Various meals, Explorers River Camp, Bujagali

A couple of weeks after my tumble from the boda it was time for the monthly Mountain Club of Uganda (MCU) / Kayak the Nile (KTN) beginners kayak session. Since I missed last month’s session due to my undiagnosed malaria, I was determined to give it a whirl despite my left wrist still giving me considerable grief. I had a lot of strength back and most of my movement didn’t cause too much pain. I shouldn’t have gone for it, but I can be a stubborn idiot at times.

Arrangements sorted I went for a ridiculously early morning boda ride in order to get the free shuttle bus leaving Oasis mall at 7.15am. We set off from Red Chillies at 7.45am, not the driver’s fault. The rest of the journey was full of minor annoyances and I arrived at the Explorer’s camp with one other person at about 10.45am. Lessons were supposed to start at 9.30am. I managed to have a couple of apples and a scone (soft sweet bread / cake things, not like scones in the UK) for breakfast.

Not like this

On to the lessons first things first were to get a snazzy spray deck, personal flotation device, paddle and a helmet. That done I was to try out one of the kayaks. These things are small and after a brief adjustment of the foot rests I was good to go. There were five us in total on the beginner’s day and we headed down to the dock so we could go for a paddle on the flat pool at Bujagali. I got in the boat, attached the deck and slid in the water.

Shit, was my immediate thought. This little boat was all over the place as I shifted my, not inconsiderable, weight around. I can imagine when you know what you’re doing that you’ll be able to take advantage of the maneuverability, but not in my scared state. We did a bit of a paddle waiting for everyone to get set with my straight line becoming a very wavy one as I was continuously trying to go round in circles.

Still it got a bit better and we went for a bit of a paddle learned a few basics and practiced exiting the boat if we were to tip. It’s a wonderfully unnatural experience purposefully capsizing a boat you’re nice and secure in. Still we did it, popped the deck and were flushed out of the boat by the release in pressure. The next step was pretty tricky for me as the newly righted and drained boat had to be unceremoniously mounted by me to try and get back in the cockpit, our guides doing their best to hold the boat in place. If you’ve ever seen a walrus getting out of the water to get on some bit of land or ice you get the picture.

Almost as old as the internet

Next up was a T-rescue, I failed somewhere on the core concept of using someone else’s boat to right yourself when upside down. Sadly due to lack of time I didn’t get to try again. It was time for lunch so I struggled back to the dock and we had a fairly lacklustre ham and cheese wrap, glucose biscuits, banana and a mango fruit box. Not great 1.5 out of 5. After lunch we set off in a van with all our gear to move down the river to see a bit of white water.

Pic representative

After a while the usual sight of kids waving at us from the side of track stopped and we saw them running alongside and soon way in front of our vehicle. Fairly obviously they were haring ahead to get a good spot with which to be chosen to carry a kayak down to the river, for a fee of course. Child labour in all its glory, can’t beat a bit of Western exploitation. There was some pointless hand wringing from a couple of our party.

We got back in to our kayaks just after the fairly new and impressive hydro-electric power station dam. I believe we export electricity to Kenya, all I know is that it increasingly rarely manages to make it all the way down to my flat in Kampala. I've started calculating how often I have water and / or electricity. 1 point for if each is working, so a maximum of 2 points a day for those glorious days when I have water and leccy. Over the last 6 weeks I'm running at an average of 1.12 per day.

We swiftly headed in to a bit of current and then in to an eddy to learn how to re-join the current. I went second and despite doing what I thought was the right thing saw everything go pear shaped and I was upside down about to go for a swim. The boat and I were in some reasonably fast current so it was a race to get me back in. There was increasing panic in my guides voice as I struggled to mount my boat as we were rapidly nearing the rapids (I know I should change that, but I couldn’t resist). Panic over with I was back in and long way from everyone else.

Since we were so close to the grade 3 rapids, Jaws, my guide said we could go straight down or wait for the others if I was scared. Now irrespective of whether or not I was scared I wasn’t going to stand for it. So we went for it. I got over the first few waves without too much of a problem then at the last wave got hit at the side and front at the same time and was upside down again. I popped out of the boat whilst keeping hold of it and rendezvoused with the guide to right it and drain it of water.

We were still in fairly rapid currents when the boat went for a wander. I was holding on to the safety kayak with my dodgy left arm so when he powerfully tried to go after it against the current, I ended up going with the more powerful current instead, still with my paddle though. At one point a local boatmen looked like he might come to my aid as my guide tried to get to my boat whilst I quite quickly went down the Nile.

I was then informed by a bunch of shouts that we were coming up to some more rapids so I had to assume the position, legs up, facing forward holding the paddle so as not to get trapped on any rocks. Thankfully I’m pretty comfortable ‘swimming’, but my guide didn’t share my confidence in his voice. Eventually I emerged in to some calmer and slightly less fast moving water were we hooked up again to be taken to a rock on the side of the bank whilst he went for my boat which was being knocked around in the same place.

After about 15 minutes it freed itself and I was reunited with my tiny boat. Not long after getting back in the rest of the group emerged minus two paddles. We then went to the take out point a couple of kilometres away. Looking back at the map later I must have swam for about three quarters of our 8 km journey. By the time we were at the other end it was bucketing it down. The weather had been fairly rubbish all day and I was thankful of a cold beer before heading back to the camp for a hot shower.

Sadly there was no hot water available so I had to rely on the towel for a bit of warmth before getting in to some fresh clothes. I met up with one of my fellow paddlers, the rest were staying somewhere else, and a bunch of more experienced kayakers. Absolutely ravenous I went for the Bacon and Avocado burger again. After ordering and getting a nice cold Nile Special, I was told that something very special was going on.

On the middle table surrounded by a large crowd were two gents who had gone for the mammoth burger challenge. Apparently three of them started, but in the final minutes only two remained. It was also clear that one of the two wasn’t going to manage it, but on quite thin beardy long haired bloke seemed to be doing pretty well. Still the big buckets near to each of them didn’t augur well. I couldn’t exactly describe this as exciting viewing, it certainly wasn’t like being in the audience of Man vs. Food. Still hungry Jesus managed to polish it all off with scant seconds to spare. Sadly less than thirty seconds after that the bucket was brought in to rapid deployment. Technical failure, the worst sort of failure.

Eventually my meal came and it was pretty much the same as always no real complaints, but it’s never going to be a contender for greatest burgers. 3 out of 5. There were the usual shenanigans, such as the funnel and even the naked ninja making an appearance, but this evening we were blessed. A quite large delegation of Indian gentlemen decided to frequent the bar for reasons that will forever elude me.

Still one of their number, an older gent who looked like he was in his sixties was busting moves like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. At one point he was even dancing on a stool. How he didn’t fall off is beyond me. After several hours of entertainment it was last orders and off to my lovely tent. I had a long lie in and had American pancakes with banana and maple syrup and a massive pot of coffee for breakfast. 3 out of 5. I ended up travelling back with two relatively new arrivals from the UK who were doing an elective for a few weeks here. They had done the tandem kayaking and loved it, same as my friend a few weeks back when I went rafting. I’d have to give the tandem kayaking a go, despite my disastrous solo experience.