Adventures of the "Twins"
So Kate (CPAR intern from Ethiopia), Meg (YP from Mozambique) and myself (Kampala resident) have been confused for ‘twins’ by the guards at the UN Village where Jess and Meg now live (yes I know that Kate, Meg and I are three people yet he still asked if we were twins). The four of us (the twins and Jessica) have had a busy week.
On Tuesday I took the girls into town while Jess worked. Hit up the craft market and had sodas at this amazing dive bar that Ties and Marijn found which overlooks the entire taxi park. Movie night that night included the movie Bad Santa (traumatizing beyond belief) and then US soldiers sending drinks over to us….
Wednesday Jessica and I took Meg to Nakawa market which is the big fruit and veggie market near where Jess used to live while Kate sorted out her visa. Finally managed to find copies of seasons 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy which made my day.
Thursday was the exciting day – WHITE WATER RAFTING ON THE NILE!!!!!!!!! Day went like this Kate and I got up and left at 645 to meet Meg at Garden City to wait for our ride. The rafting company picked us up and took us to Jinja for the rafting. First we went to the hostel in town which was absolutely terrifying for all three of us. I haven’t seen a room full of like 50 white people in almost six months – there wasn’t a Ugandan in sight….. Suddenly we were surrounded by dozens of Aussies, Canadians, Europeans and a couple South Africans honestly didn’t know what to do. We ended up sitting at a table by ourselves to eat breakfast. We were in the “Bubble” (where you don’t actually realize you are in the midst of another culture). Another thing that was kinda strange was that the kayak instructor that Dad and I had was there (same company different ‘adventure sport’) and he remembered my name – too bad I spent all day trying to remember his and couldn’t for the life of me. I still don’t know which is odd for me as I’m usually decent with names.
Then we all got driven to the start of the run. We were given our safety briefing, helmets, lifejackets that Meg related to Kevlar vests used in demining they were so heavy-duty. Our boat was us three ‘twins’, a daughter and dad from the States, a guy from Edmonton and a girl from Israel plus our guide. Learning how to paddle, get back in the boat after getting dumped out, flipping the boat right way up when it’s upside and how to ‘get down’ was really entertaining.
There were 12 rapids to go. First few we got through fine even though some of the other boats flipped. Then on the third or fourth rapid we flipped. I now understand why some people’s greatest fear is to be trapped underwater because we all got pulled under quite far and although I knew I was safe (Kevlar strength lifejacket, huge safety boat, tons of safety kayakers to fish us out and all that) it was still terrifying to be underwater for that long – it was probably not that much more than 10 seconds. Our boat only flipped 3 times that time, then another one where it was four big waves in a row and of course we flipped on the first one so I ended up riding out the other three with the girl from the States holding on to the same paddle which involved swallowing a lot of water b/c we were both facing the wrong way and couldn’t see the waves… also flipped on the last one but that was fine (everyone actually managed to hold on to the boat which was amazing). One of the best parts of the trip was near lunch time there was a long flat stretch where we were allowed to go swimming so Kate, Meg and I jumped in and spent a ton of time just floating along (lifejackets on of course) down the Nile, swimming around and playing in the not very strong current. AMAZING!!!
The interesting part was that from lunch time on our guide kept talking about the ‘Bad Place’ the last rapid and how scary and bad it was as the only optional rapid. By the time we got down there the three of us were scared crapless and opted out. Now think about this he managed to get a girl who works in mine fields (Meg), someone moving to a war zone (me) and someone whose country of residence is fighting out a proxy war in Somalia and is in a rapidly heating up cold war with Eritrea (Kate) so scared we were going to opt out of the last run. As we are all standing on the edge of the rocks looking over (everyone had to get out of the boats to avoid a class 6 rapid), the nameless kayak instructor comes to talk to us and after we say we aren’t doing the last one he tells us that as long as we say we don’t want to go through the bad place it’s easy to avoid it and it’s really not as bad as some of the other rapids we had done. He told us that it would be fine, fun and safe especially b/c our boat had already decided to take the easiest route through. So we did and he was right it was a ton of fun, we were safe even though we flipped on the last little bit of it and I’m glad we did it.
Another excellent part had to be the bus ride back to the camp with a beer in our hands and then another beer on the drive back to Kampala.
So the hot and not list for rafting the Nile:
Hot: How much fun it was, floating down the Nile with friends, beers on the drives back, Kate leaning out the window trying to get the nameless kayak instructor’s phone number when the matatu that was driving us back to Kampala passed the truck with all the guides on it, unfortunately she failed.
Not: The pain from worst sunburn of my life from my knees to the bottom of the shorts I was wearing, being stuck underwater or at least thinking I was, how ridiculously sick I was afterwards (combination of swallowing too much Nile water, - mmmmmm parasites- dehydration and heat exhaustion).
Kate’s now on a bus to Nairobi to meet a friend for Christmas and Jess, Meg and I are heading to Holiday, a movie in a theater!!! Shocking!!!
On Tuesday I took the girls into town while Jess worked. Hit up the craft market and had sodas at this amazing dive bar that Ties and Marijn found which overlooks the entire taxi park. Movie night that night included the movie Bad Santa (traumatizing beyond belief) and then US soldiers sending drinks over to us….
Wednesday Jessica and I took Meg to Nakawa market which is the big fruit and veggie market near where Jess used to live while Kate sorted out her visa. Finally managed to find copies of seasons 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy which made my day.
Thursday was the exciting day – WHITE WATER RAFTING ON THE NILE!!!!!!!!! Day went like this Kate and I got up and left at 645 to meet Meg at Garden City to wait for our ride. The rafting company picked us up and took us to Jinja for the rafting. First we went to the hostel in town which was absolutely terrifying for all three of us. I haven’t seen a room full of like 50 white people in almost six months – there wasn’t a Ugandan in sight….. Suddenly we were surrounded by dozens of Aussies, Canadians, Europeans and a couple South Africans honestly didn’t know what to do. We ended up sitting at a table by ourselves to eat breakfast. We were in the “Bubble” (where you don’t actually realize you are in the midst of another culture). Another thing that was kinda strange was that the kayak instructor that Dad and I had was there (same company different ‘adventure sport’) and he remembered my name – too bad I spent all day trying to remember his and couldn’t for the life of me. I still don’t know which is odd for me as I’m usually decent with names.
Then we all got driven to the start of the run. We were given our safety briefing, helmets, lifejackets that Meg related to Kevlar vests used in demining they were so heavy-duty. Our boat was us three ‘twins’, a daughter and dad from the States, a guy from Edmonton and a girl from Israel plus our guide. Learning how to paddle, get back in the boat after getting dumped out, flipping the boat right way up when it’s upside and how to ‘get down’ was really entertaining.
There were 12 rapids to go. First few we got through fine even though some of the other boats flipped. Then on the third or fourth rapid we flipped. I now understand why some people’s greatest fear is to be trapped underwater because we all got pulled under quite far and although I knew I was safe (Kevlar strength lifejacket, huge safety boat, tons of safety kayakers to fish us out and all that) it was still terrifying to be underwater for that long – it was probably not that much more than 10 seconds. Our boat only flipped 3 times that time, then another one where it was four big waves in a row and of course we flipped on the first one so I ended up riding out the other three with the girl from the States holding on to the same paddle which involved swallowing a lot of water b/c we were both facing the wrong way and couldn’t see the waves… also flipped on the last one but that was fine (everyone actually managed to hold on to the boat which was amazing). One of the best parts of the trip was near lunch time there was a long flat stretch where we were allowed to go swimming so Kate, Meg and I jumped in and spent a ton of time just floating along (lifejackets on of course) down the Nile, swimming around and playing in the not very strong current. AMAZING!!!
The interesting part was that from lunch time on our guide kept talking about the ‘Bad Place’ the last rapid and how scary and bad it was as the only optional rapid. By the time we got down there the three of us were scared crapless and opted out. Now think about this he managed to get a girl who works in mine fields (Meg), someone moving to a war zone (me) and someone whose country of residence is fighting out a proxy war in Somalia and is in a rapidly heating up cold war with Eritrea (Kate) so scared we were going to opt out of the last run. As we are all standing on the edge of the rocks looking over (everyone had to get out of the boats to avoid a class 6 rapid), the nameless kayak instructor comes to talk to us and after we say we aren’t doing the last one he tells us that as long as we say we don’t want to go through the bad place it’s easy to avoid it and it’s really not as bad as some of the other rapids we had done. He told us that it would be fine, fun and safe especially b/c our boat had already decided to take the easiest route through. So we did and he was right it was a ton of fun, we were safe even though we flipped on the last little bit of it and I’m glad we did it.
Another excellent part had to be the bus ride back to the camp with a beer in our hands and then another beer on the drive back to Kampala.
So the hot and not list for rafting the Nile:
Hot: How much fun it was, floating down the Nile with friends, beers on the drives back, Kate leaning out the window trying to get the nameless kayak instructor’s phone number when the matatu that was driving us back to Kampala passed the truck with all the guides on it, unfortunately she failed.
Not: The pain from worst sunburn of my life from my knees to the bottom of the shorts I was wearing, being stuck underwater or at least thinking I was, how ridiculously sick I was afterwards (combination of swallowing too much Nile water, - mmmmmm parasites- dehydration and heat exhaustion).
Kate’s now on a bus to Nairobi to meet a friend for Christmas and Jess, Meg and I are heading to Holiday, a movie in a theater!!! Shocking!!!
posted by Erin at 11:38 AM
1 Comments:
Hey Erin, Patty and Doug here, just emailing you to wish you a very Merry Christmas -- I have been reading your blog while drinking my Saturday morning coffee every week, and am truly amazed and impressed with your experiences, and have very much enjoyed following along -- thanks for sharing with us. Enjoy every moment (which you seem to be doing!). Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year, from your wet and windy hometown.
Patty, Doug, Heather and Bryan
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