Adventure to Bujagali Falls

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

As usual it was a hot Wednesday afternoon without a breeze coming into the office. Ruth and I decided to visit the Bujagali Falls, a popular tourist attraction. Wanting to get the best deal for our money we asked the staff the prices of transportation and the ticket costs. Everything in Uganda is negotiable, guess that’s why I like it so much, I love it when locals say it cost this much, you give them a look, and they say, “Did I mention the discount?” It’s like having coupons without having to spend Sunday afternoon clipping them. Back to the story: The directions were to get a van taxi (In Niger they were bush taxi’s) for 500 shillings to the round-about, then a boda-boda to the falls for 3,000 shillings. Ruth and I head out. As we are walking we start discussing the dark rain clouds above us. Both of us are worried that it looked like rain, but it’s not rainy season, so it won’t rain. We are used to the clouds threatening rain but then it never rains. We catch a taxi, tell the conductor where we need to go and we‘re off. A conductor is the guy who opens the door, takes your money, lets you off, etc. We were on of the last people on this packed taxi. Ruth and I are enjoying the ride and the breeze. Then it starts to downpour. The locals do not like getting wet, the windows shut immediately. No more cool breeze. Really? It’s just water and the air was so cool. Really? The taxi instantly becomes hotter, people start sweating and the smell is awful. Thankfully, because of the rain, more people want to get on, so every few minutes the doors would open.

As I was beginning to think, “Wow, for 500 shillings the taxi bus sure does take you a long way,“ the conductor turns to us and asks, “Where are you going?” We replied, “To the round about.” He shakes his head and states, “ You don’t know where you are going.” Sure we do, we are going to the Round-About. Looking around the taxi bus, we were the last people on the bus from the original starting place, there was maybe a few other people on the bus. The taxi is only 5 rows, with space for 3 or 4 people across. Well apparently the round-about was one of the first stops! Thankfully, he did not make us get out of the taxi in the pouring rain. We were to ride the rest of his route, then on the way back he would tell us where the round about was. After the lovely 45 minute to an hour extra on the taxi, the rain let up, and we reached the round-about. The taxi drive was supposed to be about a 5 minute drive, from where we got on to the round-about. Whoops. Mistake number one.

Now it’s time to find some boda-bodas. Ruth had to ride side saddle because of the skirt she was wearing so we flagged down two boda-bodas, negotiated the price, told them that we needed to stick together. No problem. Well as soon as we start moving, my boda-boda takes a sharp right turn while Ruth and her boda-boda continue straight. Now I do not know if my overreaction that is about to come happened because of the sexual violence work I am doing and I know about the horror stories of girls on boda-boda’s that occur late at night or if it was just because I was not the one driving therefore I wasn’t in control. Could have been a little of both. As soon as the man turned right, and I saw Ruth going straight, I flipped. I started screaming at the man, “What are you doing?!, No! You were suppose to follow my friend, What are you doing, I am getting off, go back!” I am pretty sure that with me being Italian and a spit in image of my mother and grandmother that my hands were flaring all around as I was yelling. We pull into a gas station, and I am still yelling, telling him that I am getting off and pointing in the direction that we came from. He calmly says me to, “Mzungu, look they are waiting.” I turn my head and sure enough Ruth and her boda-boda man are waiting. He then tell me, “The ride to Bujagali Falls is a long one, I needed to get some gas.” My only response was, “Well you should have told me first. You scared me. Don’t do that again!” Embarrassing crazy mzungu mistake number two.

As we get to the entrance of the falls we just keep walking in. The security guard stopped us to see if we paid. Whoops. Mistake number three. We never saw where we were suppose to pay. Well the guard was kind enough to walk us there; we had walked right passed the wooden booth. Since we are not Ugandans, we had to pay 3,000 shillings. I saved the recipe.

The Bujagali Falls were breathtaking. Luckily, since the rain Ruth and I were the only people there. Eventually more people showed up from a tour group but we had already finished. After we got the pictures we wanted and the video recordings we sat at the restaurant on the property, drank a Pepsi, sat in comfy chairs and watch and listened to the falls. It would be a great place to just sit and read a book, or have a date. Since Ruth and I had neither, we just talked about how great it would be. Haha.

On our way back, we flagged down a boda-boda man who wanted to charge us 4,000 shillings from the falls to the Jinja office, we were trying to bypass the whole taxi ride. His friend came up, who was very old grizzled man (for a boda-boda driver), who was said he would do it for 3,300 shillings. His friend, unhappily agreed. During the ride back, I was finally brave enough to use the video camera. I do not think my driver was very thrilled. I tried to do it unsuspectingly, so we will see how to video comes out.

My boda-boda man tried to charge me 4,000. Well I had a quick talk with him about honestly, how that wasn’t nice to try to overcharge me after he agreed to a lower price, and taking advantage of mzungus was not a nice thing to do.

All in all, the 3 hour adventure was a lot of fun filled with care-free laughs.

Background on the falls:

Bujagali Falls (the seven falls) are created by a huge rocky ledge, rising in places to forested islands, where the River Nile drops 3 meters, taking it’s first big step on a 6,500 kilometer journey from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean sea. The flow here averages 800,000 liters per second (Equator Rafts Uganda Pamphlet).