Excitment!
While our true purpose in Uganda is to save the world, we've been doing a good job of playing tourists on the weekends. Two weekends ago we went White Water Rafting on the Nile, and we visited Sipi Falls this past weekend.
Rafting was pretty awesome. While a reasonably safe activity (I promise, really), we managed to flip our raft twice and bounce five other people out at various points. Both of the other rafts flipped before us, which is especially funny considering the fact that they didn't really want to flip, and we were all for it. The 3 Class 5s and 4 or 5 Class 4s made for a wonderful day; I still can't get over how much water there is flowing down the Nile.
Also great was the Adrift campsite (Adrift being the rafting company). They have an open air bar/lounge about 100 feet above the Nile, overlooking the first rapid (a mere class 2). At night, I could see both the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper from the balcony - that's just cool.
As cool as that view was, our campsite at Sipi Falls probably beats it. The Crow's Nest overlooks the valley that the Sipi Falls run into. There are three main drops, with the largest being 90 meters (technically speaking, that's a long way down). We hired a guide who showed us around, taking us to two caves in addition to visiting the bottom of an 80m drop (quite misty).
It's easy to marvel at how much tourism potential there is for Uganda, especially when one realizes that my bill for staying in a dorm bed and eating dinner at the Crow's Nest came to about $10 US. Awesome.
Future tourist plans include backpacking, visiting a chimpaneze sancuary on an island in Lake Victoria, and possibly visiting Kenya to see the Buffalo migrations.
In related news, tourists get the best toilets and hot showers.
Rafting was pretty awesome. While a reasonably safe activity (I promise, really), we managed to flip our raft twice and bounce five other people out at various points. Both of the other rafts flipped before us, which is especially funny considering the fact that they didn't really want to flip, and we were all for it. The 3 Class 5s and 4 or 5 Class 4s made for a wonderful day; I still can't get over how much water there is flowing down the Nile.
Also great was the Adrift campsite (Adrift being the rafting company). They have an open air bar/lounge about 100 feet above the Nile, overlooking the first rapid (a mere class 2). At night, I could see both the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper from the balcony - that's just cool.
As cool as that view was, our campsite at Sipi Falls probably beats it. The Crow's Nest overlooks the valley that the Sipi Falls run into. There are three main drops, with the largest being 90 meters (technically speaking, that's a long way down). We hired a guide who showed us around, taking us to two caves in addition to visiting the bottom of an 80m drop (quite misty).
It's easy to marvel at how much tourism potential there is for Uganda, especially when one realizes that my bill for staying in a dorm bed and eating dinner at the Crow's Nest came to about $10 US. Awesome.
Future tourist plans include backpacking, visiting a chimpaneze sancuary on an island in Lake Victoria, and possibly visiting Kenya to see the Buffalo migrations.
In related news, tourists get the best toilets and hot showers.
posted by Simon at 6:43 AM
2 Comments:
You're going to see chimpanzees??? Take lots of pictures for me! I mean, for yourself to reminisce over... Glad that you seem to be having fun over there, and I hope that continues (obviously.)
Unbelievably cool that you went rafting. How's everyone in the house doing??
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