River Rafting at the souce of the Nile.

During my five weeks in Uganda I went to Jinja (second largest town of Uganda) a couple times. It is very limited what Jinja as a town has to offer, but you can go to the source of the Nile to see an amazingly beautiful landscape. Green and lush and small traditional fishing boats trying to get their catch of the day.

Another thing to do in Jinja and at the source of the Nile is a grade five river rafting. The rafting a very fun outing which can either go on fur a half or full day. There are some very crazy rapids, which make it fun and gives you an adrenaline kick and between the rapids there is nice and slow water, which give you the opportunity to enjoy Uganda from the river side, where you see women doing thier laundry and children playing in the water... Or you can jump in and have a nice relaxing swim if you do not mind the thoughts of crocodiles, snakes and bilharzia. In the middle of the day you go to a small island, where the crew have set up a small lunch table, where you can get a few sandwiches before it is back to the floats.

This is definately a good way to spend a day. But don't think you will be doing a whole lot when you 'come back on shore'. You are so exhausted after a full but really nice and fun day out.

NB: I did the river rafting together with a friend, who had also done rafting in Latin America and she was amased by the professionalism and safety the crew in Jinja offered. Think that is always a nice thing to know.

Another day I jumped back into a mini bus (taxi). I had read that the forrests between Kampala and Jinja were perfect for monkey spotting. So I thought to myself... Why not spend a sunday in the woods?

As I got of the taxi I went to a small hut to get a map of the forrest... But think it only took me 5 minutes before I was 'lost'. So decided just to do my own hike... Well, let me start by saying I did not really see that many monkeys. I mainly heard them, but the forrest was too think, which made spotting really really diffecult. However, this experience was real fun. Suddenly in the middle of the forrest I found myself in a very small village. Within a few minutes I had 20-25 kids after my singing 'Hello muzungu (white man) how are you?'. Each time I turned around and kneeled to talk to them most of the ran away scared - because after all I was a little dangerous. Hehe. After ten minutes of screaming kids I thought ok, what do I do now? How do I make it less obvious I am here? I came to think of that my guide book told me not to show I had a camera, as it makes every one have their picture taken. I took mine up from my bag and all of the sudden all the big boys got together in a group and I took their picture, which made them forget about me but instead focused at the photo oppotunity... Well, it also made some of the adults call me, because they wanted to have their photo taken.

As I went on I bumped into some huts scattered along a dirt road. I thought to myself that if I didn't get someone to show me around I would not get the full insight in the forrest so I asked a young man, who came up to talk if he could be my guide if I paid him a little. He agreed and then he followed me around the forrest. I do not know if I saw a whole lot more then I would have seen if I had continued on my own, - as this was just his everyday habitat, and he did not really see the amazing and exotic part in it, but at least it assured me that I at one time ended up where I had begun, and then could take a taxi back to kampala after a nice day out.