By Our Reporter
The festive season brings with it, the urge to retreat. It carries an immensely plausible reason for people to get off their hinges and loosen their work straps and have real fun. For me, this experience came before the actual holiday. My Santa came while I was prowling the cyber streets, you know, for amusement and all. I was looking for bars in Jinja, and that’s how I landed on a Facebook page called “Retreat Jinja”. What started as a nonchalant curiosity-induced inquiry about their prices, sparked a particularly big interest for me to check out Jinja. And like that, I got to discover the Jinja not many people know.
Not many people will tell you this, because perhaps that kind of fun is too absorbing to be shared on social Media. Or perhaps because, during an actually fun filled trip, especially by the extremely funny Retreat Jinja chaps, you don’t have the time for the phone. Or simply that with the fun activities packaged by Retreat Jinja, you won’t need to call people. Or, wait, we would go on forever.
First off, I was impressed by the screaming contrast between their prices and other such service providers. The jaw-dropping weekend long retreats were half the price of the other service providers, yet for more activities. But those are the kind of technicalities people looking to retreat don’t mind because, see, if you can’t afford a holiday, you save for it.
We set off on the grandmother of chilly Saturday mornings. The Retreat Jinja van picked me up from my place in Bweyogerere (how cool) at about 6:00am. They insisted that I don’t have breakfast if I fancied roast chicken, so I didn’t because, well, I never do. 30 minutes later and a guy, their guy in Namawojjolo, a chap called Alama was serving us the biggest pieces of chicken I had ever seen. My partner and I grappled to finish only 2 of the 4 crispy chicken pieces we were served so we saved some for later.
The first adventure was rafting in the rapids of river Nile. I am not an adrenaline junkie, but these chaps have a way of buttering anyone up. One of them, a lady called Nadia told me that this is where boys become men. Before I could counter her baseless argument, she fed me some more notions about fear and braveness and marinated all of this with the once-in- a-life- time clichés and I bought it. She had sold me the braveness I would otherwise never buy or freely get anywhere. And maybe her cuteness helped in the whole of this, again, maybe. I however, strongly believe I accepted to raft because of the 100% safety policy they had. Our guides, two guys with rusted English accents whose points you’d easily miss because you are laughing at their pronunciation of the word ‘fising’ (to mean fishing) talked like authorities. They wore their knowledge on their tattered sleeves and spoke leisurely, as if calculating their words.
But I accepted and I experienced the proverbial once in a life time opportunity. Goodness. The thrill that ensued. We started off from the calm end of River Nile and I thought to myself, well, if this is what people fear, then they are chicken and I am the man. Minutes later and I was screaming my lungs out. It didn’t help that Nadia was on the same raft boat as i. Neither did it help that near us, a boat laden with hot chics from a corporate firm was experiencing the same rapids as I but were acting all masculine and keeping their shrills for real thrills.
I would later live to see and hear their shrills. Nadia convinced some, but most willingly agreed to do bungee jumping because it was part of the whole package. Most acted fine, till the moment they were plunging from the sky at supersonic speeds. They bellowed their voices hoarse, after which, those weird chicks described that experience as fun. I mean, if it is fun, why loudly call out the people you have done nothing but disappoint all your life to save you. Why do you disturb Jesus and give your “mummiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”s hiccups if it is really fun. But see, that’s just my school of thought.
We then went horse riding, and Quad Biking after which I was too tired. My little money had bought me so much fun than I could handle. So as the groups went for more activities, I slept off and awoke later to see the sun set at Bourbon were we were served with steak and a fancy type of wine whose name no one remembers. We toured the night life in Jinja and prepared for yet, another exhilarating day out. It was a day like no other.
