Day 5- The River Run
The Polish talked me into running the river today. This entailed, calling a Boda Boda ahead of time(I will explain soon), paddling up river to Nile Special, taking a Boda Boda 30 minutes to Super Hole and paddling back to the Hairy Lemon.
After breakfast we got ready and paddled over. The boda boda drivers were waiting for us. So, a boda boda, think 80s old school motorbike with relatively good shocks, for Africa, add in there holding onto a boat and paddle while trying not to fall off the back on dirt trails, with the motorbike being driven by a very nice local man. We paid 10,000 Shillings for this ride to the put-in, that accounts for about $3.50, I am a millionaire, in Uganda.
Welcome to African road travel.
After struggling to not fall off of the motorcycle for thirty minutes we made it to the put in where we are surrounded by small children asking to carry our boats for us, for a few Shillings. I let a nice one standing in the back, not being too greedy, carry mine and I gave a 200 Shilling piece, thats worth precisely .07 cents. The children here are not rude, they are poor, they will work for money, they will do anything for a few cents. They also know how to say a few phrases, “How are you?” is a popular one, I love it, they say this and you ask them the same thing, but they don’t know what else to say after so they just repeat it over and over again. Seeing places like this makes me realize how lucky we are in the United States, these kids get excited about .07 cents, in present day America any normal 10 year old is asking for a new iPad.
The river was fun, we stayed at a small hole called Super Hole for a few hours and worked on a couple of tricks, I was trying left clean blunts and back bunts. The whole river run is awesome for catch on the fly waves called Virgin Wave and Khula Shaker, amongst multiple others. The Itunda rapid is known for being one of the bigger ones on the river. There are 5 (or more) slightly terminal holes on the rapid and it’s huge. I have run bigger rapids but I knew that if I ran it, it was going to be for the wrong reasons so I checked my ego at the door and walked the rapid, while closely scouting. There are a few more rapids on the run that were really fun and massive wave trains.
No big storms today, it was hot all day with some cloud cover mid day. Let’s see what tomorrow brings!!