Whitewater Rafting on the Nile

Becky, Beth, Krista, Pallo (our guide), Robbie, MichelleDuring Beth's visit, one goal we had was to go whitewater rafting on the Nile. Due to various reasons, we kept changing our reservations until finally she had one day left before leaving. We were talking about it the night before and what was going to be a group of 2 girls turned into five! Beth had a friend who was passing through Kampala on her way to Gulu, a town in the north. Michelle and her sister-in-law (who had just arrived for a visit, along with Jake's parents) also decided to join us. What could be more fun than five girls whitewater rafting class 5 rapids?! We were picked up in Kampala and taken to the rafting base in Jinja. We were fitted with life vests and helmets, had a brief lesson in safety and learned what commands our guide would be giving us. We practiced on some simple class 1-2 rapids, jumped in the water and practiced getting back in the raft. Then the adventure began! We survived our first class 5 (The Ribcracker), and then we came to 50/50, a class 3 rapid (as in you have a 50% chance of staying in the boat). Sadly, we were in the other 50%-the one that got us thrown out of the raft and trapped below water for so long I was sure I was going to die. In reality it was maybe 5 seconds, but when you're trapped in churning water and have no idea which way is up, it feels like forever. We all came up sputtering and had all swallowed a bit of the Nile. All day, you could hear one of us coarsely coughing as we tried to get rid of the Nile water that had ended up in our lungs, we called it the Nile Cough. All in all, we did 12 rapids (4 of them were class 5) and flipped a total of 3 times. Somehow, I fell out of the boat all on my own during one rapid, so I can claim 4 times. (Luckily our guide saw me, because I was in the back and apparently did not even make a noise-all of a sudden I was gone. I know why I didn't scream, I was desperately filling my lungs with air as I plunged into the churning water below and wasn't going to waste my oxygen by screaming.) We were lucky that the sun did not shine most of the day, this really saved us from some severe sunburn. We also passed by some class 6 rapids, but these we avoided. They are not meant to be rafted (when something is called The Dead Dutchman, The Pencil Sharpener, or The Ashtray, you really want no part in it). It was a fabulous day! We laughed (we maybe felt like crying, but didn't!), we screamed, we giggled and we coughed. The picture above is the five of us with our guide (after we dried off and no longer looked like drowned rats). If I want, I can raft again in the next 3 months and get 50% off. Sounds great, but I just don't think I'm brave enough! -Krista