Rafting the Nile

Disclaimer: This entry is being written as I'm well into my 4th Baileys and coffee, having already consumed 3 beers with dinner (I was joined for dinner by one of my mother's colleagues if that makes me any less of an alcoholic).  For the first time since I've been here, I don't have to wake up early in the morning, so I'm indulging myself as I prepare for a 12 day trip to Tanzania that ends with a 7 day summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro

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One of the beauties of the internet age is that keeping up with acquaintances is much easier.  While this can occasionally be a bad thing, it is for the most part a positive that allows for experiences like the one I'm about to describe.  Because of Facebook, I saw that my friend Tonya was going to be in Uganda at the exact same time I was going to be in Rwanda.  When I say my friend Tonya, I use the term loosely, because in truth, Tonya and I had only hung out once before, on St. Paddy's day in Madrid.  Nonetheless, it turned out she was going to be in Jinja, Uganda, which is also the hotbed for white water rafting in the area, an activity I'd never tried in my life and was eager to attempt.

Like myself, Tonya was looking for a fun day away from her volunteer work in Uganda, so she and I, along with her friend Theresa, agreed to meet up and go rafting last Wednesday.  It looked like it was going to be fairly easy for me to get to Jinja - a cheap 45 minute flight to Kampala, followed by a cheap 90 minute cab ride to Jinja.  Turns out things don't always go as expected.  The flight went smoothly, and I landed in Kampala at 6:45 PM, thinking I had plenty of time to meet Tonya in her hotel lobby at 8:30 PM as planned.

At 11:40 PM, I rolled into the hotel, having been delayed by: absurd rush hour traffic in the Kampala area, massive potholes, dirt roads, my cab driver who barely spoke English getting lost in the Jinja area and first taking me to the wrong hotel, said cab driver stopping for 25 minutes at a convenience store to have an 8-minute snack and do God-knows-what in the bathroom for 17 minutes.  The drive was also a frightening experience; it turns out that, when we weren't stopped for 20 minutes at a time in heavy rush hour traffic, everyone was driving 150km an hour on roads that look like they were built in the early 1980s, and making extremely aggressive (read: life-threatning) passes on a 2-lane highway.  When I arrived, Tonya laughed and informed me that automobile fatalities are the #1 cause of death for foreigners in Uganda.

In any event, I was happy to have survived the journey and at least arrived safely at the hotel.  I almost instantly passed out in my room, which at $20 a night was a steal.  I woke up at 7:30 AM and immediately called the rafting company to confirm the details, which was a good idea as they were having a hard time locating this hotel on a map.  We agreed that they'd pick us up at 9 AM and we'd head for the river right away.  Sure enough, a massive truck full of people arrived right on the nose at 9, and proceeded to whisk us away to the starting point of our adventure.

From the beginning, I got a great vibe from this company, one that is owned by foreigners but mostly employs local Ugandans to man their rescue kayaks, take company photography, drive the truck, etc.  We arrived at the site and were introduced to our guide for the day, a New Zealand native named Reuben who has been working in Uganda 6 months of the year for the past 12 years.  A long with a kayaker named Bob from upstate New York, they formed the non-Ugandan part of the team for the day.  Then there were 4 Ugandans who, while very friendly, didn't speak much English.

Reuben led us down to the start of our journey, where we hopped in the raft and received our safety training in a small lake that feeds into what is essentially the beginning of the Nile River.  Tonya, Theresa, and I were joined in the boat by Reuben and by another tourist, a Romanian-born living in Rome who also happened to be named Alex.  I'll call him Ming for the rest of this article to avoid any confusion.  Ming had made the questionable decision to bring his passport on board the raft, a fact which he made public to us as we were about one-third of the way into our safety demonstration, at the juncture where we were supposed to practice jumping in and out of the raft.

"You brought your...passport...on board the raft...haven't heard that one in a while," remarked Reuben with a tone of mixed exasperation and comic disbelief..."Omar, run this guy's passport back to the lodge would you."  Omar shook his head and followed his boss's orders as Reuben proceeded withe the safety talk.  We practiced falling in and out of the boat, paddling in various directions (normally the boat has more than 4 guests so we were told we'd be forced to do quite a bit of paddling), and various positions we'd need to adopt as we hit the rapids ("HOLD ON", "GET DOWN", "FORWARD HARD" were just several of the possible commands)

Due to the time we lost from Ming's hiccup, we were drifting dangerously close to the start of the rapids before Reuben had complete the safety talk, so we were forced to hold onto some reeds as Reuben expedited the remainder of the talk.  Eventually, we started drifting towards the first rapid, titled WATERFALL.  I'm not sure if this was the result of the termination of the safety talk, or a sudden gust of wind, but in any event, here we were heading towards a 15 foot waterfall with an absent-minded Romanian-Italian named Ming sitting in the most important seat of the raft.

From right to left: Tonya, Ming, Alex, Theresa, Reuben

Somehow, some way, we survived the waterfall, and I got a taste of the adrenaline rush that would mark much of the rest of the day.  Certainly my self-diagnosis as an adrenaline junkie was not being disproved.  Each of the next set of three rapids was a little bit different.  In one, Theresa somehow fell out of the boat, and I may have inadvertently caused that mishap.  In another, we seamlessly paddled through the rapid without incident.  In the final pre-lunch rapid, we completely flipped the boat, resulting in being caught under the boat for several seconds, followed by a helpless drifting through the end of the rapid.  Around this time, Theresa apparently caught me with a scared-shitless look on my face, one that may or may not have been caught on camera by the professional cameraman employed by the Nalubale rafting company.

Halfway through our journey, we beached the boat, climbed 3 minutes straight up hill, and took our lunch break at a small elevated gazebo, overlooking the Nile.  At this point, Tonya and I fully acknowledged the (wonderfully) absurd sequence of events that had transpired: A Canadian and an American meeting at an Irish pub in Madrid and now eating mediocre cold sandwiches in beautifully crafted wooden stools, sunburnt from head to toe, overlooking the largest river in the world.

The four of us at our lunch destination

The afternoon rapids offered at least as much variety as the morning session, and possibly more.  During one rapid, we all fell out of the boat, and literally drifted down about a 1.5 km stretch of the Nile, a thoroughly relaxing experience.  Another involved us paddling harder than we had yet to keep the raft afloat, an accomplishment we took great pride in.  Going into the final rapid, Reuben informed us "this is a pretty easy rapid, nothing can really go wrong here," a phrase which easily made us all suspicious.  Our suspicions heightened when Reuben said, "if we do hit this 20 foot 'wall' of water, throw your paddles out the boat and hang on tight."

Of course we smacked the 20 foot wall head on, paddles went flying, somehow avoiding contact with any of our faces, and we were immediately, and violently, thrust out of the boat at high velocity, with the raft simultaneously flipping in a violent frenzy.  Easily the most thrilling rapid of the eight, it was the perfect conclusion to a day of tumultuous, variable, and unexpected circumstances.  Throughout the experience, Reuben and his staff at Nalubale were phenomenal, and none of us felt unsafe at all, even though we were rafting Class V rapids, which, according to the ultimate source Wikipedia, are "for those with advanced whitewater experience."

Unsuccessful attempt to prolong the inevitable

Eventually we clamoured back into the boat and paddled to the Nalubale company campground, which also marks the end of the 25km journey down the Nile.  Once ashore, we were immediately given beers, which had never tasted better.  For the low price of $125 per person, the company was phenomenal from start to finish, and I highly recommend them, should you find yourself in the Jinja area in the near future.

The hour-long truck ride back was filled with beers and laughs, as we triumphed our successes, mocked our initial concern at attempting class V, and patted ourselves on the back for surviving the trip injury-free.  About 40 minutes into the drive, we made a quick pit stop on the side of the road, so I could relieve my weak bladder, which had been filled with Nile River beer, roughly the Ugandan equivalent of my college favourite, Natty Lite - relatively tasteless, but easy to drink in high quantity.  As I jumped off the truck, my right food landed squarely on an ill-placed rock, and I heard a loud cracking sound that would've been out of place at a chiropractor's convention.

After stumbling my way over to a small bush and relieving myself, I meekly hobbled back over to the truck, as my comrades made sure I was ok.  Even in my pain, the irony was comical: I'd survived a brutal 25km of the Nile without so much of a scratch, but couldn't successfully complete a three-foot hop from a truck to the side of the highway.  I took my shoe and sock off to reveal a massive plate-shaped bump in my ankle that made everyone squirm a bit.  Nonetheless, Nalubale continued to do the right thing and peppered me with an appropriately heavy dose of painkillers, ice, and alcohol, that allowed me to mostly take my mind off the immediate pain.

We arrived in Jinja, gave many well-deserved thanks to the fine folks at Nalubale, and prepared to get ready for the evening's festivities.  Tonya gave me a couple unknown heavy-duty painkillers, and within 15 minutes we were ready to head to our destination, a large celebration in the nearby town of Mesene.  Mesene is the town where Tonya and her organization, HELP international, had been working, and the party was to promote the success of a decade-long battle to secure government funding and land to expand the existing school in the region.

Likely one of the largest parties Mesene had experienced in years, this was a big deal for the area, and several of the hotshots in the Ugandan government were on hand to attend.  By extension of Tonya, Theresa, and their group, I was considered a VIP of the event, and was able to sit in the same tent as a woman who works directly under the Ugandan president.  The party featured a series of speeches, chants, dances, and songs, and the head of Tonya's organization was called out several times and recognized as an important guest of honour.

Easily the most moving part of the ceremony for me was seeing the children of the school, who were so genuinely happy with what HELP had done for them.  These children wanted nothing more than to receive a proper education; going to school was a privilege for them, and they were extremely thankful to receive such a privilege in such a small town.  The faces on these children absolutely radiated with happiness, thankfulness, and joy.  I couldn't help but think about the contrast to Canada/the US, where many children resent going to school, or refuse to appreciate the opportunity they have.

Certainly, the cliches imparted on me going into Africa have proven true; the experience has made me thankful for so many things that I absolutely took for granted.  Things that I considered a right I now see as a privelege, and things that I considered a privelege have become a luxury.  It's easy to forget just how big the world is sometimes.  While I wouldn't want to live in Africa full time, and am thankful for having been born into the circumstances I was, the experience has been eye-opening, and not only makes me appreciate what I have back home, but opens my eyes to the things the people here do better, and fully appreciate the complex relationship between money and happiness, or even money and freedom.  As poor as these East African villages are, their sense of community, of looking out for each other, of familial responsibility, is one that we should be envious of.

Once the sun fell, I was quickly informed by Tonya that we had to immediately leave the area.  Uganda is not safe like Rwanda -- unfortunately the government is extremely corrupt, and such, crime is allowed to thrive.  While nearly all the Ugandans I encountered were extremely nice people, the country as a whole is more dangerous, especially when you're a white person in a remote part of the country.  We quickly piled into a car and headed back to the hotel, where we decompressed in an engaging and intellectually stimulating conversation over a beer or two.

The conversation centred on the difficulties in attempting to make a change in Uganda.  For every several steps forward, it seemed there had been a step backwards, whether it be a disloyal Ugandan who had been trusted, difficulties in cooperation from the Ugandan government, an overzealous American trying to make too much of a difference, or simple accidental bad feelings caused by cultural differences.  Tonya's leader Jean has been coming to Uganda for the past 10 years, and has fought valiantly for the result that was celebrated by the party that Wednesday night.  Her insight into the many difficulties facing her organization was fascinating, and sparked a variety of interesting questions.  I've been accused of arguing for the sake of argument - and there might be some truth in that - but I found myself genuinely going back and forth on the stances to a number of open-ended questions.  Such is the sign of an engaging conversation - one that makes you second-guess your own beliefs constantly.

Eventually it was time to go to bed, and I got a brief sleep before waking up in time for a 5AM cab back to the airport.  All in all, a throughly enjoyable and exciting - while brief - visit to Uganda.  If and when I return to Rwanda, as I plan to do, I certainly plan on including a white-water rafting trip in Jinja as part of my itinerary.  Now on my 7th Baileys and coffee - really a delicious beverage - , I hope that I've remained mostly coherent.  It's now time for bed, as I prepare for my trip to Tanzania tomorrow.  I'll be in communicado for 11 days, as I observe zebras in the wild, and begin my ascent of the Southern hemisphere's largest mountain.  Here's to hoping I make it to the top - ankle be damned.