Rafting the Nile..

It just so happens that I live an hour from the source of the Nile. THE SOURCE... Thats right, and some wicked class 5 rapids. Its taken me a while to get them rafted, but yesterday... yesterday was the day. The three program interns and I decided that it was this weekend or never. We met up at the Cathedral and hiked down to the Colline where we were met by the Nile River Explorers shuttle, which shuttled us on to Jinja. At the NRE place we were served tea-- along with all the other brave souls for the day and given our orders. Waver signed, check. Life vest, check. Helmet, check. Rain jacket, check. Breakast, check. Load up on the truck-- with all your gear on... Check?

A fifty minute drive to the 'put in' point, a few more safety tips and pointers and we were off. We were a raft of eight: Meg, Molly, Jones, our dead-cute guide Thabani from Zimbabwe and three others, Ekta and Krishna-- doctors from the UK and Jeff a fellow from the US visiting his brother in Kenya.

A series of ten or so rapids to get through with names like "The Bad Place," "The Hair of the Dog," "Kula Shaka," and "Nile Special." In between the madness were long pleasant stretches of Nile floating. Lunch was some where in the middle of it all: pineapple, gnuts and biscuits provided by the oar raft...

The first rapid was pretty easy, we made it through no problem. The next three however, we seemed to be in wipeout mode, each getting progressively worse. Our guide thought it was kind of strange that we kept wiping out-- but who knows. (There was a suspicious twinkle in his eyes and crooked grin.) Although its true, the other rafts weren't having quite the trouble we were... but hey. Wipeout mode looked something like this: (I'm the last one on the left side...)

Recovery in between...
And then wipe out again:

By the fifth rapid we finally got our groove on and made it through--we decided that actually its much more enjoyable going through the rapids in the raft, than swirling, tumbling endlessly underneath the water hoping and praying you'll come up to the surface before your lungs burst... (Thabani assured me that if you are wearing a life vest, there is no way you could possibly die on the river. I'm not entirely convinced of this either, but I am alive to tell the tale.) The other news of great comfort was that the Nile is a high volume river, meaning its good and deep, so you don't have to worry about hitting the rocks or the bottom while tumbling, swirling about endlessly. And it was true, never hit any rocks. Just inhaled inordinate ammounts of really lovely, clean Nile water. And suffered moments of sheer terror at the thought of NOT coming up to the surface... but again, I seem to have survived.

Oh, what a good fun day, at the end of which the Nile River Explorers provide you with a tasty barbecue...

I've a few random bruises, the tops of my legs are burnt, my sit-bones feel like they were bouncing on rocks all the day long, not an inflatable raft, and my arm muscles are sore in new and different places... oh it was fun! And I'm ready to do it again in a heart beat when any of you finally decide to get on over here for a rocking good time... (Not to worry, we'll be sure to study the videos extensively before hand, figure out some survival tricks...)

rafting photos taken by NRE Video Productions.