Jinja/The Source of the Nile

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I today I met up with Thanasis and Rachel to hop on a taxi and go to the town of Jinja. Jinja is a small town about 1.5-2 hours away from Kampala along Lake Victoria where they say the Nile River starts. Most of the interns had already been there when they went white water rafting so we thought that we should just go on our own and see it. We went to the taxi park and finally found one that was leaving for Jinja. It was a little bit harder bargaining for such a large distance. After a while the lowest price that they would finally accept was 4,000 shillings. We got on the taxi and headed out. In the beginning there were only a couple of us in the taxi so I was able to take a short video although I'm not sure if I'll be able to load it up or not though. In the video it's just the taxi driving down the road to get more people because they usually won't leave until they are full.

On the taxi ride we passed through a small town where we were all of a sudden bombarded by a group of people trying to sell stuff. They ran into the road and surrounded the taxi. The taxi had to stop and at every window there was at least 5 people trying to sell something whether it be soda, bananas, meat. It was absolutely nuts. After about 5-10 minutes we started to leave and get back on the road. As we were getting on the road it was funny to watch all of the other taxis get swarmed by this group of people. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it. I still feel a bit awkward taking out my camera in public especially in taxis.

After changing taxis we finally arrived in the town of Jinja without any knowledge of the town or where we needed to go for the source of the Nile. We asked around and eventually heard that we needed to take a Boda Boda (motorcycle taxi) and it would cost 1,000 shillings. We went up to the group of Bodas and told them that we needed two, one for two people and one for one person. Instead of 1,000 shillings per boda (which would be logical). We thought rather than one boda getting 1,000 and the other getting 2,000 shillings it would be better to spread the wealth and we would each take our own boda.

It didn't take very long from Jinja but finally got to the "Source of the Nile" which was actually a little bit of a tourist set up which is a bit strange for Uganda. Tourism hasn't really developed here so to see anything touristy is out of the ordinary. We had to pay 10,000 shillings to get into the area and then we had to walk down to the river. It was nice to get out of the city and see the river. On the way down to the river we saw little tourist shacks where you could buy souvenirs and Ugandan crafts. We bought some nuts to eat and then we just sat down and hung out by the river. It was pretty crazy to think that I was looking at the Nile River. If I were to build a raft and float down (well up) the river it would take 3 months before you'd get to the Mediterranean Sea.

There was the option to take a boat out along the river and to Lake Victoria but we opted against it because it was very expensive and we didn't feel like doing the typical tourist thing. Instead we just walked around the river bank.

After we had felt that we spent enough time at the Nile we walked back to the town. It wasn't too far of a Boda ride and we remembered the way so we thought it would be more enjoyable to walk. After about 20-30 mins we got to town and strolled the streets to get a feel for it. We went through the markets and passed by different shops. One difference between Jinja and Kampala was that we weren't really hassled that much by people. Nobody really cared or payed much attention to our being there. Normally when you're walking in Kampala you have people shouting "Mzungu!" "Hey mzungu! How are you?". Here we could walk in peace. We settled at a small restaurant for a beer and it was then that for the first time in Jinja we heard someone call us mzungu. It was two little boys sitting on the street near our table. They were just having fun though and wanted to talk a bit. They saw Rachel's lighter and became a bit intrigued and asked for it.
(for some reason it cut off the blog there so I added this in later).
We decided to give it to them since it doesn't cost us much and it would give them lots of entertainment. Then as I saw them using it I thought giving a lighter to small children isn't the best idea in the world but oh well, what's done is done.

We asked the waitress where we could find a taxi to Kampala and made our way back home. Not before getting stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. It was actually so bad that cars, our taxi included, started to drive on the dirt edge of the road. I wouldn't have minded so much if my head didn't hit the ceiling every time we hit a bump, which was often.

We finally got to the Nakawa taxi park, went to MUBS to use the internet and then headed back to the hostel.

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