On the Road

On the first day of August we embarked on our journey across East Africa. We were up at the crack of dawn, hopped into our beloved matatu and arrived at the bus station just in time to catch Kampala Coach to Jinja, Uganda. As we lurched into gear, we began a journey none of us will ever forget. The engine of our bus roared as we bounced in and out of gear and just over an hour later we ran out of gas. A furious passenger nearly got into fisticuffs with the driver as we waited and waited some more for someone to come by with fuel. An hour later we got moving again only to stop two minutes later at the gas station and wait another hour while everyone argued about whose fault this was and who should pay for the gas. All the passengers on the bus were so embarrassed. They kept telling Alexis to make sure all us white folk know that this is not what Africa is like.
Shawn and Joe on Kampala Coach; the angry passenger.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful... I saw a bit of wildlife, met with some terrifying bathrooms, and didn't reach our destination (a mere 800-ish km from Nairobi) until 9pm. We did however drive across the equator and ended up at the source of the great Nile River.

We jumped off the bus at a gas station seemingly in the middle of nowhere and were immediately surrounded by men on little motorcycles. This would have been a desperately terrifying experience but my trusty Lonely Planet had informed me that these guys are the local public transit known as boda bodas.

We had about 8000 tonnes of luggage with us so had to embark on a bit of an adventure to find a couple of matatus to fit us. One driver tried to rip us off and was so mad when we went with two other drivers. It was rather dramatic. Shortly thereafter we arrived at Nile River Explorers Backpackers threw our stuff in our rooms and got to drinking the local brew as quickly as we could. A celebration of surviving the first leg of our voyage was very much in order.

The next morning Carolyn and Katie went whitewater rafting on the Nile while the rest of us nursed our hangovers and got to a whole bunch of interviews. We met some of the most amazing people. The first woman we interviewed was a lovely kindhearted woman named Flo. She was a member of a women's cooperative who sold their hand crafts at the hostel. They were started by a British NGO called Softpower but now run it all on their own. Flo told us how the cooperative had allowed her to make money of her own rather than just relying on a husband to provide for her. She was able to send her kids to a good school using her own money. She was clearly very proud of herself and immeasurably empowered.
The Nile

After our visit with flo, we all took advantage of the hot sun and went for a swim in the Nile. It was a little tricky getting down to the river. We pretty much had to slide down a cliff to get there. The current was super strong so we did more standing than swimming but it was a lot of fun. However, we soon realized that we hadn't thought about how we were going to get back up the bank once we were done. There was a staircase a little way down the bank but the current was too strong for us to swim there. We saw a young man out on the river doing some fishing in a little canoe-like boat. So being the adventurous folk that we are we called him over and asked him to ship us over to the stairs. He accepted and told us that he could take four of us in his boat at a time. This was not the case. We were far too heavy and had only inches between the water and the gunwale. We were also to heavy for the young man to navigate the currents and get us close enough to the stairs. So he decided that he would go out into the rapids to pick up some speed and swing us around. This was the most terrifying experience of my life. Not only were we sinking (our bailing efforts did not equal the amount of water splashing over the gunwales), the man's fish were still alive and swimming around our feet. In any case his plan failed and we had to go back to the beachy area where we had been swimming. In a panic we all stood up at once and immediately sunk his boat. We had a mad scramble to recover all his fish before they swam away. Even after this debacle, he was still willing to help us and took most of the group (two by two this time) over to the stairs. Alexis and Megali were even brave enough to go for a ride in the rapids. I was far too traumatized to get back in the boat along with a few others, so we managed in our desperation to find a way to clamber back up the bank. After this adventure we rinsed away our worries in the open air showers over looking the magnificent river.