Day 23 - The Nile

If anybody ever wants to talk to me about white water rafting, I’d be happy to... just don’t plan on trying to show me up. Today I rafted the the great White Nile of Africa, the longest river in the world, the river that I’ve learned about in geography class since elementary school, the ULTIMATE white water experience in the world; I did it.

The day started off usually and intimidating. As we prepared to leave the house to catch our 8:15am taxi to Jinja, it began to rain. And when I say rain, I do not mean a sprinkle, a bout, or anything else that would describe it as inferior. It RAINED. Rain so hard you could fill up a swimming pool in no time. Rain so hard that by standing in it for 2 seconds will get you absolutely drenched from head to toe. The best part about it was that we HAD to walk in it to catch our taxi, we had no other choice. We couldn’t miss our taxi because it was part of the package deal that we paid for. So we all bundled up the best we could, threw on our bags, and out the door we went. Luckily for me, I had some equipment that made my walk in the rain a little less painful than others. My dad bought me a super lightweight waterproof Rain jacket in St. George before I left. I keep it in my backpack at all times just in case. Also, the backpack I bought to come out here has a rain fly. These two things literally saved me. When I got in the taxi, the only thing that was wet were my pants, naturally. My upper body was dry and so was my backpack... so I thought. I later found the things in the bottom of my backpack a little wet, I’ll have to determine why and make sure I don’t let that happen next time.

The ride was uneventful except for the pouring rain which made things halfway interesting. My iPod Shuffle found its way to my ears, but only lasted 2-3 songs because a song came on that brought back a flood of memories I didn’t want to have. We arrived in Jinja at Nile River Explorers, the company we used to raft the Nile. We were greeting with a nice piece of paper to sign our lives away, a little discomforting but obviously necessary on their part. We had breakfast which was comprised of toast, chapati, eggs, pineapple, and midget bananas; it was quite good. We had a short introduction to rafting and some instruction on getting life vest and helmets. The whole time I had small knots beginning to form in my stomach. I kept wondering what I had gotten myself into and whether or not I was going to be able to handle it. The part of the Nile that we rafted was comprised of five Class-5, two Class-4, three Class-3, and two Class-2 rapids. Go ahead and look those up, Class-5 rapids are no messing around, they are HUGE and DEADLY if you’re not careful.

I got in a group with Trent, Jackie, Ashley, Emily, Heidi, and Lauren. Jackie spotted a particular guide and he was very cool. I was quite happy with my little group and knew that we would be laughing and having a great time. We got on the raft and entered the water; we were off. I knew there was no turning back and that my life was in the hands of the Nile, the raft, a life vest, a helmet, and a very experienced guide that had floated down the river over 200 times. The first couple of kilometers were used to train us with commands in the boat as well as being in the water and learning how to deal with the water when in rapids; we swam in a Class-1 rapid. We got back in the raft and were greeted with a Class-4 rapid to begin our journey. When we approached I got super nervous and figured I’d be in the water and halfway drowning. Luckily, that was not the case. We went over it, crazy as can be, but we made it and it was awesome. This was the trend throughout the day. I can’t really go in to detail about these rapids because there were so many of them. All I can say is that they were intense, so intense that I sort of felt like my life flashed before my eyes a couple of times, especially the last rapid which I will go into more detail about.

The last rapid was a class-5 and was called “The Bad Place”; it was most definitely the ultimate bad place and when I think about it I get the chills. Right before this last rapid there is a class-6 that we actually had to skip. We docked each of the rafts, got out, and the rafts were carried for us about 50 yards to skip the class-6. We got back in the raft and got going again. It was only another 20 yards on the water until we got there. I can’t even begin to explain the power of the water of the Nile. If you think you’ve seen big white water in your life, nothing compares unless you’ve been to Nepal which is considered the best in the world by some, though some claim the Nile to be best.... who knows. This water is out of control powerful and it’s very scary. We came to the edge of the water and went over. The picture of what I saw was equal to that of a washing machine on drugs. As the water poured over and plunged downward, water rolled over the top and created a sideways cyclone of sorts. Our raft hit the rushing current, the front flipped up, the back down, and we were ALL thrown out. I remember being in the water being tossed and turned like never before in my life. I remember spinning at least 10 full revolutions before my head poked out of the water. I held my nose and mouth with my hand to keep any water from going in and any of the precious air in my longs from escaping. Even though my head popped out of the water I still wasn’t in a position to get any air, I had to wait another 10 seconds for that chance to come around. The first person I saw when I finally got out of the water was Heidi. It was good to see somebody’s face in the water to remind me that I was still alive. Immediately I was worried about my fellow rafters. When I was finally well out of the water there was a rescue kayak right there to help me out. I grabbed on to the handle on the front of the kayak and wrapped my legs up and around as instructed before. He took me to the edge where I got off and tried to get ahold of myself. I was in shock to a point, I was shaken up big time. I couldn’t believe what had just happened to me.

The ride home was horrible. We sat in the back of a huge truck like a bunch of animals with a trailer stacked 4 high with rafts. The ride was horribly rickety. Many times I felt like I was going to fly out as we were traveling on roads through villages nearly the whole time. Ashley was scarred out of her mind, I felt really bad.

The night was pretty fun, we just sat around and talked and played cards. We had dinner, it was OK. We were super hungry so anything was good. We each got tickets for 2 drinks, I found an extra ticket and ended up having 4 drinks... yeah, 3 cokes and a bitter lemon Krest, it was heaven, they were even super cold. We must have sat around for 5 hours. When I got back in my dorm I discovered something a little unnerving. I had emptied my backpack out on the bed I was staying in which included a protein bar and some peanuts in a bag. I discovered that they had been eating through... by a mouse, or a rat, or some other rodent I’m unfamiliar with at this point in my adventure in Africa. I was so mad!! I ended up hopping in bed with a fellow volunteer because I was worried the little freaker would be back for some more chewing, but on my toes.

The day was amazing, I’m so glad that I rafted the Nile; what an accomplishment. Until next time.