AN EPIC JOURNEY ACROSS THREE COUNTRIES
Ethiopia
On December 25, 2003, the explorers “put in” at Sakala Springs near Lake Tana in the mountains of central Ethiopia, now known to be the predominant source of the Nile’s flow. Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent nation—the only African nation never colonized—and is considered by many to be one of the continent’s most stunningly gorgeous countries, a land of remote mountains, fertile valleys, and diverse cultures.
As they set out, team leaders Pasquale Scaturro and Gordon Brown were well aware of the odds stacked against them. “We realized that the Blue Nile had so far eluded all other explorers,” admitted Scaturro. “For thousands of years, people have been trying to do this, and for thousands of years they have failed. But between us, Gordon and I have more than 50 years of river experience, and we felt we had a good chance of success.”
For Brown, a cancer survivor who just a few years before was battling a brain tumor, the voyage held an irresistible lure. “I had been on the White Nile before, and I knew that running the Blue Nile would be an incredibly journey,” he said.
The duo’s extensive experience would prove the most significant factor in their ultimate success. From the moment they started, the expedition team was immediately swept into wild adventure, quickly dropping through the steep cliffs of Ethiopia’s Blue Nile Gorge and into the whirlpool action of Class V and VI rapids (rapids that lie at the very edge of human ability). Here, two serious capsizes caused one team member to quit. The action continued as the team headed for Tissisat Falls—which means “Smoking Water”—a thundering, 1,200-foot-wide cascade that plummets 150 feet into a boiling cataract below. Unable to navigate the falls by boat, the explorers were forced to use ropes to rappel down the waterfall’s sheer cliffs.
The rapids weren’t the only challenges facing the team in Ethiopia. At one point, Brown was an especially visible target for the 12- to 14-foot crocodiles as he paddled his surface-skimming kayak. “I found I could usually charge them and turn them around because if you attack them they consider you a predator rather than prey,” he said. “That tactic probably worked more than 100 times, often several times a day.” But one particular croc was more ambitious than the others and tried to ambush Brown. “It charged and got so close I had to smack him between the eyes with a paddle,” he explained.
Later, as the expedition approached the Sudanese border, Brown heard bullets whiz by him, and realized he was being shot at by shifta, roving bandits known for robbing travelers in remote parts of Ethiopia as well as Sudan, Somalia and Uganda. Shifta were responsible for the deaths of three other explorers on earlier expeditions. Luckily, Brown was able to hide behind a rock until the shifta disappeared.
Just two days later, Scaturro was awakened by 10 local police armed with AK-47s who decided to take him and Brown into custody at gunpoint, where they languished in a jail cell until Scaturro threatened to call the Ethiopian Minister of Defense on his satellite phone. “Within a few days, we had been attacked by crocodiles, shot at by bandits and arrested at gunpoint. Clearly this trip was getting really, really wild,” summed up Brown.
Sudan
As the team made its way 500 miles to the swamps of the Sudan border, stopping for food in the local villages, they had passed the point at which other expeditions had abandoned their attempts. The explorers did not know what to expect as they crossed into Sudan, a nation plagued with ongoing civil war and tragic humanitarian crises. Scaturro and his crew were surprised to find exquisite natural beauty and friendly faces along their path. Sudan is Africa’s largest country, about one-third the size of the United States, with a landscape that varies from grassland plains to the Nubian Desert. In Mystery of the Nile, the audience gets a rare glimpse at the many hidden treasures within, including the enigmatic black pyramids at Meroe. Scaturro said, “We were warned that Sudan would be a hotbed of danger, but instead it was the most beautiful country with the most kind and helpful people I have ever encountered.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge Sudan presented was simply the weather, which brought mid-day temperatures as high as 120°F and violent sandstorms. “At times we felt like we were riding through an oven,” said Scaturro. The heat, and the relentless boredom of long days confined to their rafts, made for some of the toughest stretches along the river.
Egypt
Finally, after more than two months on the river, the team arrived in Egypt where the river has been a central part of the culture and the lifeblood of the people for centuries, providing irrigation, power and transportation. In a country that is 97 percent uninhabited desert, the Nile provides the means for Egyptians to live in the narrow 5 percent of land nourished by the river.
As they crossed the border, the explorers were promptly arrested and had to spend many frustrating days wrangling the necessary permits to cross the country. Here, the team spent a spectacular night crossing Lake Nasser, a vast humanmade body of water in the shadow of Aswan Dam famed for its high winds. Nearly capsizing in the rough waves and freezing from the cold, the team somehow managed to press on. Several weeks later, after 114 days on the river, the expedition finally reached the end of their landmark journey—the Mediterranean Sea. Upon reaching their final destination, Scaturro and Brown became the first people in history to complete a full descent of the Blue Nile and Nile.
“What is especially remarkable about the expedition is how little outside help they had,” noted Richard Bangs, the film’s second unit director. “They descended the entire river under their own power in two inflatable rafts and a kayak, portaging around only the few rapids considered most deadly and the river’s three dams. They had to supply their own food, service their own equipment, manage the border crossings, and basically survive by their own skills.”
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DMNS-04-122 Many of the Museum’s educational programs and exhibits are made possible in part by generous funding from the citizens of the seven-county metro area through the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District.
