Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It was a paddler - a professional, by the way he landed upside down in the white water but
still managed to perform an Eskimo roll and get back up. The crowd cheered and he raised
a fist, whooping as he passed by.
'It'll all be gone soon,' said Pete with sudden melancholy.
'Gone?'
'Because of the dam. If they build another dam here, like they plan to, none of these
rapids will be left and we'll all be left without jobs. Not just us ex-pats - all the Ugandans
who work in tourism too. People come from everywhere to see this water, and the govern-
ment wants to fuck it up with another dam. It's a total waste of time. You know, it'll only
generate 180 megawatts - but it'll destroy twenty eight kilometres of river . . .'
I'd already seen the Owen Falls Dam at the mouth of Victoria - built in 1954, that was
the dam which had submerged Ripon Falls, thus destroying the famed view that Speke
would have seen. But at least it created 350 megawatts of energy, and submerged only two
kilometres. This new one was a false economy.
'Once it's gone, it's gone. The river will never be the same again. Fifty thousand people
a year come to Uganda to get wet in these rapids. That's a lot of cash - but it goes to the
locals and not the government. That's why they want to build this thing. It's just greed.
Think of all the people that will lose their homes.'
It was to be a story I'd hear over and over. Dams, and the taming of the Nile, seemed to
be a constant feature of local politics, not just here in Uganda but further north as well. The
Nile, it seemed, was all things to all men. A source of drinking water, food, entertainment,
and above all else, money. The Nile is life.
But we had dallied long enough, first in Kampala and now here, this strange riverside
vortex where, it seemed, if you did not leave straight away, you were destined to stay
forever - just like Pete. After one last night of relaxation, watching the kayakers out on the
river, we woke with raging hangovers and set off for the north.
'Once upon a time, in the Congo,' said Boston as we were approaching the village of
Baale, 'I met an old man near to the Ituri Forest. He lived just on the edge of the jungle
and had got back from a hunting trip with his sons. He was a simple man, and he lived
off wild bananas and bush meat. That day, he'd killed a porcupine and a monkey and was
about to roast them over an open fire. I'd been walking for a few days and wanted to know
how much further there was to go, so I asked him. “Bwana. How far to the other side of
the forest?” And the old man laughed. “Son,” he said, with a hand on my shoulder, “I have
lived here all my life. I am an old man now and I tell you this. These trees, this forest,
it goes on forever. If you walk into the woods and keep going, no-one will ever see you
again. You'll be lost. There is no end.”'
