White Water Rafting on the Nile and a Uganda Cranes Game

Two weekends ago Steve and I took our first weekend away from the clinic. I spent Friday night and Saturday day in Jinja. Jinja is located where the Nile comes out of Lake Victoria. This entire region is littered with sugar cane and tea leaf plantations. The drive coming in was unbelievably beautiful and picturesque. Since the town itself was relatively unaffected by the Amin years and the wars with Tanzania it is still littered with mansions on lush landscaped compounds and does not have the dilapidated look that many larger towns in Uganda, like Masaka, have. On Friday night I was able to visit the mouth of the Nile, while quite unimpressive it was nice to see. The Bell Beer company sponcers the national park and therefore the park is littered with Bell Beer signs and much of it is painted red and yellow the companies colors. There are about a dozen stalls full of “authentic” Ugandan crafts. While I was there a group of school children arrived on a field trip. They all crowed around the ice-cream vendor and afterward the boys crowed in one area and threw small sticks at the girls while they drifted toward the other side of the manicured lawn. It was nice to see that at least rich Ugandan teenagers are much like the teenagers you find at my local high school.

That night I had a few beers and wrote blogs in the hostel’s bar. I decided to go to bed early because the next day I was going rafting on the Nile. The next morning is when the fun started. At 9:00 the seven rafts of people I went rafting with meet in the lobby of the hostel. We all went into the back for the complementary breakfast and safety talk. For some reason I had missed the video of the rafting trip playing on replay in the bar, this is a good thing because if I had seen the footage of the rafts going over the two meter vertical water fall the night before I may not have gone. However, I did not and therefore, unaware of what I was getting myself into I climbed happily into my raft with six other people (four Australians on term abroad, and two English dudes). We ended up having a blast. All in all we rafted 12 rapids 4 of which were class five and one of which included a two meter high vertical water fall. Our raft guide was a local with a great sense of humor. He new just how to handle seven 22 year olds. At the end of the tip there was a complementary BBQ next to Bunjagali Falls (the most famous set of waterfalls we rafted down) that included two free Nile Beers. Yes, they do have a brand of beer here called Nile Beer which is actually brewed in Jinja right next to the Nile. Their slogan is “The true reward. From the Source!” I got to watch the sun set over the Nile while having a nice cold beer. Then it was off to Kampala to join Steve, because the next day we went to the Uganda Cranes Game (national soccer team).

The Uganda Cranes Game was at the National Stadium in Nambole about twenty minutes east of Kampala. The stadium can hold about forty thousand people. I would estimate that the stadium was about half full for the game. Cheep tickets cost 10,000 Ush (6 USD) and expensive seats cost 20,000 Ush (12 USD). Outside the stadium women sat on palm leaf mats and sold the Uganda verson of pop corn and hot dogs, Mandas (fried dough) and grilled goat meat skewers. We got the more expensive seats and ended up in what Steve has termed the Mzungu Section. We ended up sitting with all the other white people at the game. What we paid for was not actually better seats, but shade. The game itself was really interesting. First came out the riot police with complete riot gear including guns. These police stationed themselves around the field at regular intervals. After the police came the Ugandan version of cheerleaders came out. They were a bunch of men dressed in tan colored robes lead by a guy in white robes. These men had drums and maracas and widely encouraged the crowd to cheer. After the Ugandan Cheer leaders came out the Ugandan version of crazy drunken shirtless paint covered college boys. We had seen one of them earlier running around Kampala announcing the game. There was a group of about fifteen shirtless men in their twenties that had painted themselves red yellow and black (the Cranes colors). These men were let onto the field to rile the crowd even more. Now I don’t really know much about soccer, so I was really impressed with all of the players and their skills and ability. The game was good and moved quickly so even for a soccer novice like myself it wasn’t boring. In the end the Cranes won!! This was awesome. However, they had needed to win by four goals to continue in the World Cup and the African Cup of Nations. Unfortunately they only one by one goal and therefore will not continue in the competitions.

After the game we were latterly shoved into moving taxies as they drove by the stadium and raced back to Kampala. I think that they tried to go so fast so that they could go back for a second trip.