The Source of the Nile

Jinja is where the Nile is marked as beginning its long 3 month journey through Uganda, Sudan and Egypt, finally flowing out approximately 4000 miles later, into the Meditteranean sea.
What would a tour to Uganda be without a trip to the source of this great river? So of course, I had to go! The drive itself provides for fantastic scenery as you head through the outskirts of Kampala into the tea and coffee crops and then through some jungle.
We ended up spending two days in Jinja. Bujagali falls and the area surrounding it is also very scenic. The day we were there it was overcast, so perhaps I will need to make another visit on a nice sunny day (like the day I left Uganda… grrr). Bujagali falls was small but good, but nowhere near as impressive as Murchison Falls.

Did some quad biking the first day, that was pretty cool driving past the locals flicking them with mud… Actually it was only one woman and the kids who were asking for money that we deliberately did it to! Most people were pretty friendly, waving as we went past. I guess if i had quad bikes coming through my village all the time it would begin to test my patience, but they all loved it. Except that one lady. And I promise, Mike didn’t mean to splash mud all over the clean washing (and to answer your next question – no, the woman waving her finger was not the owner of the washing!).

Saw the source of the Nile from the east side, opposite the place where Speke stood and proclaimed the source of the Nile. Of course the Ugandans want money to go and see it. Although my tip – there’s a fantastic little area where you can look out at it before you pay the money. You just have to climb some dodgy old concrete pylons there and get past the overgrown weeds and the view of the surrounding basin is more than worth the short scramble.

Also went white water rafting, that was pretty cool. Boat flipped twice, got rescued by the kayak once, and we carried all the boats past the grade 6 rapid. Grade 5 is the hardest they let you do and we actually flipped on a grade 3 and 4 rapid. I don’t think we had a strong paddling boat either, so probably another reason we flipped pretty easily! Got a few good bruises from the paddle colliding with the arm while going over the rapids, but all good. We rafted over Bujagali falls so that gives a bit of an indication of their size. And a special mention goes to Shirley who gave rafting the grade 5 rapids a go – and came out alive. I’ve spoken to others about her age who said there’s no way they’d ever do that! Way to go Shirley! We finished off the rafting with a bbq, those kebabs were delicious!