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Published: September 2nd 2010
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Taking the Lilo down the Nile Special rapid
Taking the Lilo down the Nile Special rapid So after the last blog entry I left off at James and his injured back and our plans for Kenya....
Choosing to go to eastern Kenya for a relaxed time and recovery sounded very much like a good idea, however what we had not really planned for was the 25 hours on a bus from Jinja that felt more like a roller coaster than a mode of transport. This kind of journey can be quite fun when your in the mood for it, but when you and your slightly crippled friend are being thrown a few feet in the air every couple of minutes 25 hours takes a loooong time.
We arrived in Mombassa early, which was a pretty cool city with lots of crazy sounds and smells. We then jumped on various modes of transport down to Diani beach in south east Kenya. Diani is beautiful but being a heavily touristed area meant that it was so frustrating to do anything. 'Beach boys' as they are known as would come up to regardless of what your are doing, even sleeping on the beach, and offer you boat trips, kite surfing or tell you that they are bush doctors
Bungee jump
The bungee jump into the Nile and then offer you various herbs. Bloody annoying. Regardless of them it was still wicked. We were lucky enough to be there for full moon and it was honestly the brightest moonscape I have ever seen, we could walk along the beach and see perfectly.
After Diani we headed to Lamu via Malindi. Once again we jumped on a bus with horrific suspension and endured the Kenyan roads. We'd been told that Lamu was an absolute paradise, a smaller more untouched version of Zanzibar (our original destination before we got poor). Upon arriving I really believed it, everyone was just being so nice. We met a guy as we got off the ferry called Omar Sharrif, which we found quite funny, who showed us round the town which is essentially tiny little roads amongst old tall buildings, it reminded me very much of a coastal African version of Varanassi. The whole place just seemed like it was stuck in the 19th century, people still used donkeys and old sailing boats for transport and many wore the traditional African Muslim outfit. Once we found ourselves a nice and over-priced guesthouse Omar Sharrif told us that he just so happened to
Itanda falls
Itanda falls have 3 Swedish girls who had signed up for a dow trip (sailing boat thing where you go fishing and explore the islands) and he could offer us a good price thanks to them paying over the odds. We agreed on a price and went for an explore. As we were walking around getting lost and just trying to enjoy the place people kept coming up to us, welcoming us to paradise, having a quite chat and then, surprise surprise, telling us that they too had a group of Swedish girls who had asked them to find more people for company. Bla bla bla long story short, Lamu is rubbish, we never met any Swedish people and never went on a fishing boat. James got better and we went back to Uganda for some more Kayaking.
We got back to Jinja at stupid o'clock in the morning jumped on bodas to the Hairy Lemon, grabbed our kayaks, headed back and met up with the Edinburgh uni group who were headed downstream with the intention of running Itanda falls. Itanda falls is one of the biggest rapids on the rivers with the exception of 3; widow-maker, hypoxia and dead-dutchman, all
James after his mishap above itanda
James after his mishap above Itanda of which i have no interest in running. We paddled down the day one section and managed to catch up with one of the rafting companys trips, but couldn't find anyone who would be willing to show us down the rapid, so James Dom Andrew and myself headed off in between islands looking for what looked like the correct lead in to Itanda. Dom was at the front and gave everyone a huge scare when he dropped out of sight for a second or two, then being thrown backwards and upside down by the water, re-appearing in our sight a few seconds later. He signaled us down so Andrew followed. Same thing. Me and James absolutely terrorfied, knowing what was just 50 metres downstream paddled off the drop no worries, and saw Andrew covered in blood. Fortunately it was just a bit of skin off his knuckled as he was back-looped off the drop but enough to keep us on edge. By this time we had some kind of idea where we were in the rapid and paddled over to an eddy (still bit of water) above the main chunk of the rapid. From there we figured out where we should go by signaling tour friends on the bank. One very very very long minute later we all paddled down it, all of us flipping at one point but nothing too bad. Itanda falls is the coolest rapid I have ever done....ever....by a long way, its such a rush paddling as hard as you can dodging some of the most gnarley looking waves and stoppers on 1/4 mile of rapid.
Whilst Itanda was the biggest rapid we've done so far the biggest frights have come on much smaller features. One day myself and James were showing the Edinburgh uni lot down one of the lesser run rapids called Jungle Book. Just before we went down we explained to them that we'd done it before fine and its just fun "small volume read and run." Turns out we didn't notice the river was a good 3 or 4 foot higher than last time and when we started paddling down what was an easy little drop had turned into a massive wave/hole/mess. I flipped on it and took an absolute battering to my shoulder whilst going down the rapid upside down. I kept trying to roll and kept failing, and then when the rapid was over and I did finally get upright i realised it was because I only had one blade on my paddles rather than two. I then had to negotiate the next feature, which was the last and biggest wave on Silverback. My last visual is James paddling into the wave, getting picked up by it and slammed back down into the water. I went into it with just the one blade and took quite a kicking, couldn't quite breath and decided to swallow my pride and pop my deck and take a swim- the ultimate no no for kayakers.
James also had a nice little epic, just the other day. We were paddling down with a pretty crazy but bloody good boater called Anton and he talked us into doing the 'man line' of Itanda falls. It consisted of going river right over what looks like 100% death. As we were paddling down the actual correct intro rapid before it James got flipped, did about 5-10 meters upside down, and then when he rolled up got pinned horizontally facing downstream. This was no more than 15 meters above the main drop at the top of Itanda. Needless to say he wasn't too pleased about the whole situation. After maybe 15-30 seconds he freed himself and paddled down to us. We then went on to paddle Itanda just fine, but as soon as we finished and the adrenaline wore off James realised he couldn't even lift his arm above the height of his shoulder. No worries though, he's all good now and he is now the proud owner of a man scar.
A few other things have happened, James Dom and Andrew did the silverback section on a lilo, we turned the ramp James hurt his back on into a massive slip and slide (we are all still bearing the cuts and bruises), the other night we went for a paddle in the full moon at 1am, we rented a raft, and two of our mates rented a tandem kayak and, as far as we are aware, did the first decent of Kalagala falls in a duo and did Itanda a few more times, and watched 3 people have a swim down it at various points...
Thats all for now folks, I would write more but I want to go paddling now....
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