Peter Csonka & Nina Halasova

Every year we spend some time in sunny Uganda. This year we spent one month on White Nile. Peter, our friend Tomo and me, we traveled there early February. After we spent one month in cold Europe it was the right time to leave.

We arrived at 8.30 pm and after a misunderstanding with our driver, who actually wasn’t there to wait us, we found one guy who took us to Hairy Lemon. It is very difficult to get there without the right guy because no one knows where it is. After 6 hours driving and two long stops (our driver still needed something like go to service for one hour) we finally got there. But we didn’t know that they have started locking the boat. So we had to paddle in our small kayaks with all the bags on the other side of the river in the middle of night. It was a quite scary experience ;O).

Next morning we woke up to sunny day. We were excited and hurried up to paddle. In the morning the water was quite low but good enough for club wave. In the evening the Nile special was running but only with the rope.

Peter was the most excited of us. He brought his new boat to Uganda for testing it there the first time. He designed this boat himself for Vajda canoe&kajaks company. After his first ride he was so excited that he was talking all the time just about the new boat!

We had training twice a day but after one week we needed to make a break. Peter got sick - I think he brought it from cold Europe - and I also got sick because of him. We moved to Bujagali and stayed there for while. Each day we did one section a couple of times and enjoyed the local cuisine. I was very happy and surprised that I met there so many African friends and they still remembered me.

After few days we got well again and could move down to Hairy lemon again. We trained and enjoyed the waves every day. I learnt and improved some new tricks and I was very happy about it. Unfortunately our friend Tomo got malaria so we were a little bit worried about him. But the next day he was fit again like nothing happened ;O).

We have been in Uganda three times before but we never had such a strange weather there. The island used to be very sunny and untroubled by rain, even if it was raining in whole Uganda. This year we had one week of rain and storms. It was strange but it didn’t take away our passion for paddling.

After one month of great time spending on this amazing river we had to fly back home. Quite sad we left this paradise but next year we will be back again for sure!

Cheers

Nina