holes of golf about 4 hours later. One of the highlights on his scorecard was, “On the green, if a hippo footmark interferes with the lie of the ball, or the line of the put, the ball may be lifted and placed no closer to the hole.” On the way back to meet Katie, he blew out his flip flop (but didn’t step on a pop top) and had to get a moped ride back to the source café to meet up with Katie. The moped ride cost about $0.55. Back in town Dermot got his flip flop repaired by a guy on the street for $1 (with tip).
We then walked home as it began to get dark, dropped our stuff off at the backpackers place and headed to 2 Friends Restaurant for dinner. Dermot played golf with Ellert, the manager of the 2 Friends restaurant earlier in the day. We had pizza cooked in a wood oven for dinner. It was delicious. After dinner we had a drink with Ellert and watched an impromptu pool tournament before heading back to the backpackers and calling it a night.
We had breakfast at the backpackers the next morning and saw the new group of rafters who came to the site. Most looked nervous and anxious. It’s funny to be on the other side of things when you’ve already rafted the river. We remembered how we were nervous and anxious like them just 3 days ago.
We got some work done on the Internet and then rented some mountain bikes and toured around Jinja for a while. The highlight was taking Nash’s recommendation to hop on a local boat to see the source of the Nile to avoid the extra fees at the tourist point. We ended up having about a dozen kids running up to us, touching our mountain bikes, as well as us to see if we were real…it was so amazing…we felt like Santa Claus or something out of a storybook. They would run touch us, and then giggle and run away.
Our 15 minute boat ride went by rather quickly, although Katie was nervous when she realized the boat said “Ugandan Prison” on the side…. But we rolled with it. We went to where the currents all crashed around, where the ‘Nile River Starts’ and took the infamous photo. Our captain gave us a great little tour about the birds, fish and wildlife in Lake Victoria. He dropped us in a local village, where they all just stared at us as we walked through with our bikes. We made our way back to the backpackers, and we hopped on the free bus back to Kampala.