Eden Rock and Jinja

Friday afternoon saw us land in Entebbe. Friday evening after battling through Kampala "rush hour" traffic saw us in Bujagali just beneath the source of the Nile and settling into Eden Rock; our home from home.

Home was a banda just longer than a double bed, just wider than one too; with a small verandah with some cane chairs and a low palm leaf covered roof that many geckos and others called home. I have yet to identify the creature that excretes a thick tar-like substance that had flowed down the inside of the roof and was on the verge of starting a stalacmite! If is was a gecko, and the flow was recycled mossies, then carry on!

The "en suite" was a tap, a flush loo and a vinyl floor. Showers were had in the communal ablutions block.

With volunteering with Softpower (see other blog entry) only starting on Monday, we had the weekend to get settled and go exploring.

Eden Rock is the quiet African run country-type cousin - www.edenrocknile.com - to the hip, swish and happening city-type cousin that was Nile River Explorers - www.raftafrica.com - just down the road. Those after a little bit of quiet away from overland trucks and all night parties headed to Eden Rock. ER was set a little further back from the Nile so it had no view. But it was set in a big, beautiful and pleasant garden. NRE was right above the river and had a fantastic swimming "hole" right below the bar. But NRE also had rats in the dorms. ER was an oasis of calm and peace compared to NRE! But NRE's social scene was a helleva lot better. Except on a Sunday when we watched the Sunday night movie on South Africa's satelite station. NRE's food came out 15 minutes after you ordered! At Eden Rock you had to order, at least, 90 minutes before you wanted to eat. Even then, it was not enough time for the staff to get organised.

Between the two, was the very small village of no name, but where enterprising Ugandans has set up amongst others, a restaurant, two fast chapati stores, some curio stores and an artist's studio and gallery. The chapatis were cheap and filling and delicious. They seemed to also be a staple in the nearby town of Jinja (pronounced Ginger). I was surprised to hear that Jinja was Uganda's second or third biggest town. It seemed like anything but the second biggest town. You could walk across the whole thing in about 30min and that was down the only main street! Take a small town near you, put a massive lake nearby, put a massive river near it, Africanise the town, paint the buildings gaudy colours, have too many boda-boda drivers hanging around and the ever present beep, honk, tooting of minibus horns. Add huge white fluffy billowing thunderclouds overhead. And that is pretty much Jinja. Oh yes, the rain ensures that it is perpetually green and lush. Humid too!

It was here that we came after school or on the weekends when we were in town and needed something. From NRE's main deck, and down the road from Eden Rock were the famous Bujagali Falls. The falls are more a series of grade 5 rapids and present the first sizeable obstacle since coming through the Owen Falls Dam a little higher upstream. It is also the place that non-rafters can come and watch the rafts and safety kayaks launch down the rapids. One of the channels that the guides used was literally only 5m from where you stood on the shore. Rafters come to have fun and the safety kayakers come to show off to each other! Here is home to the Bujagali Swimmers Club. I only ever saw two members swin into the river above the main rapids with nothing but his costume, a 25litre jerry can and testicles the size of church bells! Did he do it for money? I don't know, but I was well impressed and he didn't ask me for money!

If we were not heading out of town after a week at the school (see other blog entries describing life at school), then it was back to ER, NRE and Bujagali for the weekend. With a whole-lot-of-not-a lot-planned, we washed, beered, read and ate, swam in the water hole and slept. Painting a school 5 days a week can take it out of you. But playing with the kids is just something else!