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The Best Travel Experiences: Hairy Lemons & Freestyle Kayaking on the Nile
HAIRY LEMON ISLAND, Uganda - As the landlocked country of Uganda embarks on an ambitious national works project to construct a hydroelectric dam across the Nile River, one of its economic lifelines and national treasures is being forever altered.
For millenniums the Nile has had Class 5 rapids near its source, making it Uganda's premier tourist attraction. At Bujagali Falls, where the 250-megawatt power station is being built, hundreds of tourists once churned through rambunctious blue waves as they experienced one of the top white-water rafting spots in the world.
Today that postcard spot has been swallowed silent. The dam has changed the river's rhythm. But there is a wave that remains.
Some live in a nearby village, scraping by on about a dollar a day, sleeping in a mud hut they share with others and their kayaks, picking at tomatoes and rice. All for a chance to ride the wave.
Uganda's Nile River basin attracts bungee jumpers and pied kingfisher birds, mystics and quad bikers - and thrill seekers who cling to a stretch of craggy shoreline at one particularly turbulent patch of water. These are the world's top freestyle kayakers.
Kayakers come from around the world to train on the Nile Special.
Each winter dozens of them descend on a tiny palm-fringed island in the middle of the Nile to try out their skills on a single wave, called the Nile Special, or, simply, the Wave. Freestyle kayaking, a hybrid akin to skateboarding and surfing, has Olympic aspirations, and there may be no icon in this extreme sport quite like the Nile Special.
It is a whipping, meters-tall rapid that surges year round. Freestyle kayakers surf it like a skateboarder would a half-pipe; flipping, spinning and grabbing hang time. Children in tattered clothing watch from the shore. While most big-time freestyle kayaking spots liven up only under certain conditions, the Nile Special is open for business 365 days a year. Over the years, between its warm weather and inexpensive lodging, Uganda has become the No. 1 stop on an annual freestyle kayak circuit that includes Nepal, Norway, Chile, the Alps and Canada.
But it now lives under the shadow of the dam. Bujagali Falls, too, was once a premier kayaking spot. The Nile Special has not yet been adversely affected, but the potential consequences of further industrialization of the Nile - an economic lifeline for numerous nations in Africa - loom. While fears grow over the river's future, kayakers' affection and reverence for the spot grow as well.
"Technically, this is training," said James Bebbington, a freestyle world champion who recently spent three months living in a tent on the island, known as Hairy Lemon. "But it's hard to call doing the Wave training because it's so fun."
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For millenniums the Nile has had Class 5 rapids near its source, making it Uganda's premier tourist attraction. At Bujagali Falls, where the 250-megawatt power station is being built, hundreds of tourists once churned through rambunctious blue waves as they experienced one of the top white-water rafting spots in the world.
Today that postcard spot has been swallowed silent. The dam has changed the river's rhythm. But there is a wave that remains.
Some live in a nearby village, scraping by on about a dollar a day, sleeping in a mud hut they share with others and their kayaks, picking at tomatoes and rice. All for a chance to ride the wave.
Uganda's Nile River basin attracts bungee jumpers and pied kingfisher birds, mystics and quad bikers - and thrill seekers who cling to a stretch of craggy shoreline at one particularly turbulent patch of water. These are the world's top freestyle kayakers.
Kayakers come from around the world to train on the Nile Special.
Each winter dozens of them descend on a tiny palm-fringed island in the middle of the Nile to try out their skills on a single wave, called the Nile Special, or, simply, the Wave. Freestyle kayaking, a hybrid akin to skateboarding and surfing, has Olympic aspirations, and there may be no icon in this extreme sport quite like the Nile Special.
It is a whipping, meters-tall rapid that surges year round. Freestyle kayakers surf it like a skateboarder would a half-pipe; flipping, spinning and grabbing hang time. Children in tattered clothing watch from the shore. While most big-time freestyle kayaking spots liven up only under certain conditions, the Nile Special is open for business 365 days a year. Over the years, between its warm weather and inexpensive lodging, Uganda has become the No. 1 stop on an annual freestyle kayak circuit that includes Nepal, Norway, Chile, the Alps and Canada.
But it now lives under the shadow of the dam. Bujagali Falls, too, was once a premier kayaking spot. The Nile Special has not yet been adversely affected, but the potential consequences of further industrialization of the Nile - an economic lifeline for numerous nations in Africa - loom. While fears grow over the river's future, kayakers' affection and reverence for the spot grow as well.
"Technically, this is training," said James Bebbington, a freestyle world champion who recently spent three months living in a tent on the island, known as Hairy Lemon. "But it's hard to call doing the Wave training because it's so fun."
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