I left Saturday morning, meeting K in town and travelling together. We chose to just use a matatu (and not a big bus) for the money savings. The trip went up and through Busia, where the main border crossing is.
On the way there, about 20 minutes away from Busia, I realized that I had left my passport at home - completely forgotten about in the hassle of moving and packing for a trip all in one day! I freaked out! Absolute panic- I really thought I would puke on myself, to get so close and then be turned away for something so stupid. But, we decided to try it, before making decisions about my returning or backing out cabisa.
Kenya's guard looked at me, at my Resident card, and shook his head. tsk tsk tsk! I begged and cajoled until he said, 'Whatever. Go see if Uganda will let you in.' I did, and Uganda laughed at me! There was 3 or 4 of them, just cracking up at us silly little white girls too dumb to remember a passport. But finally he said yes! He said it was fine, tsk'd me some more, and then wrote a note saying I had forgotten my papers, but had a 7-day visa to Uganda and to let me back out of the country! YAHOO!
On the Ugandan side, we met up right away with 9 others of our crew, completely by coincidence. It was great timing! K and I made the last 2 butts in the vehicle, and we headed out for the 2hr ride to Jinja.
The place overlooks a bend in the river and is very chill. Dorm beds, a bar, good food at decent prices, and there's an advantageous fellow with a chapati/egg stand just outside the gate with the most delicious wraps at killer-cheap prices. We drank and drank and drank, only briefly pausing to question the effect that would have on the next day.
Next day came, we woke early and prepared. Several were hung-over or had belly probs, but most recovered in time. One, the Birthday Girl, was rough the entire day, and spent the trip in the safety boat, missing out on the real scary stuff. All together, we were 23 ppl, mostly PC, but some extra folks mixed in. 6 or 7 ppl in each boat, 3 full boats. My guide was Henry, a Ugandan with 10 yrs guiding experience.
We started with breakfast at 9a and began rafting about 10/10:30a. Lunch came about 1p, then more rafting, so we returned to camp about 5p. A long day!! We all were just coated in sunscreen, as the rays are intense and so many people just fry out there.
Our first rapid was a class 4, but a bad one, and our boat totally wiped out almost immediately. Bodies went flying, paddles went flying, and we were all sucked under the water. Henry says we were down for 5 or so seconds, but I tell you what.. it felt like forever! No air, no idea which way is up, I got clobbered on the nose by who-knows-what/who. I opened my eyes and only saw green! Finally I caught a glimpse of a body, figured it must know where the surface was, and grabbed on. Air!!
Our boat flipped 3 of the 11 rapids, and I fell out on a 4th one. None of the flips were as scary as that first, because we caught on the the idea of clinging to the boat! Guaranteed to reach the surface that way!! And, we got better and seeing which of the many big scary waves were going to flip us over and out.
Most of the rapids were class 4 and 5, with a few 3s mixed in to ease it all out. What's this class business, you ask? Well, it's a way to tell people how scary and close to death a rapid is. I think 6 is the highest, and you can't go through a 6 in the big rafts, only in small boats or kayaks. And the 6s certainly look like they will kill you, even then! A class 1 is basically choppy water, and no big deal at all.
In between the rapids there was calm time of just getting through that gorgeous river called the Nile. It is SO big and SO wide! We saw tons of cranes and herons and swimming birds, a couple of monkeys, lots of naked Africans and a crocodile. Well... sort of. One of the guys noticed a water bottle floating up stream, a strange thing to see. He insisted there was something below it, pushing it, but we couldn't tell what, and Henry didn't offer a clue. Later, I heard from someone in another boat, that the rafting people had decided to tag the popular crocs for safety. They stuck empty water bottles to their head, somehow, so you can always be sure to spot one at a safe distance. Is that crazy shit or what?
They recorded most of our trip and Bwana Kubwa is buying it and will copy it for us all. I can't wait to show it to you guys so you can see what it was like! (Scary as hell, is what it was!) Look at some pics at www.raftafrica.com
Love y'all! I'm outta here to go and eat some food and get home to sleep. Damn, I'm tired!
4 comments:
Sounds like u had a great time! Did u do this w/o contacts and w/o managing to lose anything? Glad the border guys let u thru.
Letter is on the way to u. xoxox mum
It was nice to hear about this AFTER
the fact! Sounds like fun. Did it myself a long long time ago. In Colorado, so much safer. This was your first mention of alot of animals- Glad to hear that they are still there! Love
Nice! I can't wait to see the video.
Didn't lose a single lense, which was awesome. None of the lense-wearers lost anything, so, who knows.
AJean- forgot to say THANKS for the financial support for this adventure. You covered about 1/3-1/2 of the expenses. Thank you, thank you!
Video is on its way, being copied as we type.
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