So after many technical problems with camera and computer I've finally got pics from Uganda. The trip was awesome, myself Sean paddy and meabh all headed out on the 4th of july and during the two-month trip many others came and joined us. We flew to Entebbe airport and drove three hours to jinja-the source of the Nile. We camped just outside jinja, at the NRE campsite in bujagali. we based ourselves here and down on the hairy lemon- an idyllic island beside Nile special. At NRE we were right beside the silver back run with rapids like bujagali falls, total gunga, and silverback. It was too easy, a day at NRE would consist of- wake up, get breakfast,chapati(pancake) 1000shillings(50cent-us) or Atv cafe 3500shillings, decide to go boating,after an hour or so of bumming around actually get on, paddle, the hump straight through to Bujagalifalls, then 50/50, followed by total gunga- and stay as far away from the G-spot as possibly(Paddy!!), next up is either surf city(one wave and a horrible eddyline) or ugly sisters with possibly the worlds most perfect wave ((followed by a huge pour over), end with silverback. Get out talk to locals swimming/fishing/washing clothes etc, walk up the track and wait for bodaboda drivers- one day me and paddy ended up playing football with a few local kids while waiting- get on bodaboda and find thats it's scarier than the river!! Back to campsite, have a beer, go to Nicolas in the green light n get a sweet dinner for 3000shillings(1.50 us) back to the bar and have a big party, stumble down to tent in the pitch dark, sleep, wake up and do it all over again, happy days. We spent a good bit of time down at the hairy lemon too, ten dollars a day for three meals and camping, nile special a five mintue paddle upstream, and the day two section just a matatu(small van) trip away. taking the right hand line down bujagali(below) The river has some really spectacular rapids like total gunga(its huge), kalagala- a big big waterfalls, and itanda!! which is unreal, around 500metres long with some of the biggest holes you've ever seen, this rapid would give most kayakers nightmares. The river also has some really cool playspots, superhole is good for unconfident paddlers, or anyone who wants to work on the basics, ugly sisters wave is just amazing, perfectly formed an really big, the only limitation is your imagination, and then Nile special, wow just wow, there really is nothing like towing onto a wave, the adrenaline pumping as you surf across with the tow line, let go and it's just mental, bouncing all over the place getting air on flatspins, it's just so much fun.The place itself is great and everybody's really freindly. You can travel by bodaboda, car, matatu, or truck, but all are really scary, there doesn't really seem to be any road rules and cars just zip around dodging pothole(which are huge and everywhere) and trying not to crash. Then there’s the fact that alot of the vehicles breakdown. There's a huge population of 27.6 million, so people are everywhere. It's quite a shock at first especially because it was our first time in a third world country, the people have so little, most live in little mud huts, or small brick rooms with iron cast roofs. one of the Irish girls over there(bex) was working in a malaria clinic for softpower health, helping to educate people in villages around the Bujagali area about malaria, and then did follow ups making sure they had hung up their mosquito nets; I went around with her one day on the follow ups, and it was a real eye opener just seeing how little these people had, and how little education they had. Softpower have two organisations out there softpower health and softpower education which helped build schools for local communities. You can get more info on Uganda and softpower on the rivernomad website. Heres a pic of nile special though the lighting is unusually bad...then paddy with one of the dogs he picked up.... bottom pic is passing the g-spot on total gunga.

I’ll get more photos up in the next few days…