December 2005 Archives

white:

i've watched it all tumble over; this stretch from lake vic to lake al known as the white nile. i know why. at murchison falls the entire river rolls snake eyes and takes a hard dive, hitting the floor like a drunk fresh off the tilt-a-whirl. so much water, so much force, so much falls. at the base, the crocodiles wait patiently for whatever flows past. they're big, the crocs. we see one with it's mouth agape that must be four meters.

it's later, in jinja, that i take my hard dive. in a raft over level five rapids, one level below "deadly." they call them bujagali falls and they give me a permanant souveneir. a scar, below my chin, from where the oar connected with my face and split my skin.

jane, our guide, asks me if i want stitches. this is the last chance to get out of the boat before the end of the day and we hit the next six sets of rapids, many of them also level five.

there's no mirror. maybe it's bad? jane shrugs. the big german looks grimly at my face, the blood. i feel woozy. i tell her to tape me up and put me back in. what the hell. chicks dig scars.

the raft only flips twice.

they say, "you have come to see the mountain gorillas?"

we say, "hell no. $300 for an hour spent harrassing large primates? we can harrass large primates for free by throwing eggs at the kids on the overland trucks. we're here to see the pythons."

they throw their hands in the air and cheer.

we're in kisoro, near the border of rwanda and congo, under the virunga volcanos and close to lake mutanda, where the pythons nest.

blissfully, it's one the few places we've found where there isn't an overland truck group.