It’s been a blur of relaxation, cultural intrigue and blinding sunlight reflecting off white sand beaches this past week and a half. It’s hard to know where to start… and eeven harder where to stop. So I’ll just briedly describe where I am, what we’ve done so far, and promise you that photos are on their way.
25th November – Jinja
The holiday started off on the 25th of November when Fran, Pauline’s friend, arrived from Malta. A couple of days later we caught the long bus ride to Kampala with Chiara, our italian friend doing a disseratation here, and got there 13 hours later. It was an exhausting ride, with a pleasant surprise:
At the border we first paid $50 visa entry, but then we were given the money back after we were told that Maltese citizens eenter Uganda for free! Seems like a Commonwealth agreement – perhaps the British colonial period had its benefits after all!
We spent our day at Kampala staying at Tim’s place – remember that American friend of ours, Mia Sparkman? Well, they moved to Uganda in september, and we stayed at teir place to sleep over in Kampala, over on Tank Hill. Kampala is far far better than Nairobi – it is nicer, hotter and in my eyes orders of magnitude more beautiful than Nairobi, even though it is still the capital city of a very poor country. But give me Kampala any day over stinking, polluted and chaotic Nairobi. Though then traffic is bad there too!
The next day (after a bad sleep on a small sofa) we headed to Jinja, an adventure “capital”. We were to do white water rafting on the Nile. The weather didn’t seem too promising, it was overcast and cold. But after a whole day out on a raft, it was better than being lobstered in the sun.
This adventure was simply… WOW. Grade 5 rafting isn’t as bad as I thought, and I definitely will do a Grade 6 rafting experience some day, as I need more of an adrenaline kick out of this thing. But it is great… rafting on the rapids at the source of the Nile, splashing into the cool (and, unfortunately, dirty water) and swimming in that river, keeping in mind that a few minutes before you saw a baby crocodile on the shore.
Great stuff!
After an amazing trip 30km down the Nile we went to sleep at an amazing campsite overlooking the Nile rapids. I could keep writing WOW, WOW WOW here but you get the point. It was well worth every dollar we spent. Crammed inside a tent, the four of us slept relatively comfortably, and left the next morning back to Nairobi. 13 hours later, we were back home, exhausted and sore.
Anyone going to East Africa? Do NOT skip the rafting on the Nile.
December 15, 2010 at 1:57 am |
One of our river guides is heading over there soon. I’ll be sure to tell him to make sure and raft the Nile!