Kayaking the Headwaters of the Nile

OK folks, lets rewind a little, back to lovely Uganda and our kayaking adventures in Jinja at the headwaters of the Nile. The primary source of the Nile is Lake Victoria, a massive Rift Valley lake that shares borders with Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. But the real story of the modern Nile begins over 2000km North, in Egypt. Basically, Egypt's agrarian economy depends on regular and predictable flooding of the Nile delta for crop irrigation. So in the 50's the Egyptians approached the landlocked Ugandans and said, "Hey, you sorry fuckers want electricity?" and the Ugandans said, "Sure, but we're broke." So Egypt gallantly offered to finance a hydroelectric dam across the river on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria...in exchange for complete regulatory control over the dam's flow, and therefore the flow of the Nile's entire length North into Sudan and through the Egyptian delta into the Mediterranean. (For accuracy's sake we'll note that this portion of the Nile is the White Nile, with a smaller tributary, the Blue Nile, emerging from Ethiopia and joining the main in Sudan.)

Not that I really gave a shit about international hydro-politics as I thrashed drowning. The Nile, you see, is what kayakers call a 'big-volume' river. In fact, it's one of the biggest, and the premier destination for this kind of aqueous self-abuse on the planet. A renowned professional kayaker bought an island in the middle of the river so he could wake up, piss, and float out to one of the world's best big-water rapids. Size-wise, picture the Fraser River around Hope, BC, multiply its width and flow-volume by three, and add a few channels and tributaries snaking off into crocodile jungle. Oh, and add rapids. Big, big rapids that make 15-person rafts look like helpless, whirling coconut husks. The real deal.

Now, those of you who have read our Nepal kayaking posts understand my straightforward relationship with water: I fear it. Like Virgil's epic hero, I'm also in terrible awe of it; like Aeneus, I yearn to spread sacrificial blood and bull-gore on every shore, desperately invoking divine favour to save my ragged mortal ass. So you will understand my transparent bravado as I sucked tight into my kayak at the put in of this serpentine, fanged leviathan. You will understand the shrinking of my nuts into my throat, my halted breath, my desire to lie fat and stretched out on a comfy couch Somewhere Else. You will understand my envy of my lovely wife when she promptly executed an efficient roll after three months out the boat and resurfaced, giggling...while I was scanning around, eyes bloodshot, looking for a bull throat to slit. Relax Shilo, she says. I've got you, our guide Will says. Think positive. Breathe.

With this sort of flow-volume comes a new kayaking entertainment, known with classically irritating British understatement as 'funny water'. The term is based on the premise that, under normal conditions, water flow is predictable: liquid flows over and around obstacles (such as rocks) in ways that human cognition can grasp. But add too much water and weird shit happens. On the Nile, weird shit includes:
1) Whirlpools. Like the one Will intentionally rode down until his head was roughly parallel to the surface of the river. Yes, that was weird, Will, me looking down at your shit-eating grin as you twirled and taunted like a drunk ballerina down there in the depths.
2) Boils. Big volume rivers don't have a single flow. When a strong undercurrent encounters another antagonistic undercurrent one of them will shoot to the surface, creating a terrain that looks like your pasta pot a second before you drop the penne in. Whirlpools suck you down, boils (some like small waves, four feet high or so) rocket you up, flip you, then suck you down. For newbies such as me, strong boils are notoriously difficult to roll in. Oh, and they are utterly, utterly unpredictable...and therefore terrifying.
3) Powerful waves. Powerful currents. Powerful eddy lines. Powerful everything, all smashing and tearing and roaring in a Neptunic orgy of inhuman power.

Our first day was piss easy. Shimmering crystalline river pierced by diving raptors with ten-foot wing spans. Mountable wave trains, successful rolls, laughter. I'm shit hot: I nail over thirty consecutive rolls. What's all the fuss about? Funny water? No problem. Bring it. Oh, vain and foolish mortal...

Day two, Will the Bastard Guide brings it. The thing about big rapids is, unless you shore-scout, by the time you get a real sense of the size of the maw you're in...well, you're in. Will drops in first, followed by a panicked and over-paddling yours truly, followed by a serene lady Jones. The rapid is a 500 meter confusion of clashing and bucking waves, each large enough that Will disappears in their troughs as he turns around and floats backwards ahead of me. I'm momentarily so jealous of his poise that I forget I'm about to get pounded. Fuck you, Will. Save me. Fuck you, Will. Save me. This is not the mindset recommended for mastering an intense physical and mental trial. I lack focus. Relax your lower back. Paddle confidently but don't rock from side to side. Lean forward, like your headbutting the waves. Fuck all of you. I hate this.

I'm thinking these things when the world goes white. Surgical, blinding. The whiteness creates a blank space somewhere at the periphery of thought, from which emerges the command: try a roll. But it's not a command, really, not rolling in script across my brain, not dictating. The action just is. This must be how military training works, by bypassing the sluggish highways of fear-laden reason with something that pre-dates thought, the rote power of muscle-memory, the body's natural urge to act. So I roll up. Safe. I'm screaming at the azure sky, waving my paddle in the air, triumphant. I want to wear a crown of feathers and jewels and dance around a fire. I want to jump into Dayna's arms and have her twirl me like a little boy on the beach. I want to pee. I love this.

Short-lived jubilation. I spent the rest of the day, the next three major rapids, dumping, failing to roll, inhaling water, and swimming. One of the positives of big volume water is, as I learned, that there are generally no rocks to smash up against. And on the Nile, another major positive is that most rapids flush, which means they spit your choking, limp body into a nice little eddy or a flat section of water in which to recover. Terminal holes -which are most unpleasant- are rare. I remember holding onto the back of Will the Bastard Guide's boat, humiliated and spent, scanning around for my own boat and paddle, and watching my wife bobbing out of the last of the giant waves, bobbing and laughing and chirping like a little cheerful rubber ducky in a baby-bath...and holding onto my paddle. It seems she had the big bag of skills necessary to not only send the rapids (or successfully roll out of them) but to notice, paddle to, and grab her water-logged husband's paddle and bring it down to him...three times in a row! Show-off. Bi---. Ha! Just kidding! Nice job! I love you!

Our kayaking will continue in Thailand; we're organizing a five or six day river trip through the mountains of the North. One day is rumoured to have over sixty rapid sets: I will need gills and at least a cartload of sacrificial livestock.