“It’s been just few a days since I’ve come back from Africa; we went there to make the first descent of the Dyntcha River which is a tributary of the Omo river ...... one of the biggest rivers in Africa.

In the past there were many expeditions to the Omo River but no-one had tried to explore the regions of both the Kaffa and the Dyntcha. 

When we came to the main town of the Kaffa region called Bonga, we were one of first white groups to visit this region. We put in on the Dyntcha on the second week of October and our journey was planned to take 22 days; 120 km’s of white water on the Dyntcha and then 350 klms of easy big water on the Omo.

Our team had six members, me in the kayak and all others in a big raft, which held all the equipment; food, tents, gear, cameras…..

The main goal was to run the Dyntcha. We had just a bit of info about river, no real maps and no one could tell us about the river itself, even local people have never been down there.

The first two days were amazing white water among awesome scenery in totally the middle of nowhere; dense jungle, lots of monkeys, huge birds, big spiders, nice rapids and on the end of second day ……….waterfalls.

After the third day the volume of the river was twice as big as at the start and the gradient kept getting steeper and steeper.

Rapids started to be Grade 5 and sometimes more. For me it was the limit of what I can paddle with my kayak full of gear and for guys with big raft it was basically impossible on water this big.

We started to portage lots of rapids with the raft, it was just so difficult portaging first the huge dry bags and then after, the raft itself.

In this manner we kept going for three or four more days but that meant every day we only descended between 800 to 1500 meters of the Dytcha.

After these horrible days all our dry bags were ripped, so everything was wet; our clothes, gear and food …. the lot. Over the next days the river was nicer to us, not so steep but still in the canyon and still difficult.

After one week we came to confluence with the other big river, it started to be steep again and during the next kilometre there were more than six rapids that were unrunable.

We were all short of food and the biggest problem was that there was absolutely no chance to portage any of it.

During that night one of the team got injured and fell unconscious and to make matters worse, the water rose more the half meter so that we had to move to higher up the bank.

The next day we decided to finish our journey and try to save our lives and so went to find local people or at least a of bit civilization.

Two of us went into the jungle to find a track to a village but we were not successful but on the next day with the team all feeling better, we left everything on the bank and went into jungle again with just the minimum necessary stuff.

After two days we found a small village, probably 1100 meters higher than river; we were exhausted and without water but we were saved.

At the end of this epic I have to say that it was one of the most full-on action trips I’ve ever done. This river is definitely not good for rafts but for kayaks it is one of the biggest challenges I ever had; solid Grade 5 and more and in the middle of nowhere with deep canyons and dense jungle.

There are few rivers around that have the same character as the Dyntcha,  I would like to come back and finish our mission but at the same time I know it’s gonna be hardest trip I'll ever do.

Take care …. Honza”