Nile River Rafters Draw Closer to Epic Run

Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News

May 4, 2004

After John Hanning Speke in 1858 encountered a magnificent sheet of
water in the heart of East Africa, the Scottish explorer announced that
he had found the source of the Nile.

The world's longest river, Speke declared, originates in the lake he named Victoria, and ends 5,584 kilometers (3,470 miles) later in the Mediterranean Sea.

Speke may have solved one of the greatest mysteries in 19th-century geography. But in the 136 years since his discovery, no one is believed to have ever traveled the whole length of the Nile river, which snakes its way through some of the most rugged and remote terrain on the planet.

Now, an international rafting team could soon join the select few to navigate the Nile from source to sea. The seven rafters left Bujagali Falls in Jinja, Uganda, on January 17. After negotiating their way through rebel territories and down raging cataracts, they recently left Sudan and crossed into Egypt. Now down to six people, the rafters expect to reach the Mediterranean Sea later this month.

The voyage is more than just an adventure. Sponsored by the aid agency CARE, the explorers have been visiting humanitarian projects en route. They hope their journey will draw attention to the plight of people living in war-shattered areas along the Nile River.

At first, "it was just about a few friends going on an adventure," Natalie McComb, a 31-year-old team member from New Zealand, said from a stop in Aswan in southern Egypt. "However, the more research we did, the more apparent it became that we had [an opportunity] to shed light on the awful civil war situations in Uganda and … in Sudan."

Crocodiles

For the millions of people living along the Nile, the river is a social and economic lifeline. Local communities fish the waters for Nile perch and tilapia. Irrigation supports the growth of cotton, wheat, sorghum, dates, citrus fruits, sugarcane and other agricultural products. In some places, ferries and barges may provide the only mode of transportation.

Technically, the Ruvyironza River of Burundi, which leads into Lake Victoria, is the ultimate source of the Nile. The landscape along the river runs from rain forests and mountains in Uganda, to swamps and savannas in the Sudan, and finally to barren desert in most of Egypt.

Only a few days after taking off, the rafters found themselves navigating the rough white waters of Murchison Falls in Uganda, which proved tougher than they had expected. (The team portaged around impassable sections.) Scores of hippos and crocodiles made things extra difficult.

In war-plagued northern Uganda, humans presented the greatest threat. There, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has waged a brutal 17-year war on the Ugandan government, killing thousands of people and driving a million from their homes.

"It was pretty tense at times," McComb said. "We [were] the first crazy people in years [to go] through there."

McComb is the only woman on the expedition, which includes two South Africans and two Brits. The members have all lived in East Africa for several years. Hendri Coetzee, the South African team leader, is an experienced white-water rafter.

The rafters buy fresh produce at local markets, and usually cook their meals on board or on the riverbank, though many local people have invited them to share local meals.

"We sleep under the stars, on the boat, at the foot of pyramids, in mosquito-infected swamps, arid deserts, cold winds, humid nights, you name it," McComb said. "Always outdoors, except in the odd town where a bed and shower is in order."

Grinding War

Leaving Uganda, the team descended into the huge saucer-shaped Sudd swamp of southern Sudan. Covered in papyrus reeds, the swamp is the size of France. The rafters had to use local guides to help them find the correct channels to follow.

The swamp has historically separated the Arab and Muslim northern Sudan from the black and mainly Christian southern region. Apart from an 11-year-period of peace from 1972 to 1983, the two regions of Sudan have been at war almost since independence in 1956.

In Juba, in southern Sudan, the rafters visited a camp for 22,500 internally displaced people, many of whom had lived there for 20 years or more.

"If peace is signed, they will go home, but to what?" McComb said. "There will be nothing [at home] for them. They will have to carve out a new existence for themselves once more."

Near the Sudanese capital Khartoum—the point where the White Nile is joined by the Blue Nile, which flows from the Ethiopian highlands—the travelers visited several other camps for displaced people.

"The conditions there were severe with the camps being located on the hard desert plains," McComb said. "Many mud-brick houses had been destroyed in a government undertaking to establish a planned town. No notice was given to occupants. Some people only had a few minutes to gather their possessions and move on."

In Khartoum, the team received an unexpected gift from a local businessman: a new, large raft with a canopy and room for chairs. "Now we're traveling in luxury," McComb said.

Other gifts have presented a problem for the expedition.

At a small garrison town in southern Sudan, the rafters received a live goat as a gift from the locals. When the animal began defecating all over the boat, the rafters managed to give it to their host in the next town.

Further down the river in Fashoda, the King of the Shilluk (a people who inhabit the west bank of the Nile in southern Sudan) gave the paddlers a ram as parting gift.

"We tried to get rid of him," McComb said. "But everyone knew the King had given him to us and no one dared to take him."

Environmental Damage

In Egypt, where more than 99 percent of the population lives along the banks of the Nile, the rafters hope to highlight the growing environmental threats to the river. Heavy pollution is a major health problem to Egyptian society. The Nile is the country's only source of fresh water.

The building of several dams in southern Egypt in the early 1900s had a profound impact on the environment. While controlling flooding, the dams drastically reduced sedimentation and land fertility of the river valley downstream. Upstream, local communities and ancient sites in Egypt and the Sudan were either submerged or relocated because of the dams.

The rafters are making a documentary to show the way the river affects the people, land, and animals around it.

"The whole way has been a constant bombardment to the senses," McComb said. "The river is unbelievably long and so diverse. It's absolutely fantastic."