April 27
Arriving in Jinja near sunset, we were immediately set upon by 15 piki-pikis (motorcycles) wishing to transport us wherever we wanted to go. Mary and I hopped on the back of one, and for 1000 Ugandan shillings (about 50 cents), he drove us to the Nile River Explorers office. We grabbed a beer there, then headed for the camp, where the other busload of volunteers had already arrived a couple hours earlier.
We were in for another culture shock, arriving at dark to a camp, restaurant, and bar packed with white people. The bar was playing PJ Harvey in the background.
The camp itself is run mostly by Brits, who set up shop in 1995 when rafting was first allowed on the river. There is much discussion of building a dam, which will turn several of the rapids into a lake and might put the company out of business.
We stayed in dorm style rooms with no electricity. In the morning, Allison and I walked down to the famous Nile River showers. These concrete stalls have only 3 walls. The fourth opens out onto an amazing view of the river. We rafted right by this area later, but with all of the trees, the showers are well protected from view. I’d been told these showers were amazing, but personally, I think the water has to be warm for a truly good shower. I can’t commit myself whole body otherwise, choosing instead to stick in one limb at a time.
We started out in calm water doing some practice paddling, and a drill in which we flipped the boat. The rapids we were going to be facing ranged from Class 1 to Class 5. I wasn’t all that nervous until we went through the first big one, called Total Gunga (Madness). This was the longest rapid, and we flipped in the first few seconds. In the excitement, I forgot rule number 1 – hold on to the boat. Instead, I went with Plan B – assume the crucifix position and prepare for a long swim. This might have worked out ok if the boat hadn’t hit me in the head, then gone over top of me. Since the boat was still flipped, there was a pocket of air, so I had about ½ a second to breathe before we hit another rapid and the boat went over me again. All in all, it was pretty terrifying. But we survived and got the boat upright again.
In between the crazy rapids were long stretches of calm water, where we could take off our life jackets and helmets and swim around. It was probably the fourth or fifth time we did this when Lee decided to mention the crocodiles. There was one particular spot he pointed to where a large crocodile had actually been seen. We weren’t allowed to swim there, but just 100 yards downstream past the next rapid, we were swimming again.
We fared pretty well for most of the day until we hit Retrospect, a rapid so named because you can’t even tell it’s there until you’re past it. We watched the first 2 rafts get through it just fine. We weren’t so lucky. This time I remembered to hold on, and we got upright again pretty quickly.
They gave us lunch on the boat – watermelon, gigantic pineapples, and biscuits (cookies). On the next to last rapid, the “girls” boat flipped as we watched from upstream. We waited a few minutes for them to get sorted out, then did the rapid ourselves with no trouble. As we passed to calmer water, we found the girls boat had flipped again and lodged itself under a tree in an island of brambles. Heads were bobbing everywhere, and a few of the girls were clinging to tree branches for their dear lives.
A bit downstream, we rescued Debbie and Patti. They stayed in our boat for about 45 minutes, while their guide Kirk tried to free the raft. In the end, they had to deflate it to get it out. We did one final rapid, then walked up the hill to a feast prepared by the rafting company. We had steaks, burritos, and free beers and sodas. The total for a day of rafting, three meals, and one night’s free lodging was $65, a steal if you ask me!
Rafting was a really incredible experience. Out there on the water, it was hard to believe we were in Africa. That reality will set in at Close of Service, when they test us for Schistosomiasis. After involuntarily swallowing lots of river water, I don’t see how we could have avoided it. Still, it was worth it, and the idea actually gave us hours of entertainment, singing songs from that Elvis Presley hit “We can’t go on together with schisto in our blood…” to the modern classic, “A little bit of schisto’s all I need”.
The next morning, some of the rafters left early to head back to Kenya. The rest of us headed into Jinja to catch a matatu to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, about 90 minutes away. Before exploring the city, we caught another matatu to the Red Chili Hideaway, a hostel we’d heard about at the rafting place. (We actually met a girl in Jinja who was Peace Corps Uganda. Her site was only 30 minutes from the rafting place, and she seemed to spend a lot of her time there.) The Red Chili was really nice, dorm style rooms, a bar and restaurant and laundry service. A night’s stay was 6000 Ugandan shillings, about $3.50, and they accepted US dollars.
After grabbing lunch, we headed into the city. We wanted to walk around a bit, but it was raining, so we ended up where we always seem to in Africa – a big mzungu mall called Garden City. I could write a whole tour book – The Mzungu Malls of Africa. It was a good call, though, since it kept us out of the rain and allowed us to see Lost in Translation finally!
We went to a really great and inexpensive Italian place for dinner. The women were all dressed in togas. The food was outstanding, and the most expensive meal was maybe $8.00. Sunday morning, some of us headed into the city and wandered around for a bit. It’s so much cleaner than Nairobi, and I saw few beggars and street kids. No one was asking me for money just because I was white. In the market where we decided to buy pineapples, an Indian man walked by and said to our vendor, “Don’t overcharge them. Remember, we need the tourists.”
