Uganda Diary 5 – a visit to the source of Nile

Series link: Diary [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7]

Shanta and I had enough of Kampala. We wanted to take a break. We took a taxi and drove down to Jinja and decided to stay there for three nights. It was about a two hour ride and cost us 150,000 shillings. No, that’s not a lot if you are thinking. 🙂 On the very first evening of our arrival, we did a boat tour around the source of river Nile. White Nile to be specific.

The boatman told us these restaurants (the huts  you see above) and many other establishments got partly submerged three years ago, when government constructed a dam near a falls close by.

Nile is regarded as the longest waterways in the world. It’s water is used by eleven countries. If you look at the map, there are two rivers – the White Nile starting from Jinja (where we were) and the Blue Nile starting from Lake Tana in Ethiopia, which merge together (as they flow up north) to make one Nile river. Shanta had already been to Lake Tana. So he was very happy that he had now been to sources of both the major tributaries of the Nile.

I was happy enough with just one though. I stepped out of the boat and stood at the source of Nile. It felt good. Dirt from my feet would now be shared with 11 countries up north.

Two fishermen wanted a lift back to the shore. They were on a rowing boat while ours was a motor-boat. In return for a free fish, our boatman let them hold on to the motorboat, so they didn’t have to paddle.

The day ended in a nice riverside restaurant where we spent 97,000 shillings on food and drinks. We wished we had spent 3,000 shillings more. And we wondered what else we were going to do for the next two days in Jinja.

Series link: Diary [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7]