Winter break

When Lynn and I began the planning for our big three week winter vacation we did not purposely use the Nile River as a theme, but when you live in the vicinity of the longest river on earth, it somehow creeps in to your plans anyway. We chose to visit Egypt to satiate my hunger for history and we chose the Ethiopian Highlands to quench Lynn’s desire for remote, natural beauty.
About two weeks before the trip Lynn had the brilliant idea that since we were flying to Egypt out of Entebbe, we might as well go a day or two early and raft the Nile in Jinja. Now, most people have heard that the Nile is the world’s longest river and that it is somewhere in Africa, but many might not know that there are actually two Nile Rivers, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, which merge into one giant river in the city of Khartoum before continuing north to the Mediterranean Sea. The source of the White Nile is in Jinja at the north end of Lake Victoria in Uganda, while the source of the Blue Nile is Lake Tana in Northern Ethiopia whose waters I am listening to lap against the rocks as I lay in my tent writing this passage. So even though we did not plan it this way, our trip has allowed us to start at the source of the White Nile, visit the mouth of the Nile in Alexandria and end at the source of the Blue Nile, something I feel not many people have done in a single trip.
Sadly, however, Lynn’s Grandmother passed away while we were in Alexandria so Lynn flew to Scotland to attend the funeral leaving me to explore Ethiopia on my own.

Please stay tuned for the chronicles of Lynn and Danny’s excellent Nile adventure!