May 22, 2009

And now for something completely different...


Last week we took some time off & went to a small town called Jinja ["Ginger"] - about 2hrs drive east of Kampala. Jinja is on the banks of the White Nile River - which joins with the other Nile branches to eventually form THE Nile. The segment of river in this area is world famous for it's white-water rafting and kayaking - a big tourist attraction in Uganda.

Upon visiting beautiful Bujagali ["Boo-jar-gar-lee"] Falls, we saw something incredible - locals going through the rapids holding onto nothing but a 20 litre (5 gallon) jerry can! It turns out that these guys are not only crazy, this is their career - tourists pay them to do it! They grew up on the river and have worked their way up to negotiating Class 5* rapids like this one (called "Overtime").

Not to be out-done, see Simon perform his own matching daredevil feat - something he's always wanted to do (and unlike the jerry can guys, will most likely never do again!)

*Appendix: Whitewater rapids are classified according to their degree of danger or difficulty - Class 1 to 6. Class 6 rapids are considered to be so dangerous as to be effectively unnavigable on a reliably safe basis. Read here for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafting

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