Don't look down!!!

Hello again…so as you may already know, Sarah and I recently took a little trip to Uganda over the New Years for a short vacation getaway.  The schedule – raft the one and only Nile River and then bungee jump over it.  The trip was great and unfortunate it wasn’t longer.  But, we did have a great time.  The trip started off a little odd though.

 

The day before our departure we had to book our seats and I was given a choice of every seat since nobody else had yet booked.  I asked the man working the booth if there were any seats that had more leg room than the others as Sarah and I are both very tall.  He assured me that every seat had the same amount of leg room.  We left Kigali around 5:30 in the morning which would put us reaching Kampala around 3 in the afternoon or so.  And, when we boarded the bus and sat down, I couldn’t help but notice that I had picked the two worst seats in the bus.  I mean, I couldn’t even put my legs in front of me.  They had to be up on the back of the other seat, over on Sarah or out in the isle which is what happened most of the trip. 

 

The other interesting thing is that my bladder just decided to stop doing its job and didn’t want to store anything.  So, not 10 minutes after we left, I had to pee like none other.  Unfortunately the Uganda/Rwanda border was only little over an hour drive.  Once we reached the border, I in a very quick manner showed myself to the restroom…or room with a small trench in the floor that everyone shared.  Also, just to be safe, I used the restroom again on the Ugandan side of the border before we left for the remaining 6 hours of driving.  It seems that day my bladder was dysfunctional because not 10 minutes after leaving the border I had to go again and there was no stopping for quite some time…not to mention the roads in these parts are not the smoothest.  I began looking for every opportunity to get out and go but the bus never stopped.  Finally a few hours later the bus stopped to let people get some food.  I ran out and asked where I could use the bathroom and some locals pointed in one direction.  As I walked over to that direction I saw nothing but the front yard of somebody’s house.  At this point…there was no stopping it…something had to come out or I was going to spontaneously combust.  Luckily I found some tall grass measuring about 3 feet wide by 4 feet tall…I’ll take it.  I am pretty sure that day…some local Ugandans got to know this tall skinny white boy more than they wanted to but to be honest with you…I didn’t care.  Sadly, there was another instance like this a few hours later but in situations like this, pride just seems to go out the window. 

 

Anyway, we made it safely to Uganda later that day.  The next day on New Year’s Eve, we joined a group of about 25 others for a day of rafting on the Nile.  Sarah and I were the only other Americans besides one other couple.  Everyone else seemed to be from Europe.  I never new the Nile had such huge powerful rapids.  We hit several class 5 rapids that day and ended up out of the boat, floating down the river in the rapids many times…but every second of it was amazing.  There were even several class 6 rapids that are illegal for companies to take people down…something about people dying and what not.  There was even a point when we all got out of our boats, walked around a humongous class 6 rapid and then put the boat back in on the smaller class 5 end of the rapid.  It was an exhilarating and action packed day.  That night we stayed at the campsite in the dorm rooms the rafting company owns.  It seems that the bed bugs particularly enjoyed my skin that night because the next morning, New Year’s Day, I had well over 100 bites up and down my arms and down my back.  Fortunately, I don’t seem to itch at all with the bug bites here so it didn’t bother me one bit.  As of today, they are all finally gone.  Anyway, we also did the bungee jump the next day which was pretty amazing…145 feet suspended over the Nile River…what a feeling.  I once again found myself asking the question right before I jumped, what is it inside of us that makes us want to do these crazy things?  Anyway, I am glad I did it and I would recommend this trip for anyone visiting East Africa. 

 

Later that night, we hopped on the midnight bus back to Kigali and 10 hours later, we were back in Rwanda.  All in all…great trip…just a little too short.  Next time I think we will have to make it a little longer.