SAVAGE BEAUTY OF THE SAGANA

Life is defined by the moments that take your breath away and not by the number of breaths you take. You live life on the high wire, the rest is just waiting. This article is for all the adreno-holics out there, tough homo-sapiens with a sense of adventure and a spine for danger. So if you are a lazy, soft-bellied, corporate geek, you may want to flip the page. But then again, this is a dare, get out there and get some oxygen (and perhaps some water) into your lungs.

I have heard many long tales about the wild waters of the Sagana River, its rafting, kayaking and hippos, but have never quite had the experience. Last Saturday found me in the environs of Sagana bored and thirsty for adventure.  This was my perfect opportunity to experience its savage charm.

Deep in the hilly wilderness of Sagana, lies an alien kind of beauty - that of a brute kind. You know, sort of like a Hummer, not exactly beautiful but still dreadfully attractive. There is no better place to mooch away a hot lazy day than the Savage White Waters Camp. The soft, perfectly manicured lawns of the tranquil camp are an absolute antithesis of the fearfully furious waters of the Sagana River providing the perfect balance between lazy camping delights and an out-of-this-world adventure.

The locals, in the day of old, referred to the River Tana as the Thagana, thus the name Sagana. River Sagana, with other tributaries from the Aberdares and Mount Kenya, make up the headwaters of the Tana, Kenya longest (708Km) river. To get to the Savage White Waters Camp, look out for the sign about 10km before Sagana town. The camp is barely two kilometers down the dirt road to the left on your way from Nairobi. For the predictable weekend Nairobi day-tripper, unless you drive a road-hugging Lamborghini, your delicate town car will still get you to the camp, rain or shine.

The settings are perfect for camping and the rates are quite pocket friendly at about 1000/- Kenyan shillings a night per head.  The bonfires, I hear, are to die for and you wouldn’t want to miss the heady stories I would spin around, over a cold beer (hmmmh!) You can’t play music here. Perhaps not to scare the occasional hippo or maybe it’s just for the peace of mankind. Thankfully there are no crocodiles lurking anywhere in the vicinity (I hear!).

A discerning adventurer will be spoilt for choice at the camp. You could take the adrenaline plunge, jumping off a cliff into murky brown waters 20 feet down (yeeks!), or the more sober rafting, perhaps the lonesome kayaking or the insanely suicidal bungee-jumping off a 60 meters high tower. The Sagana rafting stretch is about 20km during the rainy season but probably only about 8 - 10km in the dry season. Bungee-jumping will set you back 4000/- and rafting 6000/-. If you are the dull kind, there is plenty of dreary adventure for you too: moonlight walks, rock-climbing (as if you are a monkey) and skinny-deeping in the treacherous river. What’s your poison?

Saturday morning finds my good man Adrian and his beautiful lass Vanessa and I psyched and totally raved up for a rafting experience on the Sagana. We are welcomed to the camp by the proprietor, Mark and his gracious associates Lin, Jordan and Titus. Great people! Titus is our “captain” and guide for the day. After coffee and cookies we are taken through a thorough session on safety measures we need to remember while on the river.

For a start there is the helmet and life jacket that must be worn at all times. We are using nothing less than a Zodiac raft but we still need to be prepared if the thing capsizes! Rough white water rafting is not child’s play; water can be capricious and nothing can be taken for granted. The safe swimming position and what to do if you find yourself in the water are a necessary part of the rapid course on rafting. This is Kenya and it’s possible to run into a stray hippo or snake on the river. “Nothing to worry about, don’t provoke the snake, just pick it up and throw it over board”, Titus a.k.a. “Captain Jack Sparrow” tells us as if it’s the simplest thing on earth…

Feeling like the “Pirates of the Caribbean” on the “Black Pearl”, we set off for the adventure of a lifetime on the exhilarating 8km course that should take us 4 hours back to the camp. We set “sail”, easing slowly and smoothly downriver. The river banks still maintain some semblance of natural vegetation giving us a pleasant Edenic view to the music of chirping birds and laughing monkeys. Save for the excited children in tattered clothes waving away, the village life goes on, oblivious to our passage, women idly washing clothes, men bathing in their briefs and the river peacefully humming along as it has for countless eons past. Reminds me, I haven’t eaten guavas in ages!

Nothing in this fleeting peaceful existence prepares us for what was to follow. Out of blue the brown waters begin to foam and the river begins to wildly accelerate like a Toyota with a sticky accelerator. The river gods (more like imps) must have been laughing at our foolish notions of paradise. Our raft is bucking like a wild mule and I am beginning to feel “sea” sick. We hit the first rapids so hard, almost like driving into a brick wall. The guys in Moyale must have heard my hollering as the spray splattered into my face and open mouth.  The force of nature flips us this way and that way but our very able “Captain Jack Sparrow” expertly shouts instructions: “hard paddle forward, back paddle, hold tight, get down, pray” (kidding)!

After what seems like an eternity we are back to calm waters and we are now laughing at our panic like scared kids. The best is yet to come. A little down river we ran into what must be a mother of all rapids, tonnes of water furiously hurtling down a cliff and four puny beings to the challenge. I didn’t even need to be told to get down; I was down on all four holding on to dear life. The moment passes and we find ourselves at the bottom of the waterfall, calmly spinning about with our captain smiling at us as if he were at an afternoon English tea party.

Rafting is not complete until you get a taste of the brown waters. There are many activities planned along the course; Take for instance the lunatic “surfing”. Imagine padding hard into the face of the waterfall then bunching up at the front tip of the raft as the raging waterfall thump you till the raft flips over into the brown waters! You are under water like for just about five seconds but it seems like forever. I am telling you, this stuff inspires the spiritual.  I swear to you, I saw all the demons and angels of my past, died, went to heaven and made a pact with God. If you let me live… Warrrrrr! “Now let’s do that again, three times” says the captain, crazy!

Then there is the “adrenaline plunge and the devils toilet”. We climb the over the rocks to the top of the waterfall. Twenty feet down, at the bottom of the fall the water is spinning around like a toilet bowl. Being the ultimate head-banger, with legs shaking akin to rickety twigs in a storm, you hold your nose shut and jump the 20 or so odd feet to the bottom of the fall. The water furiously spins you around before finally spitting you out about 30 yards down river.  You don’t even have to be a good swimmer to try this; the life jacket takes care of the floating bit. Plus there are plenty of good swimmers around just in case you decide to drink directly from the river. The trick is “feel the fear and do it anyway”. Truly, I saw a scared girl live through this, absolutely inspiring. Survive this and you won’t ever be scared of the fearsome Nairobi muggers!

After the adrenaline sessions, we set course down river for the camp at a leisurely pace that belies the excitement we’ve been through; taking photos and listening to the gentle strumming of the river. Overlooking the Rapids camp (another serene camp on the river Sagana) is a tremendous waterfall oozing brown waters that makes for a great spectacle.  We arrive to our camp to a welcome shower, cold beer and a great juicy sizzling barbeque; perfect!  In the evening as I drive back home, I am telling myself great inspirational stuff and singing to Yves Larock song “My dream is too fly, over the rainbow, so high”. I just ticked off on one more item on my “101 list of things to do before I die” and lived to tell the tale.