In the bush...

This is a boy I met yesterday who neither talks nor laughs nor smiles. He doesn't even play with other children. He lives in the banana groves with his grandmother. His father died and his mother abandoned him. No one knows what's "wrong" with him. He was one serious little dude.

I'm off to Malawi.

An hour with Gahonda & Family

Deep in Rwanda's northern hills, where five volcanoes separate it from the Congo and Uganda, live the world's only mountain gorillas. After 20 years of intensive conservation and research efforts, there are seven hundred of them, up from 650 ten years ago. At least five groups of them -- representing almost a 70 gorillas -- have become so used to the presence of humans that they're visited virtually every day by a group of eight camera-toting tourists.

When I first arrived, I met a British woman who was meeting the gorillas on April 11 and I was easily persuaded to get a permit for the same day and join Tess and three friends who would be visiting. We arrived in the tiny, rough-and-tumble town of Ruhengeri in the afternoon and watched an already grey sky turn the colour of wet concrete and unleash buckets and buckets of rain. The already muddy streets became more puddle than road and started worrying about what that would mean for our trek up the hill.

We met a driver with a 4x4 at 6 a.m. and started out, bumping along a road made of rocks, seemingly on square wheels. (My back was sore the next day and it was purely from the ride there and back.) At the gorilla office, we met up with the three other groups who would be heading out. The girls seemed to know all about the different groups: Susa is the largest and has connections to Dian Fossey; Group Thirteen has an aggressive silverback male; two of the groups go in and out of the Parc, crossing over to Congo regularly and sometimes requiring a hike of more than six hours to reach.

The gorillas are a major boon for Rwanda: each permit costs $375 US, which entitles a holder to spend up to one hour with the gorillas. There are no guarantees, although it's virtually certain that visitors will see the gorillas. They can sometimes be wily, though, and spend the entire hour hidden in bamboo. In the rainy season especially -- from mid-March to mid-May -- gorilla visits can be tricky, as they hate rain and will hide if it gets too wet. (SEE STORY BELOW)

We were set to meet the Sabinyo group, who are led by the oldest silverback in the region, a 45-year-old named Gahonda, whose brother also helps protect the pack. There were four women and two juveniles and three babies, including an eight-month old who hadn't yet been named.

Gorillas are organized in groups or families with a dominant male and several females, with whom he mates. Any other silverbacks or males in the group are often just there for companionship and protection, although Olivier said they will try to "cheat" with the women whenever they get a chance and will be severely punished by the dominant male if they're caught. A few will go off on their own and try to establish their own groups, but the males will fight fiercely to keep their women with them. It's dangerous for the women with children to leave a group, as the new silverback will kill all of her babies in order to establish his own genetic trail in the group. Infanticide is actually pretty common amongst gorillas and no one is really certain what happens with the babies after they've been killed. Fossey theorized that they were eaten by their mothers, but she never came to a conclusion.

The girls had come prepared with serious all-weather gear, hiking boots, even "waders" to keep the stinging nettles and ants off their legs and shoes. I was wearing my tired old drawstrings (the drawstring finally busted, so I was always hiking them up) and some silk long underwear, a tank top, t-shirt and hoodie, which I finally found around the corner from the hotel. I bought some sneakers two days before. I'd looked in vain for a rain slicker, figuring it could get pretty wet on the mountain.

Just before stepping beyond the rock fence that marks the boundaries of the park, our guide Olivier stopped for a snack break and we took in the terraced hills around the place, the potato farms and the green that just seemed to stretch on forever. It was still early, and a bit chilly, so there was mist settling in the folds of the hills, sometimes looking like lakes.

Olivier explained that we would hear him making noises that would help calm the gorillas and that when he told us to move, he expected us to move in a tight group -- the size of the group compensating for our size as individual people -- and that we were not to make loud noises, use the flash on our cameras or point our fingers. The flash might scare them and pointing would make the gorillas think we were throwing them something.

We started up the hill, into a dark, dank jungle of bamboo, up a path that had been churned into ankle-deep mud by a line of buffalos. We slid and squelched our way upward, the suctioning plop of our walking sticks keeping a rather steady rhythm. There were a few squeaks from a few birds, but no other signs of life. Of course, with eight hikers, a guide, three porters and three AK-toting soldiers, there was little chance that we would be quiet enough to see anything like a dikker or a golden monkey.

The bamboo would let out a hiss like a shower head when moved by the breeze, but otherwise it was quiet. Occasionally we would come out into a clearing full of the soft green of eucalyptus trees. (A gorilla who chews on eucalyptus acts like "one who has taken alcohol," Olivier told us, since it's got a bit of alcohol in its leaves.)

After walking for about an hour and a half, my hair plastered to my forehead from a combination of sweat and raindrops splattered by moving leaves, my shoes black and soaking from the mud, Olivier's walkie talkie came crackling to life and announced that the gorillas were heading our way and if we kept up our pace and they stayed still, we'd be there in about a half an hour. It seemed like only 15 minutes later that we came upon a man and a woman, both dressed in uniform, and as I smiled hello at the woman, I noticed a gorilla in the bamboo just beyond her shoulder. I was so surprised I nearly squealed.

Suddenly they were everywhere in the dark, shady bamboo, sitting and chewing on bamboo shoots. Most didn't seem too upset by our presence but some would tolerate us for only a few minutes before getting up and walking away. It was pretty incredible to see them just saunter by. If we were in the way, they'd sort of hesitate, then just go for it. All the while, Olivier was making these low rumbling noises in the back of his throat, sort of like clearing your throat, known as "belch vocalizations," which is a noise that the gorillas themselves make. I have a picture that's nothing but blur because as I went to take the picture, the gorilla started chest beating and it scared the beejebus out of me. Apparently they do that when they're trying to intimidate, but the younger ones also do it when they're happy or playing. Olivier claimed that this one was just happy to have company.

One of the silverbacks, the brother of the dominant male, was nursing a shoulder wound, a punishment for cheating with his brother's women, and walked using only one hand, as he'd been fighting with a lone silverback who was trying to steal the women. The woman we'd met when we first arrived was a vet, dispatched to see whether it could be treated. He sat rather placidly in the bamboo, snapping off bamboo shoots, peeling them, munching for a while, then leaving the peels and moving on to the next group of shoots.

I had pictured a visit to the gorillas as being a hike up to the group, then sitting on the ground and watching them from a stationary position -- as thought they were part of a play -- for the hour. But we were constantly following them. If one moved away, we moved toward another, then another. The rule of staying back seven metres was definitely broken. We were often within two metres, closer if the gorilla decided to move. We were all pretty enthralled, but were cursing the darkness of the bamboo. It was impossible to take a decent photograph. And then, after watching a mother and a baby amble away, suddenly they just disappeared.

We'd been with them about 15 minutes and I think we all silently figured we'd spend the next 45 minutes searching for them. It was amazing how such huge creatures could get away so quickly and disappear so thoroughly. It turned out they were just moving into a beautifully sunlit clearing, where a couple actually sat and seemed to pose for the paparazzi. We followed them up the hill and watched them build nests in the soft green plants. A few flaked out on their backs, a couple just nestled down. Olivier had told us that they spend most of their day eating and the rest of the day sleeping and grooming. When we walked up to the babies, they were in full-on play mode, tumbling over their mothers as they wrestled, biting one another and growling and occasionally chest beating. It was amazing.

All too soon, Olivier was announcing the last two minutes. It was quite possibly the quickest hour that has ever elapsed.

An hour goes fast when you're with gorillas; A couple of primates seemed to be posing for the paparazzi
Karen Palmer
Special to the Star
869 words
30 April 2006
The Toronto Star
A12

RUHENGERI, Rwanda -- Only minutes into our visit with the world's only remaining mountain gorillas, a mother with a baby tucked under her arm ambled past, followed by a giant, cone-headed male nursing a mangled middle finger.

Altogether, they were 11 massive balls of kinky black fur, variously emitting low grunts, mock belches and real farts.

Before they slipped away - disappearing silently and all too quickly into the depths of the bamboo forest - we watched them snap off bamboo shoots, unpeel them with human-like dexterity and munch on the soft white insides.

We were bunched together, 15 of us moving in a group big enough to mask our puny individual size, following guide Olivier as he groaned and growled in an impressive mimicking of the gorillas' own comforting noises.

They were dark-eyed and vaguely curious but difficult to capture on film since the bamboo forest was too dark and flash was forbidden.

Before climbing up to meet the gorillas, Olivier had explained that we would spend only an hour with them. Whether they decided to spend the hour with us was another question.

A permit to visit them costs the equivalent of $420, the average cost of a four-day safari in nearby Kenya or Tanzania. Forty people can visit the gorillas each day, translating into $16,800 for conservation, park maintenance and Rwandan development.

There are no guarantees, but because they have been habituated to people for decades and are well guarded by anti-poacher patrols, it's virtually certain that visitors will see the gorillas.

They can sometimes be wily, though, and spend the entire hour hidden in bamboo. In the rainy season especially - from mid-March to mid-May - visits can be tricky, because the gorillas hate rain and will hide if it gets too wet.

Dian Fossey's bleak prediction that they would be both discovered and made extinct in the same century hasn't come to fruition. In fact, the gorilla population has grown from 650 to more than 700 in an area where conservation has not come easily and where guerrillas are one of the gorillas' main threats.

We were meeting the Sabyinyo group, which is led by the eldest male in the region, 45-year-old Gahonda, whose brother also helps protect the pack. There were four other adults, two juveniles and three babies, including an eight-month-old who hadn't yet been named.

Gorillas are organized in groups led by a dominant male - which can weigh as much as 500 pounds and stand upright between five and six feet - and including several females with whom the male mates.

Any other silverbacks, as adult males are known because of their saddle-shaped patch of silvery hair, are just in the group for companionship and protection, although Olivier said they will try to "cheat" with the females whenever they get a chance - and will be severely punished by the dominant male if they're caught.

We started up one of the hills in the chain of mountains and volcanoes that separates northern Rwanda from Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo shortly after 8: 30 a.m., taking a path that had been churned into ankle-deep mud by a line of buffaloes.

We slid and squelched our way upward, the suctioning plop of our walking sticks keeping a steady rhythm. There were squeaks from a few birds, but no other signs of life. Of course, with eight hikers, a guide, three porters and three assault rifle-toting soldiers, there was little chance we'd be quiet enough to see anything like a golden monkey.

After walking for about 90 minutes, Olivier's walkie-talkie came crackling to life and announced that the gorillas were heading our way. If we kept up our pace and they remained still, we'd rendezvous in about half an hour.

It seemed like only 15 minutes later that we were suddenly surrounded.

I had pictured us sitting quietly and watching from a distance for the hour, but we were constantly following the group. If one moved away, we moved toward another, then another.

The rule of staying back seven metres was definitely broken. We were often within a metre, closer if the gorilla decided to move.

At one point, they all disappeared into the dark undergrowth, only to reappear in a beautifully sunlit clearing, where a couple of them actually seemed to pose for the paparazzi.

We watched them build nests among the soft green plants and marvelled at their human-like ears, hands and eyes. A few dozed on their backs while two females nestled down and began grooming the toddlers. The babies were in full-on play mode, tumbling over their mothers as they wrestled, biting one another and occasionally beating their chests.

It was an amazing hour - and one of the shortest I've ever spent.

Mourning Person

I’ve had lots of emails lately about my emotional state, very mixed emails, in fact. Some say I sound really up, like I’m having a good time and really enjoying myself. Others say I sound sad and depressed, like I’m seeing too much and not digesting it well.

I feel like I'm doing okay, better than okay, in fact. There's enough good to balance the depressing, but Rwanda's a tough one. For one thing, it's the worst month to visit, when there's rain virtually every day and the mist just wraps around the towns and makes those gorgeous terraced hills disappear and you feel not only like you'll never see the sun again, but that there may be nothing out beyond that mist but more mist.

I went to the genocide memorial on Monday. I was doing fine through the display about the history of the genocide. I've read lots about it and got some grounding from the weeks in Arusha. It's a really professional, western-style memorial, with lots of placards and information boards and little touchscreen televisions that show little short films and interviews.

One, all on its own, with no pictures around it, showed one scene after another of piles of bodies, skeletons in the river, massacre sites, church courtyards with bodies piled up against the walls, some with the skin deteriorating. Little kids with machete wounds to the head. It was only a minute, maybe not even that, but it was... terrible.

Around the corner was this picture of Ntaramara church, where there was a huge massacre, something like 17,000 dead and there was a picture of this corpse. It was taken with a wide angle lens and the photographer was right down by the hand. The corpse was on its back, its skull facing upwards, its mouth open as though in terror, as though it was in mid-scream when it fell. Most of the teeth had been knocked away. The decay had already taken its eyes, but the dark holes of its skull seemed somehow lifelike, like they were dark, dark eyes boring holes into you. Most of the flesh on its face, arm and hand was gone, but there was still enough to give it a mummified effect and there were still nails on the skeletal fingers. The photographer was a woman named Corinne, who once worked for Reuters. I met her in Dakar. She works for Human Rights Watch now and has a five year old daughter.

I watched the video loop through twice, shaking my head and feeling my eyes fill up with tears. But it wasn't until I went upstairs to see the display called "Stolen Tomorrows" that I really lost it. The exhibit was on children who died in the genocide. It was incredibly simple, just a few blown-up photos with some simple placards underneath, telling the viewer about the child's personality, their favourite food, maybe their favourite song or best friend. And how they died.

So right off the top you get this gorgeous 12-year-old girl whose last words were: "Mum, where can I run to?" and then you turn the corner and there are these huge blown up photos of kids with chubby knees and big, lightbulb-sized eyes, who liked to eat chocolate or rice, whose best friend was their dad or their sister, who liked to ride bikes or play hide-and-seek. One was stabbed through the eyes. Another was smashed against a wall. Sisters were killed when a grenade was tossed into their shower. One boy, 10-year-old David, had ambitions of being a doctor. His last words were: "UNAMIR will come." He was tortured to death.

And on one wall, on etched glass, a quote from Rose, aged 10: "When I am in the market, in the midst of a large crowd, I always think I might just find my brothers."

And so.

I had to go to the bathroom and get some toilet roll to use as Kleenex.

In 1994 I would have been finishing high school and heading to journalism school. I just kept thinking, what was I doing 12 years ago in April, when these little kids were hiding in attics, trenches, neighbours' outhouses, in the bush, in the dark, soaking wet and starving, freezing in temperatures that feel like Canadian fall?

What were any of us doing?

On the anniversary of the start of the genocide, some British women who I met at the hotel went for dinner with some Rwandans they know and I tagged along. The boys are all athletes, top tennis or squash players who’ve lived in Europe or the U.S., and were about 11 to 15 when the genocide began. As the night progressed, there were stories dropped here and there about one sneaking food through the roadblocks to his cousin. The cousin was the only one of his family to survive and as the night wore on and he got progressively drunker, his stories got less coherent and more emotional. He watched his seven year old sister, his only remaining relative, be killed by a friend. And now he sees that “friend” most days in town, roaming around free. The man whose house we’d invaded was sitting in the corner, staring morosely into a mug of tea. He’d walked all the way from Kigali to Goma during the war, which is more than 200 km. He was probably only 14 at the time.

At a certain point I wanted to leave as fast as we could. I knew the night was going to be melancholy, we’d been invited and warned that although they might have a lot on their minds, four Western women would be a welcome distraction. But we were pitiful. It was hard to know whether to keep the stories going or whether to simply try to gently change the topic to something less bleak. We all seemed to have different approaches. Two of the girls, finally succumbing to jetlag after arriving two days prior, fell asleep on the couch. The other tried to keep the radio cranked and the mood light. I just sat, not really making conversation, waiting for the guys to decide which direction they wanted the conversation to go. It was excruciating, not only to be surrounded by such raw trauma, but to feel so helpless in the face of it. It’s not a Rwandan culture or custom to show emotion or to dwell on the past and it was hard to know when you’d crossed the line from being interested and supportive into intrusive and voyeuristic.

Towards the end of the evening, when we’d definitely outstayed our welcome but were having trouble getting a cab to come to the door, one of the guys turned to me and told me that he wished he were a journalist and if he was, he’d stick it to the politicians. When I asked him what he meant, he essentially said he wanted to get people like war criminal Theoneste Bagasora in a room and demand to know what they were thinking, what they were doing. Essentially, he wants the war criminals to face the aftermath.

At a few times that night, I would certainly rather have been hiding in a cell in another country rather than facing a generation of distraught and damaged young men.

Rwanda

There is a school of thought that the lucky ones are those who don’t know what they’re missing. After an idyllic month spent living the life of Riley in Uganda, I couldn’t agree more. Passing over the border into Rwanda was a rude awakening and I suspect it will only get worse.

The bus ride was blissfully uneventful. I don’t know why punctures and other mechanical failures are so rampant on the West side and so conspicuously absent here, but I won’t complain. The only thing that was irksome was my seat mates. I’ve got to master the fine art of draping myself over two seats and making it look like I cannot be disturbed. The first woman was a mountain of flesh and not long after she got on the bus, they turned on some music videos (at ear-shattering decibels) and she sang along. Or maybe I should say warbled. The next guy was deodorant deficient and so fat he spilled over into my seat. For some reason he had long nails – long, gross, girlie nails, filed almost to a point. And he kept putting his hand next to my leg, as though he was too fat to prop himself up otherwise.

I got totally shafted at the border changing money. I should have received 2,500, instead I got 300 francs. The thing is, when you don’t know the exchange rate, it’s hard to know that you’re being jacked. It wasn’t until I tried to pay for my cab that I realized I wasn’t carrying 3,000, it was 300. So Ugandans suck.

I’d forgotten, or maybe repressed, the usual arrival mish-mash at the bus station, which actually wasn’t too bad. It was no Arusha and definitely nothing like Dar. Then I arrived at my hotel. I’ve gotten used to guards, dogs, open kitchens, quiet, clean bedrooms with four-poster beds and bug nets, hot water showers, DStv at the ready and a DVD player for when there’s nothing on. At Rohini’s I became accustomed to wonderfully home-cooked meals, a bedroom with a desk, a feeling of home.

This place isn’t the worst place I’ve ever stayed, but it’s certainly a step down. The narrow single bed, the cold-water showers, the toilets that flush with a bucket, the power outages, the windows above the doors that let in every kind of noise. Sigh… This whole traveling thing is tough. I’d forgotten!

The great thing is that this place is full of backpackers – and when I say full I mean there are five other people here. It’s the rainy season in Rwanda, which makes it the worst time to visit. It’s cold and clammy – my feet are frozen, in fact. But the country is really pretty breath taking. It seems to be about 100 km from north to south; that’s stunningly small compared to some of the other countries I’ve been to and absolutely miniscule compared to hulking Canada. But every square inch of land has been used and luckily for Rwandans, the country isn’t flat, but bunched up with hills, mountains and volcanoes, which increases its surface area. They’ve terraced every available space, filling it with small plots of cabbage and grass and whatever else. I read that each year the national parks seem to get smaller and smaller as more people look for arable land. (That will likely be one of the stories I tackle in the next few days.)

I had the impression that Rwanda is fairly developed, probably because guidebooks and actual people rave about the roads and infrastructure. The kids here are far worse than anything I’ve seen yet on the East side, covered in rags and mud, with scabby knees. They remind me of Mali. But Kigali itself reminds me of home (although my memory of home is getting decidedly fuzzy) with big, modern buildings. No ATMs, though, which is a major pain in the patoot.

April's Fool

For decades the source of the Nile was hotly contested, confounding scientists and geographers with its endless channels and springs. Half of Uganda is named after the English cartographers and explorers who lost their lives (or their marbles) in the search for the source. For a while the theory that held the most sway was that the Nile was in Zambia, connected somehow to the mighty Zambezi. Then explorers turned their focus to Uganda, then Tanzania. And yet it remained elusive, running nearly 7,000 kilometres, seemingly from nowhere.

Eventually it was decided that the river begins from Lake Victoria, which is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. Nearly 7,000 kilometres from Uganda to Cairo. That’s a lot of water. Imagine how powerful that must be coming from the source… Imagine the whitewater. Imagine the tourist potential.

Jinja is the place to be if you’re interested in rafting, so I rode out on Saturday morning with Jason, an HIV doctor and avid kayaker, who was reading a book about hot-dogging moves that are popular on the “squirt boat” rodeo circuit. One contained a description about what can happen when the move goes awry: nasal flushing. By the end of the day, I’d become intimately acquainted with the term.

Whitewater rapids are graded on their degree of danger and difficulty. A one is flat, moving water, while a six is technically unrunnable, in the sense that you would be unlikely to survive it. Niagara Falls, for example, is a class six rapid. The Nile whitewater route in Jinja has three class five rapids and one class six. It’s one of the world’s wildest whitewater routes, but as our guide, Jane, explained, it’s also one of the most forgiving. It’s big and intimidating, but it’s not very rocky and has good, deep warm swells, meaning even if you get dumped, you’re unlikely to go into shock or bash against a rock in the process.

We were corseted into our lifejackets, had brain buckets snapped on our heads and started out, just a few hundred metres up from the hydro electric dam. Jane put us through our paces, teaching us how to paddle (arm straight, use your body, don’t twirl your paddle and whatever you do, keep your hand on your T-grip or you’ll end up knocking out someone’s teeth) and what to do on her command. Forward meant we paddled, backward meant we back paddled. Jump right meant those on the left leapt to the right side to stop us from hurtling into a rock. Get down meant crouch down in the boat, up on your feet with one hand on the rope and the other hanging on to your paddle. We were to stay on our feet or face bashing our knees or spines against the rocks. Stop was my personal favourite of the commands. It meant take a break.

Jane had me demonstrate how to get back in the boat in the event of a spill or a flip. The water was surprisingly warm, but my re-entry was pathetic. And not at all graceful. I was wearing my favourite pants, the black drawstrings that have seen me through half a dozen countries and all sorts of crazy stunts. I nearly lost them once or twice in water that had a curiously strong current.

We passed the first rapid without any problems, then faced our first class five. I must have been looking rather grim, as Jane told me not to worry, that even if we dumped, we would just get back in the boat. “Downtime,” or time spent churning under the water at a rapid, is usually no longer than 10 seconds, but imagine, for a minute, that you have no sense of up or down, you’re scared of hitting rocks, things are bashing into you, the water is pushing and pulling, your paddle is waving wildly and you’ve got water up your nose. Suddenly 10 seconds feels like an awfully long time. Don’t worry, Jane told us. Just curl yourself up in a ball (to save your arms, legs and feet from rocks) and wait for your lifejacket to do its job. You’ll pop up. Take a short quick breath and open your eyes. Figure out where you are and where you’re headed. If you’re near the boat, swim to it. If you’re near a safety kayak, swim to it. If you’re near vegetation, get away from it and get away quickly. It’s got a lot of roots underneath and they’ll gladly get you tangled up and before you know it, your downtime is dangerously long.

So. The first class five rapid. Massive. The only thing bigger is unrideable. Jane tells us all about it, how there’s rocks here and rocks there but we’re basically going to go right down the middle, hit the hole and surf out of it. We should be able to stay in the boat. In truth, I am not really listening to any of this and all of the rapids begin with this same speech, about how we’ll do this and do that. What happens is actually quite different, so whether I listen makes no difference. I am concentrating on not giving away the fact that I am Class Five Freaked Out.

We paddle forward, then power forward, water roaring and crashing and the turning and swaying. Then (apparently) we surf for a while and then the wave decides it’s had enough of us and flings us into the air. One minute we’re following the command to “get down!” and the next thing I know, I’ve got water up my nose and am being thrashed around. My brain is thinking: “don’t panic, don’t panic” but the rest of me is thinking: “I’m dying! I’m dying!” I sprang up – it was probably no more than three seconds but felt much, much longer – gasped for air, opened my eyes and saw a huge wall of water. Smash! Another snoutful of water, a few more seconds of thrashing around. Then… nothing. The kayakers came over, scooped me up (and by that I mean I wrapped myself around the front of their boat) and deposited me back by the raft. No fatalities. In fact, it was rather exhilarating, once I snorted and snuffed, got all the river water out of my nasal cavities and massaged my contacts back into place.

There was a nice stretch where the current was strong, but there were no rocks or rapids, and Jane invited us to hop out of the boat and swim if we chose. So over I went. We were already wet and the sun was blazing, so it felt good to get into the water. The banks of the Nile on the Uganda side are simply gorgeous: green and lush like jungle scenes, with lots of naked kids swimming and bathing and women doing laundry and men fishing, some with nets and a giant plunger that they use as a “fish scarer” to frighten the fish in the direction of their nets.

The trees were alive with birds: malakite kingfishers with iridescent wings and brilliant orange beaks, darters, who swim virtually submerged, spear fish on their beaks, then emerge snake-like to loosen the fish from their beaks and snap it up into their air then down their gullets. There were all kinds of birds skimming the water surface in search of fish, little birds using their long toenails to walk on vines and cormorants drying out with their wings spread like those salesmen who keep their wares tucked away in trench coats. We were even lucky enough to see red-tailed monkeys, which I’ve not seen before. So I was watching all of this, floating lazily on my back in my brainbucket and lifejacket. Down the Nile. I was floating down the Nile!

We got back in the boat, paddled for a long while and chatted over a snack of pineapple and biscuits. Before long we could hear the sound of the next Class Five. We flipped once more, again it felt like an overhand toss of the entire boat. The raft follows two kayakers and a “safety boat,” who are meant to rescue people who go over. The safety boat is merely a raft with all sorts of first aid equipment and amazingly, one person rows the thing down the river and through all the rapids. How they manage it alone, and perched up on water-proof boxes of pineapples, biscuits and bandages is beyond me. Moses, the guy who was rowing the safety boat, plucked me from the water after our second flip. And I do mean plucked. One minute I was in the water, the next thing there was this giant jerk on my lifejacket and I was half in the boat. (I was so surprised, I lost my balance and fell out again.) I got back in and managed to rescue my contact, sitting primly on my cheek below my right eye.

And away we went. We hit another rapid and managed to stay in the boat, giving ourselves a high five with our oars. We hit one at one point and I felt my thumb pop, but after a few minutes the pain went away and it was back to paddling. (There’s an awful lot of paddling, as the course covers 25 kilometres, so I feel a bit sore today. Actually, very sore. Like an out-of-shape 29 year old on an all-carb diet.)

We portaged the Class Six, walking over piping hot rocks and baked dirt to get around the worst of the falls. Then we were back in the boat, there was a final pep talk from Jane about “going down the middle” and hitting whatever came at us and we’d just see how we did. Not far into it, as we were crouched down in the boat, a massive wave came down on us and we were all popped out and into the air like so many pennies. I got caught up under the boat, which can be an alright place to come up, but is super scary, because you can’t see the difference between the dark of being under water and the light of being back in the oxygen, so it’s difficult to know when to breath. Plus, I was being knocked around quite a bit, as we all fell in the same spot and were bashing into each other with bodies, helmets and paddles. I was rescued by a kayak again and when I got back into the boat face-first, water came streaming out of my nose. Nasal flushing.

It was only later that I realized my thumb had been bent again and it’s still paining me. I think I sprained it, or my wrist, which also hurts a bit. My neck feels like I slept upside down and my arms are like little pathetic strings of spaghetti. (I was so shaky I wasn’t sure I was going to make it back to the truck. Too much adrenaline.) I’ve got a big, big bruise on my upper arm and another near my elbow and a third-degree burn from my friend, the sun, on my right arm.

But I’ve also got the memory of floating down the Nile. And that makes it all worth it.