Alarms

I have spent the last two weeks house/ dog sitting for a friend of mine. It is a beautiful, five bedroom house and I loved every minute of it. My last night there however was 'interesting'.

I was lying in bed watching Scandal; house alarm on, dogs inside and downstairs, safe haven locked and I was drifting off to sleep. Suddenly I heard an alarm go of. I pause my episode, and I listen. It doesnt sound like my house- what a relief!. Earlier on in the evening the alarm went off somewhere in the compound, so I figured it was the same one.

I was wrong.

I got all comfortable again, then I heard a knock on the front door and the doorbell ring. The dogs started growling and barking. I felt sick. I tiptoed to the bathroom window so I could open it to look outside. There at the door is the askari (security guard). He asks me if everything is ok as my alarm is going off. I freak. I didnt realise it was mine. All sorts of things are going on in my mind now. The stupid thing though, is that to turn the alarm off, you need to unlock the safe haven and go downstairs where the potential danger is. Now, because the dogs are downstairs and are barking at the guy outside (and it was most likely them that set the vibration sensors off), I figured that I was ok. I asked the askari to wait by the door just incase while I grabbed a bottle of doom. At least I could blind someone if I was in danger! All was fine though. The dogs were bouncing around, no-one was inside the house and I turned the alarm off. 

I will admit though, I had trouble sleeping that night! 

Day 6: Kayaking

The only day of the whole trip that I was able to sleep in a little! It was a relatively go slow and relaxed day; late breakfast, got some reading done, and recovered from my pounding headache. We decided to head into town for a late lunch and see what Jinja was like. As we were about to leave, we found our car battery had died; so we jump started it and had to go find a garage that sold them. In and out of the streets, down some one ways the wrong way, and through some crazy matatu (mini bus taxi) drivers we eventually found a place that sold some. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted, but we didn’t have much of a choice. This whole saga unfortunately took over an hour.

We were trying to find a restaurant that overlooked the lake; somewhere peaceful and pretty, somewhere where we could order something other than burgers or wraps. I had heard of this place called Gately from a friend, so I looked for it in ‘The Eye’ magazine. The guest cottages looked out onto the lake, so I assumed that the restaurant would too. It didn’t. That didn’t matter though; we ordered stir fry and it was delicious.

We were now worried about timing, it was close to 5 and we wanted to take the kayaks out on the Nile and do some fishing. We got back in time, but decided not to worry about the fishing. My brother and I shared one and my parents the others. As we headed down to the water, we saw a group of kids having lessons. It was really sweet to watch, and the instructors were worth watching for a few minutes! Trying not to make a fool of myself (or let my brother aid in it), we paddled away from the group as quickly as possible. It was so peaceful out there. We paddled close to the shore line to see the birds and we had a bit of fun with the go pro. It was a lovely hour out on the water.

A very quiet evening it was. Although the next game was on, it was cold and I was tired. It was a long drive in the morning to get back to Nairobi, and seeing as I was driving, I thought I had better get some sleep!

Day 5: Rafting & Boozing

The Rafting...

Today I faced one of my fears; White Water Rafting. When this trip to Uganda was being planned, I swore that I was not going to get on the raft due to the fact I was totally and incomprehensibly terrified. I used to love being in the river and in the sea, then, all of a sudden I became afraid of the water; of the currents I guess and how powerful it is was. I think it might have something to do with the Tsunami. I wasn’t directly affected by it; I was at the Kenyan coast when it hit but I gained this huge amount of respect for the water and how much damage it can inflict. A couple of weeks ago, my friend in Australia posted something that inspired me. She said that life is about conquering your fears and for the rest of this year, she would tackle something that she was afraid of. When I read her posting, I booked myself for the rafting.

I was nervous when we got onto the red truck that was taking us to the ‘base camp’ where they would brief us, give us a light breakfast and sort us out with helmets and life jackets. I was trying my hardest to think of all the positive things that people have said about rafting.

Ian arrived on the shuttle from Entebbe only a few minutes after us. He was bubbling with excitement, ready to capture all of our faces on his go-pro (which he attached to his helmet). Mum and I were quiet, nervous and unsure. My brother was in his element, and very excited to get in the water. Finally, the time had come and we made our way on the truck to the entry point. There was a guy sitting in front of me on the bus who I had briefly spoken to at the base camp. He was intending on river boarding down the Nile- mad if you asked me (although he loves it!). He was calm and collected and I’m sure bursting with excitement. We reached the spot. I think I had a minor heart attack.

On the banks of the river, the guides were explaining to us the rules and what we must do. As I was sat listening to him, I felt like I was turning pale and I had that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was terrified. I was questioning my own sanity and why I would want to do something that scared me so much.  It was time to get into our rafts.

The instructor on our raft was showing us how we must paddle, what we must do when we approach a rapid and explaining to us what we must do if we flip. He asked if we wanted to do trial flip, but mum was adamant that she didn’t want to get wet.We started paddling, and as I heard the rapid I panicked. I looked to the shore and wondered if they would take me back. I didn’t say anything, but my family saw the terror in my face. I was focusing on my breathing and going over in my mind what I needed to do. I could see the rapid. “Forward paddle... hard forward paddle... get down” our guide shouted as we went over the drop of the first rapid.

I closed my eyes; I didn’t want to see the rushing water. I could feel my foot slip under the seat and hit something as we landed. My heart was in my mouth. We made it- one down! Once we were out of the rapid and back on the calm water, I looked down. My foot was blue and turning black. The instant bruise was incredible. At that point I couldn’t feel anything, my adrenaline was pumping and I was in shock. Of course it would be me that would get hurt!! As I calmed down, it started to throb and amazingly the colour started to disappear. We then approached the next rapid. It was fine, no drops, and again I had my eyes closed! I then received injury number two and sliced the side of my baby toe open.  What else can happen? We had two more rapids to go before we called it a day. As we neared rapid 3, our guide asked us what level of difficulty we would prefer. Mum and I shouted "easy" but we were outvoted. Medium it was, with a 50-50 chance of tipping. 

Eyes tightly closed, crouched down in the raft as we hit the rapid, and the next minute I am in the water gasping for air. I didn’t see us flip, I don’t even remember it happening; one moment I was in the raft, the next minute I was in the water.  It all happened so quickly, and I know that I bumped into someone.  As I came up for air, coughing and spluttering, I felt the back of my lifejacket tug. I had a moment of panic as I thought I was caught on a rock and being pulled down, until I heard my name. It was the guide who had grabbed me and was pulling me back to the raft.  Once back on the raft and out of the water I breathed a sigh of relief. I had survived the flip. One more to go. The last was a level 6; therefore we had to get onto to the shore and walk around it, and only join up the last section of it (thankfully!). The river boarder wanted to go down it, but he too was made to walk around. I cannot describe to you the relief I felt as we completed the last one, and made our way out. The whole experience was not as bad as I had imagined it to be, I was glad to have faced and survived one of my fears, but I don’t think I will be going down any rapids any time soon!

                                            * Photos courtesy of Nile River Explorers*

Booze Cruise...

This is exactly what it sounds like and it was bloody amazing.  We had paid for ½ day rafting and the cruise, so once on board it was an open bar. We all decided to make the most of this and began with our gins and bitter lemons immediately. There were some lovely people on there; the group of Aussies from the overlander truck, a couple from America/ China and a couple from Cape Town (the boyfriend went to Stellenbosch and stayed in Academia, and the girlfriend was studying at UCT).  Music was playing, snacks were provided, and the company was great. The cruise was about 2 hours long and by the time we got back we were all pretty sloshed! More drinking and sambuka shots followed suit. It was a great fun evening, but due to my total intoxication I missed the Brazil-Germany game (but with the total walkover it was probably for the best!).

Day 4: Drive to Jinja

Another day of driving... All of us were exhausted from yesterday’s adventures; we certainly slept well, and now we were headed for our next one. We managed to get going by 8.30 am, and hoped we would be in Jinja before it got dark. Estimated drive time was 8-10 hours. This time, my brother drove most of the way and managed to get himself stopped by the cops twice for speeding! The police however were very understanding when we said we were from Kenya, and they let us off. They didn’t ask for a bribe and they weren’t nasty. They were so professional and I was so impressed with them!

We were making relatively good time, and had a quick stop at the same place in Masaka for some more samosas. Due to the traffic congestion in Kampala, we were advised to use the Northern Bi-pass to avoid it. We got most of the way there, and then instead of listening to what we were told, we followed our noses. This didn’t bring us out as far as we hoped, so we turned off elsewhere and added on an hour to the journey.

As the sun was setting we crossed over the Nile into Jinja and made our way to where we were staying: Nile River Explorers. Driving in, there were 3 overland trucks and tons of people! I knew immediately that this was going to be a very social next couple of days. So we sorted ourselves out, got our room keys and headed straight for the bar and ordered a Nile Special beer. 

The camp was situated on the banks of the Nile, and the view was spectacular. The outside area overlooked it, and it was such a perfect location. We grabbed a bench and sat down. At the end of the table was a girl sitting by herself. Naturally, we got chatting and she was lovely. She is from Germany and had been working on a yacht, which is where she met her boyfriend from Cape Town. He joined us and we had a good jol. We spent most of the evening with them, and another friend of theirs who happened to be friends with my brother’s friend (small world!).

It wasn’t too late a night though as were going rafting in the morning!

Day 3: The Gorillas

I didn’t even need an alarm clock today. The excitement was consuming me and I felt like I was on a high.  We had to be at the base camp at 8.00 am for a briefing, which meant a very early breakfast of banana pancakes (or their version of anyway!).  We climbed in the car and headed to our briefing spot which was about 10 minutes drive away. Some of the staff were hurrying us up because we were running late; I’m pretty sure that they would have used a stick to point at us and hurry as along if they deemed it appropriate.

We were late, just, and the briefing had already started. We tried to creep up to the large group of people as inconspicuously as possible. I don’t think we missed anything too vital! After the talk we were divided into groups of 8 that would be tracking different groups of Gorillas. Our guide was called Wilbur and the rest of our group were German. Our Gorilla group was called Busingye. We had a 40 minute drive before we stopped, grabbed some hiking sticks and started the ascent up a very high hill.

We hadn’t even reached the forest when the group in front of us, suddenly turned left and were walking down into the valley. We stood there, craning our necks to see why, and there, at the bottom in clear plain sight were gorillas!! We were a bit too far away to get photos of them, but we knew that our turn was coming.

The scenery was exquisite and the rainforest was just beautiful with endless, lush thick trees. It reminded me of the Aberdares in Kenya.  We hiked for possibly three or so hours when all of a sudden we turned off our path and were walking amongst the thick vegetation. Our guide had a panga (a machete, or large knife) which he was using to create a pathway. Wilbur stopped us and informed us the trackers had found our group of Gorillas, and we should be with them shortly. We had to leave our backpacks and sticks with the porters whilst we started to go downhill on a nonexistent path. We weren’t allowed food or water near the gorillas and the sticks would scare them.

Not that much longer afterwards, we all stopped because at the top of the tree was one of our gorillas. He was quite high up, and the sun was right behind him that at this point pictures were difficult to get, but we tried anyway. We admired him for a few minutes before ‘crash, bang’ and there he was in front of us, jumping down the tree and running away. We all naturally started following him (the trackers and rangers in the lead). After some tricky and slippery sections, there we were, amongst our group who were now happily sitting in the trees eating the fruit. We all made ourselves comfortable and took hundreds of photographs. The big, older male was closet to us, being 250 kilos and not afraid to show us. He stood as big and high as he could on the branch, to ensure he had his moment of fame before he started eating again. The female and babies were in the other tree, slightly further away and I think they needed to slow down on the fruit- far too much wind! It was like the brass group were performing a piece of music to us!

Big Boy

Needing to hold on with his foot

It was surreal being so close to a Gorilla and they being so peaceful towards us. I didn’t feel scared or threatened; only excited as I sat there admiring them. I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t get closer to them and I had certain expectations of them; I had assumed that they would be much bigger. Nevertheless, we had 45 minutes with them before we started to head back (thankfully not the way we came). Once out of the forest and up the final hill we sat down for a short lunch before we made our way to the cars.

 It was an amazing adventure that I would highly recommend to anyone. Congo, Rwanda and Uganda all have Gorillas, but from what I understand, Uganda has the most. We went through a company called African Adventures Safaris whose website is www.ugandagorillatour.com. I would certainly recommend them for the service that they gave us.

The Video...