Jumping out of the plane, first impression ? hm. This strange but nice smell in the air... i'd say kind of wood, bamboo might it be?
This air.. so warm but wet, pleasure to breath!
On the board of the airplane.. walking towards the building and looking around.. quite big difference after Warsaw and Istanbul airports. Really small with few planes at it not too much people around.
First visa controls and some paper work excitment mixed with confusment. Passed everything, got my staff back and now what? There should be driver waiting for me but my flight got delayed in istanbul and i couldnt contact him at all... Luckly in Istanbul cafe there was a guy sitting in cafe at wifi who invited me to the table and after short while i knew that he is kayaker also and he is going to Uganda also! That was pretty big surprise for me but i was really glad i met him. We decided to travel together since then so when we left the control we seen alot of people waiting with cards and names on it. First glance and i didnt see mine. But then once again and i noticed it. We left the airport and jumped into Toms car. First thing that hit my mind, why are they driving on the left? but after second i reminded that Uganda was British cologne so it shouldnt surprise me. I was really exhausted after long travel but just couldnt close my eyes being amazed with every single thing i seen. We seen few police cars on sides in Kampala but as Tom had explained they were giving power to different parts of street for specified time! It means some part of street gets i.e power for only 3 hours a day and police is keeping an eye on it. Uganda is having water power stations i.e from jinja and bujagali dam (which destroyed all day 1 rapids) but 70-90% of power is sold to neighbours and just little stays in Uganda.
Even traveling in night i was amazed with surrounding nature everything was different then in my country!
So after arriving to Entebbe and traveling throught Kampala we arrived to Hairy Lemon camping which is located near Nazigo village just after the sunrise which actually had brought us quite beatiful views on the way.
Hairy Lemon proved to be beatiful island which you could get on by jumping into canoe with your staff and crossing one of nile branches. When we arrived the island inhabitants were just waking up and coming to the bar for breakfest.
When i was leaving home i wasnt really sure who will be there in the same time so i was really looking forward to see some friends. I was really happy to see there my good friends from Russia who i met in Kadan and before - Stas, Jar, Andrey, Reka and Ania from Ukraine. Also there were some guys from America and two Finish guys who stayed there long time with us also - Henko and Daabsa.
As i was really starving i was so happy to catch breakfast which was really awesome! Ananas, watermelon, bananas and mangos had so great taste, were super sweet and so juicy! Followed by porridge, eggs and sometimes beacon or sausages and ofcourse fresh bread. I just loved breakfasts there!
Despite the total exhaustion i couldnt just go sleep and i was so keen to go paddling and see the famous Nile Special. I had to be patient for a while as wave was getting good around 11 am i focused on unpacking my staff and setting tent on the hill.
I unpacked my boat and gladly didnt notice any serious damages after flight. After taking all the staff it was about the time to hit the wave! I got a bit surprised as i thought that wave will be just next to island but you had to paddle like 500m upstream in the eddy to get there however it was great warm up everyday!
First impression on my first bigger wave?
-Wow.
I did fell in love really fast although i felt there for few first days as if i were a bag of bones which have been being thrown in air constantly by big wave.
Learning how to control the wave took me few days but throwing some sweet tricks came immedietly after surfing. I figured out that it feels completly different throwing aerial tricks in wave and it's even more awesome!
After first day paddling i slept loads of hours to rest but as fast as i woke up i did head for wave again and again it was just so great! Great thing about being there was chill out zone where we've been spending alot of time resting after great sessions and parties in the evening. first two weeks with Russish friends were one big entertainment!
After few days we went to Jinja and i met with for the first time with most popular type of transport there - Boda Boda which is motorcyle driven by local guy. You can see them everywhere in Uganda riding around or calling you just to give even a smallest lift. So i went there with Stas and it was really scary for me - becouse the roads there are mostly just dirt roads with alot of holes and other vehicles passing really close to each other. Also it's common to meet there herd of cows or alot of people going in group. Everything this adding the speed which boda boda is taking at those places can scare even bravest people. But you are simply getting used to it after few rides as it's really cheap and fast way to travel.
On the way to Jinja you can learn alot about living of local people. Near Hairy Lemon before Nazigo village you can see alot of small villages where house are made of clay and mud based on wooden sticks. Farer you get you can sometimes notice ritch houses made of bricks. You can see people bringing food from jungle,making bricks from clay and mud or working on the field. Sometimes you can see kids playing with ball made of grass or skin filled with it and sewn but it's normal that kids are helping with work, carrying staff on their heads or helping in the field.
But everytime when we - white people - Muzungu (becouse it's how it's called in Luganda - local language) are passing by all the kids are running from houses yelling: Muzungu! Muzungu! How are you! How are you!
Every of them wants to talk with you, they are even running after bodas or cars just to wave to you. If you meet some of kids it's normal that you are being asked : "Give me my t-shirt" - while kid pulls your t shirt or
"Give me my money!" but nothing from those is offensive, they are just looking to get anything that they could as poorness is everywhere there. Thought english is official language there, alot of people in villages far from the bigger cities or places like nile shore dont speak it knowing only words like "how are you" or "what is your name" becouse they dont have too much touch with white people so they just speak Luganda.
As i said the poorness is very common there, each family consists of alot of kids and it's normal that 15 years old girls are getting married and if the women is older then 20 it means she can be too old and she can have problems with finding man, so she should marry black guy - Mudagawa immedietly. Also if she didnt have
kids yet she is offered help from locals always becouse she should be pregnant already as god wants her to be used properly.
According to God, there are few different religions there but main one seems to be christianism and while driving a road you can see on sides christians churches quite often - but not as same as you see in europe, sometimes it's just typical house with extra board and cross in front. There are also muslims, jews, protestants and as there are some people from india - hinduism. You can see them mostly in cities running some business.
Next thing you notice on the way there are schools for all levels from primery to high schools, where you can see alot of kids in uniforms. Unfortunetly thought primary education is said to be free in Uganda, the truth seems to be that the people need to pay for most of staff there.
So as i was saying , we went to Jinja. Jinija is the second large city in Uganda. It's located at shore of Victoria Lake near the source of the White Nile. We were stopping there once a week at 2friends restaurant for eating dinner and catching internet. I was also walking around there quite alot but most of the streets look same. There is main street where are most of the shops with souvenirs - and there are alot of them with loads of handmade staff and paintings. The street finishes with post office where you can send staff but you cannot really buy there postcards or anything like this. Only airtime for phones. As it comes to phones - in Uganda nearly everybody has their mobiles, otherwise you would not exist in the community even thought it's extra cost.
Over Jinja there are big flying birds called Marabuts. You might say they are equivalent for Cracows pigeons but they are alot bigger, havin like 1,5m of height and wide of wings up to 3m! They are eating trashes there and there is really alot of them.
In jinja i met with other common type of transport called "Matatu", it's nothing different then bus but interesting thing about them is that in crew there is driver and manager of it who is responsible for catching people. He is just running around or yelling from car and invinting everybody to drive with them.
You could say that's it's traditional thing to bargain with everybody. For everything , doesnt metter if it's food, souvenire or transport. Even when you manage to set satisfactory price for transport i.e 60 000 UGX, after arrival you are being said it's 90,000 UGX and you gotta bargain from beginning.
Ah i forgot to mention the currency there. Those are ugandian shylings, 2,500 of it is around 1$. So to pay my camping i had take so much cash to i could call myself milionare for some time :)
Great thing always waiting for us at camping were lunches and dinners with oriental self made food. Fresh rolls and great dishes. Unusual thing is eating goats meat nearly all the time! I will never forget the pudding i ate there, were so amazing! Luckly i took some recipes home ;)
So back to the wave, we had pretty big water levels and we didnt need to use the rope which was actually really nice. Thought the wave had quite alot of foam and pulses becouse of it but you didnt flash that much. Really sad thing for me was that i wasn't able to catch the Club wave becouse of high water levels.
But it allowed us to catch, well i could say legendary wave - Malalu.
Malalu is great wave located one hour paddling downstream from the Hairy Lemon. It's really wide and nicely green, paddling at it was such a huge fun and pleasure, just making surfs and carving on this big green was so great. You could go also really big after catching good timing! The only thing you had to take care off was to dont get pushed to right as it was flashy there and not equal so you couldnt really surf back. We were surfing also waves like Dogs hair or Vengine.
Near river bank at Nile Special lies a village and alot of those people which live there you could call wave community members, as kids are spending whole days at wave just looking to paddle in boat, swim in life jacket or even with thruster. They are also looking to get something from you like clothes but also they ask you for job - to help you with camera, carry your boat or bring you some food.
But freestyle is only one part of visit. It's also the river running. Even thought probably the best rapids were gone as day 1 section got flooded becouse of dam that was built there in february - there is still day 2 section which i ran twice, once from kalagala and second time from beggining - Overtime as i was pushing my friends to hit superhole.
So starting from the Overtime, which is pretty easy rapid thought it's said to have nasty slide with rocks and i had to carry it as i had my carbon boat with me. So me & Thomas carried it around while Henko and James (Austrialian guy who arrived in meantime) ran it. We joined them in few moments and headed for superhole. But on the way there we seen really big snake in the water with head bigger then fist and body wide atleast 20cm ! We couldnt see how long it was but we just decided to leave it there and paddle hard to different direction.
Later we arrived to superhole where we spent hour playing. Few words about it - well it surely doesnt deserve it's name but it wasnt that terrible and i was pretty happy to play in hole after riding wave all the time.
After this we headed for next part which was place where you had to pick if you want to run Itanda, Hepoxy or Kalagala. I ran Kalagala falls at my first run - it's 6m high waterfall with huge amount of water falling. Looking scary but it's pretty good fun! Middle one is Hepoxy - which is said to be deadly one maybe not that much of technique but you just go there and it should let you go. Question is after how long time, sometimes it's 10 seconds and sometimes it's 10 minutes, and there are few big holes with this rule.
So we decided to run Intanda which actually i was planning to carry since beggining as i dont really enjoy river running that much and i dont feel too self-confident about it, but we stop before and went to watch it. It is really huge. Biggest thing i ever seen. But after thinking for some time and looking for lines it didnt look really super hard and i just had to give it a try. Our problem was that nobody of us ever seen it before not mentioning running it. But we found line easly and it looked without problems - as we thought. We wanted to start on left from the island then use jump down and kiss the pencil sharpner (which is most dangerous part of it) then run right to avoid cubin and ash tray, we even wanted to surf them on shoulders. Plan seemed great and was pretty easy line. So we picked the order that James is first Henko in middle and me 3rd.
There was one problem. We didnt see the hole behind the island. All of us Fell in it. and got knocked out at different directions. Henko to the right close to island as he only catch it for second and ran away succesfully, i got kick to middle and james to tottal left. I didnt see james anymore but i just seen this drop next to me and big hole down there which henko commented "after running and stopping in eddy i look behind my arm and see this huge pull over hole, i hope nobody fall in" - and then i fall in. I was there pretty long time fighting but water simply took away my paddle and later blocked me from doing even hand rolls so i just pull the skirt. Henko watching it from side said "that was long time, first i seen Bartoszs helmet, then paddle, then boat, but where is Bartosz?" I got out a while after my staff barely concious and Henko fished me from the eddy behind the hole as i was heading to the current leading to pencil sharpner. Well then it was just worse. I rested a bit and in panic i was freaking out as he said to let his boat or we going to get trashed together. I got sober asap and just decide to swim it as Henko was saying that i'm just loosing my strentgh there. I gave him my boots as i had a feeling that they were dragging me down, I catch the paddle and tried to paddle on the current but it was sucking me down all the time so i had to drop it and just was praying to dont fall into sharpner.
Somehow i made it by swimming really hard and had a relief but the nightmare continued. i was facing drop and huge cubin next to me, suddenly i got really smart and decided to dive and just before hitting the foam i dived as well as i could and cought the rocks on the bottom and like a hipo run on the bottom then push myself up hard and somehow made it. But there was the Ash tray next to me and it looked even more huge then previous but i dived again and in hipo style tried to survive this. I got some extra downtime as water didnt let me up for over 40 seconds but on the end i just popped up 50m downstream was completly exhausted and couldnt even get up on the rock to look for equipment but after sometime i made it and we found the paddle, in the meantime - and it was like 10 minutes James managed to fish my boat and helmet which he thought includes me so he took nice sprint to save me.
So i could say i RUN intanda ;) Literaly.
But the most amazing thing is that nothing happened to my boat, seen few scratches but no cracks, and there was so much water everywhere and i hit the rocks few times on the way but nothing happened to the boat ;)
Best summary was from local guy who was there at place we stop after this who said with big smile on his face:
THANK YOU FOR COMING INTANDA :)
Except alot of paddling we were having fire shows with fire chains, zullu swords trainings and drum nights. I can easy say it was the best trip of my life and i had so great time over there! I can recommend it to every paddler as "must be there" place. I learned alot on the wave throwing all the wave tricks but also learned alot about this culture and country. Also met many great people with who i had really great time, thanks guys!
I cant wait to come to Uganda again, I already plan to go there for five months next year after America.
Few more pictures:
What's next?
Now focusing on making movie from Uganda but also training on flatwater until the season is open again. Next stop? Probably Austria or Czech in April,
Stay in Tune!
As always, Thanks for reading
Bartosz
P. S
From Now on I promise to keep on the updates regular again. Spots and locations are coming back to live and i plan to finish few cool plans with blog :)
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