Uganda almost as a second home

We often spend winter in Uganda. This year it was our sixth time here. We feel almost at home here so there is not much that can surprise us. We started our journey in the beginning of January. It was the right time for us to leave cold Slovakia and go somewhere warm. We were really looking forward to this because Peter and me just got the new vajda boats and we wanted to try them out. The aim for this year is to not overtrain and to not get sick. Last year we had some troubles and were really thinking not to go but then we decided that we had to do some paddling in Uganda.

Luckily, this year everything went alright. We had quite high water in comparison to previous years. 'The Club' wave wasn’t working but 'Nile Special' was running without the rope. Even 'Malalu' wave was running almost every evening. 

We stayed all of the time in 'Hairy Lemon'. This campsite has come through many changes during the last years and now it is very good. We enjoyed the meals here and even the new natural swimming pool. To stay in Uganda is not only about kayaking as much as you can but it is also about relaxing. You don't need to take care of anything. Peter was celebrating his birthday there. We went to Jinja and spent an awesome day at Jinja Nile resort, where they have a beautiful swimming pool with the bar in the pool. We also went to the local village and our Ugandan friend and kayaker Chaga showed us his house and family. It was very nice to see this from the view of the local people. We have known Chaga for many years now. We've seen his progress in kayaking and brought him some presents from Slovakia. He was really happy when he got a paddle from us but I think the biggest pleasure we made him were the clothes that we brought. It was very funny to see him to wear beanies but for them it is very cool to wear them even if it is 40 degrees outside. This year we didn’t travel there with our slovak friends, like we used to do, but it doesn’t matter. We meet  many kayaking friends from all around the world. We even met our team mate Gerd. We had a really nice time there and it was very hard to go back home. I already miss our friends, the perfect hot weather, the awesome waves and tasty food. Now I know I will travel there again next year.

Nina