In DeNile

You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to use that blog title for a post.

In any case… get ready for the fastest 15 minutes in Interweb history. Normally a post takes me about 30-40 minutes to write, craft, edit and pimp… but this one is coming at you on the minimal internet time I can afford.

I should have known better than to expect African public transport to run smoother than liquid linoleum. Foolish me. It started off badly enough… in Arusha, the private company shuttle that we hired to pick us up and take us to Nairobi didn’t remember to collect MaryLou, Cliff and myself from the White House. A few phone calls, and THAT was rectified… but we still rolled into Nairobi about three hours behind schedule, meaning that we were going to miss our bus to Kampala. Right?

Wrong! The bus to Kampala was supposed to depart at 9:00pm. We didn’t arrive until 9:45pm, but that didn’t matter, because the bus didn’t leave until 2:45 in the blinkin’ morning!! Apparently it decided to ‘break down’ or something. Thus, of course, delayed us getting into Kampala.

 The ride itself wasn’t too bad… as long as you ignore the fact that the seat of my chair wasn’t permanently attached to the back of it, meaning that I’d slide around every time we hit a rut, stone, bump, pothole or stray goat. This happened approximately every 7.5 seconds. That makes for a VERY long construction-slowed, traffic-congested, dirt-road meandering 15 hour trek from city to city.

What was kind of interesting was that the coldest I’ve been  – possibly in my life, excepting the time I went camping in -40 C and had to thaw the dish soap over the fire – was on this bus at night. I was in shorts and a t-shirt, the windows were stuck open, and the whipping night air ensured my core temperature was about the same as a double-scoop of pistachio. Where in Africa was this, you ask? About as we were crossing the Equator. This recently won International First Place in the Irony of AllTime competition.

We finally checked in to our hostel in Kampala a mere 30 hours after we left Arusha, all but 5 of those hours spent in a bus or shuttle along dirt roads. My spine now resembles a haunted tree, complete with cracks.

The hostel, bless their hearts, had been waiting for us to arrive for HOURS and were just about to sell our gorilla permits. Hessie – wherever you are (actually… Im at Backpackers now… so about 4 doors down) thanks highly. We confirmed we were still chasing the big hairies, and then also had the hostel book a rafting trip down the Nile with Nile River Explorers.

At least… that’s what we thought. After the 6:30am wakeup to get on the bus to the nearby Nile, we discovered we were actually booked with Nalubale, the SISTER company of NRE. Not that it mattered… they were running the same itineary for the same price from the same building. All it meant was that we were in the much more noticeable giant yellow raft, instead of the red ones.

Ruben – our New Zealand bred leader – convinced the five of us (Rivers, Ronnie, Becky, MaryLou and Cliff) – that there was nothing to be afraid of… aside from the potential of being eaten by Nile Crocs, the 4 Grade Five rapids we’d be tackling and … well… that was it, but we didn’t really need a third.

 The day on the water was incredible. We flipped multiple names, successfully nailed a 16-ft waterfall by sliding down a rock-shelf in the middle of it, and generally had an insanely good time. My personal aversion to sunscreen has meant that my body currently resembles a cross between a radish, a boiled lobster and the sun but whatever. Who needs full motion anyways?

 After our rafting experience was complete, we got a free night’s stay at a campsite overlooking the Nile at Bujagali Falls (don’t have time to look up the spelling to see if I got it right). This, while incredible in itself, was enhanced by the fact that the local beer is Nile Special.. which I drank overlooking the Nile. How cool is that?!

 And that wasn’t even the best part… the campsite had, at some point, employed a genius who designed open-fronted showers that were closed on the sides and back, but open to the wilds at the front… overlooking the Nile that tumbled towards Egypt at the bottom of the cliffs on which they were built. Thus it was that Ronnie, Becky and I all watched the sun set over the Nile from (separate) showers – an added bonus, being my first in 60 hours.

 We were all pretty exhausted, so after a few beers at the campsite bar and a screening of the $45US video of yourselves doing the rafting that you can buy (…we did…) we crashed. Hard.

Of course… I woke up in the middle of the night to a skittering, scritching, squeaking noise that turned out to be giant rats Becky had seen climbing my mosquito net earlier that night. Uganda is just full of fun surprises like that.

This morning – we’re on the 21st, for those keeping track – we awoke, and wandered out into the locals foodstalls to buy ourselves chapati breakfast. Chapati is an Indian bread, similar to a savoury pancake. I had two – one stuffed with a banana and honey, and one with a veggie omlette. Total cost for both? About 75 US cents. Traveller’s Diarrhea comes free as well.

 We caught a private hire (taxi) back to Kampala from Jinja (where we were based) and then organized – rather haphazardly – our bus trip to Kisoro, which we’ll use as a gorilla tracking base starting tomorrow … whenever we arrive.

 We also used the time in Kampala to check out a 250-year old turtle and find a geocache… my first in Uganda!

Ack. Out of time. Sorry I didn’t include the story about the three naked wom