Escapade 19- The End Cometh

Alas, the time has come for the bedtime story of my last three East Africa Trekking Adventures.  What a fabulous six weeks or so!!!!  The conclusion begins with my arrival in Kampala, Uganda after my brilliant decision to split my ten hour bus ride (which would have been actually 12 hours) into a two trip affair, with an overnight stay at a hotel in some long forgotten city.  Vivaciously awake, I checked into my hostel and called the whitewater rafting company to ensure that would be picking me up at 6:30 in the am.  With a confirmed reservation from the most reputable of companies, I decided to spend the rest of the day camped out at the backpacker’s hostel.  If you have never stayed at one, basically, it is a special brand of inexpensive hotel with a variety of amenities.  There are dorms and single and double room options of course, and almost inevitably, there will be an attached travel agency, a bar and internet access.  When entering such a place, one will find people scattered around, drinking coffee or beer, reading a book or checking through their Lonely Planet guidebook to see what inexpensive adventure appeals to them.  When approaching one of these backpackers, one must always be careful to follow carefully crafted protocols.  First, introduce yourself and where are you from.  I’m Robert from Texas.  Secondly, after receiving the same information in return, you must then begin to discuss where each person has traveled on this current trip and for how long.  I will be in Africa for five months.  I am traveling for the first six weeks, spending a week in Kampala for a workshop, and then volunteering in Nairobi for three months.  I am into my last week of travel.  I’ve been to Maasai Mara in Kenya, Zanzibar, Ngorogoro in Tanzania, around Kigale, Rwanda, visited gorillas in Musanze, spent several days in southern Uganda and now I’m going whitewater rafting on the Nile tomorrow.  After hearing about the other person’s trip, which again must include the amount of travel time, because most backpackers don’t travel for a week or two but for weeks and weeks and months and months, the two said backpackers will then discuss all the other places they have visited during their lives, comparing and contrasting and secretly preparing to visit some of the interesting places they other person has described.  A true backpacker begins to plan the next trip the day after the current trip begins.  After the long introductions, they will discuss where they are going in the next couple of days.  If the two hit it off and if they are going in similar directions, then there exists the possibility that they will travel together. 

With a two day trip already set for the next days, I went into my single room, enjoyed the music coming from the disco nearby for a few minutes and then prayed that the club would be shut down immediately for violating any fire code, so I could sleep and gather strength for the next day’s adventure.

I woke up early, packed my bags and dropped them off in the luggage room at the hostel.  Since backpackers go back and forth to various places, often returning to the same place, every hostel realizes that they must be able to hold luggage while backpackers take smaller trips around the area with only minimal luggage.  I would be spending the next night in a nearby city after the rafting and then I would return to Kampala the night after.  I just needed an overnight bag, not all of my stuff. 

I must admit that I was very excited.  I hadn’t rafted on rapids in several years, and I had a blast the last time in Costa Rica.  I boarded the bus with some of my compatriots, and we headed off, picking up rafters along the way.  In the bus, we all greeted each other and then privately decided who we  trusted to raft alongside.  I quickly decided I wanted to raft with a group of three Israelis (Israelis are cool and pretty tough) and a medical student from England.   Upon arrival, I then quickly gathered the five of us together along with a couple of nice Kenyans and we suited up for the trip.  The boats looked very seaworthy and all of our helmets and lifejackets fit perfectly, an excellent sign that my choice of the most reputable of companies had been a good one.  Our guide, a professional rafter from Canada, also instilled confidence.  He had been living in Africa for several months and was contracted for five more months as he saved up money to return to Canada.  An excellent guide, he led us through a brief training before hitting the rapids, explaining clearly that if we didn’t tip over during any of the rapids, he would tip us over at the end.   I appreciated his honestly….I’m not so sure the other rafters did.

The Nile is a completely different rafting animal than I had ever experienced.  The river is so wide that often that the rapids lie on only one side of the Nile, so that we could simply veer around the rapids if needed.  When I rafted in Costa Rica, the river was very much more narrow, and we simply had no choice but to go down every set rapids.

I volunteered to take a front seat, because I knew from experience that the front was just more fun (Although after lunch I switched seats with Tom, the medical student, because he wanted a turn there).  The rapids themselves were pretty good and we actually had a nice quiet relaxing ride in between the eight rapids.  I know you are wondering whether I feel out of the boat.  The answer is of course emphatically “No.”  When we hit the first rapid, the boat made the conscious decision to spit me out, but I didn’t fall. 

After a long day of rapids, and an excellent lunch in between, we came to the last rapids of the trip.    Bearing in mind our guide’s remarks about tipping us over no matter what, I had the sneaking suspicion that our boat would overturn on the last go around.  And sure enough, we tipped over spectacularly on the last series of rapids.  To this day, I am not sure whether our guide tipped us over intentionally (a review of the film proved inconclusive), but I do know this from previous experiences.  Tipping over is absolutely the best part of a rafting trip.  If I don’t tip over at some point, then the trip has not been a success, and our guide obviously agrees with my philosophy.

Along with the brilliant rafting expedition along the Nile, the company gave us all a free night’s stay in a dorm room at its campsite.  Well anything for free must be something worth taking!!  However in this case, I made the right call.  The campsite sits along a beautiful section of the Nile and had the warmest showers in all of East Africa.  Before hitting the sack, Tom and I quickly jumped on the back of a motorcycle and drove to the source of the Nile.  We arrived via a rented boat, just as the sun finished setting.  And there we stood looking in awe at the source of the most powerful river in the world.  Livingston and Stanley search for it.  Men have died for it.  How can I, a mere mortal, then even attempt to describe one of the most famous sites on earth.   Here goes…you know when someone goes underwater and a few air bubbles surface to the top of the water…that’s what it looks like.  It’s basically a little area of bubbles… that’s all that separates Lake Victoria from the Nile.  Not exactly thrilling, but we did stand next to a statue of Mohatma Gandhi in the dark.  When Gandhi died his ashes were spread over several of the great seas of the earth.  Who knew?

The next morning, Tom and I toured a few other places in the area, including a nice series of rapids farther down the Nile, before heading back to Kampala.  Tom is living the dream right now.  He works as part of his internship at a clinic in Kenya (in a small village),  However as soon as his shift ends on Friday, he jumps on a bus to a distant part of East Africa where he spends a 1&1/2-2 days sightseeing before catching a late Sunday series of buses home.  He needed to catch his bus at 5:30pm in Kampala to catch another bus somewhere else so that he would arrive at home at 5:00am, take a quick nap, wake up, shower and be at work by 9:00am.  Very impressive. 

I myself, spent the next day visiting sites in Kampala, including the Bugonda Parliament, the Kings Palace (where he doesn’t live), and the burial mounds of the last four kings (which actually burned down last year and is now about to be renovated).  I also hit a jam session at the National Theater before hitting the sack and heading out on a bus to Mbale the next day.

While in Mbale, I hiked up to three of the most beautiful waterfalls in Uganda (according to the Lonely Planet) in Siti, a nearby area.  It was here that I learned my small back pack is not waterproof.  The weather gods had smiled upon me during the entire trip.  Not too hot…not too cold…rain at night, dry during the day.  However, just as we (a guide, a Japanese student I met on the taxi on the way to Siti from Mbale and me) reached the farthest most point from where we started, the skies opened up.  Now to many this might seem like a problem, however not to me.  Hiking in the rain is a blast, especially when it’s essentially the last hike of the trip.  Walking back along the trail to the hotel where we started, holding a giant banana leaf over my head, I thought to myself…”Maybe I should put on this raincoat that’s in my back pack?”  Of course, I then thought to myself, “What a silly question!!  Hiking in the rain rocks!!!!”  I thought I would give freshly cleaned raincoat a break for the day, of course this was before I knew it was pretty drenched (in my “waterproof” backpack).

We arrived back at the hotel in Siti, and I stripped off my socks, shoes and shirt to let them dry outside with all the contents of my backpack and ate lunch with a towel wrapped around my upper body.   When hiking in Siti, you just need to go to one of the local hotels and ask for a guide.  Everyone has them on staff.  So even though we weren’t staying at the hotel, the owners were very understanding of our plight and let us dry out on site.  Of course we did pay for our lunch.  I actually paid for two lunches, because they brought my friend the wrong meal, which I agreed to eat along with mine.  Just in case you didn’t understand it the first time, I ate two meals at once.  And for my next death defying act……  Along the way, I ran into the three Israelis (from white water rafting), and I invited them to go with me to my next and last stop on my last and perhaps most exciting adventure of all.  I was going to the guesthouse very early the next morning (on Thursday), and they decided to meet me there on Friday afternoon for a bit of enlightenment.  What you may ask could be more exciting than a hike in the rain, a visit with gorillas, or a safari in Kenya?  The answer might be found at some point in the Jewish Herald Voice.  We will see.  So, stay tuned.

I loved my travel time here in Africa.  I met amazing people, saw fantastic sites, and even ate food once in a while.  I certainly could have traveled around for months and months without feeling weary, but I came here for a specific reason….to volunteer in Nairobi.  So even though this trek proved to be extra special, I felt then and now that the most special time of my five months in Africa would be coming up soon.  I would now return to Kampala after my Shabbat with the Abayudaya community (African Jews of Uganda) and begin my volunteer time with AJWS (American Jewish World Service) with a five day workshop.  There is nothing quite like traveling, and here in Africa, I would be able to combine two of my favorite things in the world, traveling and volunteering. 

Trekking around and volunteering in one place are two very different animals.  So, I will begin a new blog soon to detail some of my wonderful experiences as an AJWS volunteer.  I think today, I actually began to make the transformation from backpacker to Nairobite.  As I walked to catch a Matatu across town, one of the Matatu guys told me to go across the street to catch the one I needed.   As I walked away, he then asked me for some money for the information.  As a tourist, I might have actually given him some cash.  However, I just laughed it off and walked away…it’s actually his job to tell me where to go.  Then while on that very Matatu, I gave the handler 20 shillings as we drove along.  He then looked at me and said, “No, it’s 50 shillings,” to which I laughed and turned back around, knowing already the real cost of this trip.  I may still be a Muzungo, but I am not quite as much of one as when I started.