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River
Rafting on Ethiopia's Small
Nile
by
Maurizio Melloni
From
Africa Travel Magazine
The very first descent of
the Gel Gel Abay (Small Nile) by my company, Wonz
Dar Expeditions of Addis Ababa, began midweek, and
after a long 12 hour drive, we arrived at Bahir Dar
on Lake Tana, near the Blue Nile Falls (Tisisat).
The crew consisted of my friends Leo, Hermias and
Ephrem and myself. On the trip north, we
stopped by the bridge at Uutet Abay, 65 km south of
Bahir Dar, to check out the possibilities for an
easy "put in" and to get some feeling of the river
itself. After a brief reconnaissance effort, we
agreed it looked fabulous, and decided that it
would be the ideal spot for "launching" the next
day's expedition.
 That
evening in Bahir Dar, we met Neville, an expert
kayaker, who had expressed a few weeks before in
Addis, his desire to join our expedition . During a
sumptuous Ethiopian dinner, we finalized details,
then returned to the hotel and called it a
night.
Waking early, we had a
hurried breakfast at the hotel in Bahir Dar, after
which we drove back to the bridge - six men and all
the gear packed into one normal sized 4-WD. Only
five people will make the rafting trip, since
Hermias will go back to Bahir Dar to try to find
and hire a motorboat to tow us back across Lake
Tana. The appointment with Hermias was set for the
following Sunday at high noon. Here in the
attractive resort city of Bahir Dar in northwest
Ethiopia, is where the Nile river system merges
with the blue waters of Africa's fifth biggest
lake.
It took us about an hour to
rig the raft and prepare Leo's new inflatable
kayak. I gave the usual safety talk to Chernet, an
Ethiopian guide from the area, who previously
worked for the Ethiopian Tourism Commission. We
headed downstream at 10.00 a m, and it didn't take
long before we heard the roar of troubled water,
and stopped for the usual scouting session. That's
a must when you raft a new river. An hour later we
decided to make a portage.
TOO BIG TO RUN !
Our first real surprise, and not the last by
any means, came a few more minutes downstream, when
more loud noise reached our ears, which were now as
sharply tuned as antennas. We caught the usual eddy
to slow the craft down to a stop, and, went on a
scouting trip. We disembarked well upstream and had
to walk quite a distance to view the rapids. They
looked just as big and treacherous as the first
stretch of fast water. After checking out every
possible angle and waterway to try to run the
rapids, we finally decided on the left channel.
(Still very fast, but slightly more friendly). The
difficult part was to make the right entrance (as
with all the rapids one encounters), but this
particular area had big drop (what we call a
flipper) . Thankfully, we guessed right.
Looking back there I tell
you, it appeared huge and scary. The right raft
position and side water shoot helped us make the
smooth landing. The perfect decision; I managed to
stop and picked up Leo, who took the above photos.
We carried on to flat water a few hundred meters
downstream, and the rest of the day's trip was a
very pleasant floating experience, cruising along,
with views of corn fields and flocks of bird life;
kingfishers, African fish eagles, gray herons, and
other varieties. The peasants who gathered by the
riverside, were very surprised, and soon we felt
like being in a race with bunches of spectators
escorting us downstream.
Then our small group of
river voyagers decided to camp out amongst the
cornfields, so we kept on going downstream until
dinner time, where we went ashore near a stream of
fresh, clean water. The camping spot we chose was
also very public, so we exchanged some wine and
utensils for firewood. After dinner, we sat by the
fire in a pow wow with five persons who agreed to
spend the night by the fireplace to stand guard on
our equipment. They kept on saying " We know that
nothing will happen to you, this is a peaceful
country, but still we prefer to check on you" It
was a good excuse to hang out with us, but mutually
beneficial.
That night we named the
first set of rapids AIDEFFER, which translates as I
differ (We did).
We called the second set of
rapids BACK PAIN, named after me, Maurizio. The
drop was high, and my back didn't like
it.
The third set was names
Leo's FIRST (Leo is a newly certified WW Rafting
guide from California ( this was his first rapid in
Ethiopia.)
Before heading for the
tents, we realized that the sky was getting ready
to give us some more water. As a safeguard, I
arranged a big plastic tarp so our visitors could
spend their night in dry conditions. Thank heavens
- it rained almost the whole night.
The second day started with
a 70 cm higher river level, giving us a "cruising
speed" of 10 km per hour, free floating in an open
territory. There were gorges for a change, unusual
in that part of Ethiopia. Agriculture and bush
composed a beautiful scenario, and we also
encountered sporadic forest and few islands. With a
higher river gradient, it was fun water to run,
with train-waves, whirlpools and eddies . We named
some fun waves GELGEL EXPRESS. With few false sound
alarms, we were able to walk for a while, always
escorted by a bunch of guys and girls, all with the
strangely humorous Goggiam accent. Further
downstream we decided to camp on the river's left
bank near a grove of eucalyptus trees. As one might
expect, the whole nearby village showed up, and it
was difficult to keep them away from the raft and
kayak. Same situation as the previous night, but no
rain. After a morning stretch my ailing back felt
much better.
The river dropped had almost
a meter overnight, and the whole village was back
in camp wanting to see us off. We loaded all the
gear and headed downstream followed by two long
lines of people on shore. The big crowd stayed with
us for 10 km until we reached the village of Chimba
where they stooped to shop at the local
market.
We kept on downstream. and
stopped for one more scouting session, which ended
up being quite difficult, because we were on the
right bank of the river and the rapid was turning
on the left. This was a multi-channel rapid, and we
had to prepare different plans in case of trouble.
We ended up taking the left channel. The rapid was
named SSHAB, which in Amharic means to pull. It was
'S'- shaped and quite challenging because of a big
'Hole' at the confluence of two channels. A few km
further downstream we encountered the famous and
frightening ZEGUEBER (door of Zegue) rapids. Zegue
is the name of a peninsula on Lake Tana, on which
the famous churches of St. Gabriel and St. Michael
were built.
While we decided to make
camp there, it was not in a very good spot, since
we noticed later that it was on a main trail to
several villages. We witnessed the local river
crossing aboard the popular local papyrus boats
(tamkwas). To my surprise tamkwa operators are
working with round trip fares and do not mind if a
passenger doesn't return the same day. The fare is
valid for next day also.
Next morning we left camp
with a lively crowd following us as usual, heading
to the last stretch of river which leads to the
GelGel village. This village is the most
interesting stop on the whole route. This people
live extremely close to the river side, and during
rainy season their houses go literally under water
a few feet. While many well intentioned
organizations have tried to resettle them, they
keep on coming back. At leaving GelGel we walked to
the Lake Tana landing where the motor boat was
waiting to take us on a 4 hour trip to Bahir Dar.
Wonz -Dar
Expeditions
PO Box 19913, Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel. (251) 1 757 604 fax (251) 1 751-377
River Rafting, Trekking, 4 WD Tours, FIT
wonzdar@telecom.net.et
Watch for a
Focus
on Ethiopia Trade and
Tourism
in
the October 2004 edition of Africa Travel
Magazine.
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