I went rafting today on the White Nile River! The company forgot to pick me up but my hotel called and I was able to get a ride to join the other rafters.
We drove about 90 minutes to a company called Adrift in Jinja, Uganda. I met up with the rest of the group. There were three U.N. military personnel who work in the Congo in our group. Two of them are Egyptian and the third is Ukranian. Their work is very interesting. There were two people from Holland and 4 of us were from the USA. One of the Americans lives in Kigali and works as a techincal advisor for the Aids crisis there. So interesting! Our tour guide is from Finland. I love being around people from all over the world who are have such fascinationg jobs.
This day of rafting was outstanding. It was outstandingly beautiful and outstandingly frightening. When we first got onto the river our guide went over the safety measures. He descrived how to get low in the boat, how to hold on, and what to do if we fell into the water. "Feet up, float down river" I've done a little rafting and I've seen these precautionary teachings. But I've never been with a guide who actually had us practice falling overboard in the river! Not only did we practice falling out of the boat, but we practiced what we'd do if the boat flipped us. He had us do what we'd do if we needed to flip the boat back into position for reentering the boat. To top off this experience, he had us float through a class 1 rapid in the water.
I thought all of this was so odd. I had no idea that we'd actually use what we'd practiced! I've never fallen out of a raft in a river before. On the Nile, it is not the exception but the rule! He wasn't just preparing us for what might happen. He was preparing us for what would eventually and surely happen.
It did! Several times!
Our team made it through the first class 5 rapid really well. It was exhilarating. The next rapid was a class 3 or 4. We were doing great when all of the sudden our raft flipped us all out. I found myself underneath the raft and had to maneuver out from it. We all had to. We managed quite well. Luckily, there was a pool right after the rapid and the water was deep enough so it wasn't that dangerous.
The day was beautiful. We enjoyed each others company between rapids. We enjoyed looking at the birds--we saw some eagles. The water was cool and when the river was slow we were invited to get into the water.
We approached our second class 5 rapid of the day. Our guide prepared us for what to expect. As we went through we did great. The raft performed marvelously.
The third class 5 was a totally different story. Looking ahead to the coming rapid I had this feeling that we were not going to make it through. Sure enough, the raft flipped. We had been advised to not hang onto the raft if the raft flipped here. Again I found myself under the raft in rapidly and powerfully moving water. I felt others near me. I got myself out from underneath the raft but the water kept me under. I remember seeing only water in front of my eyes and feeling myself needing air. Thoughts like, "am I going to drown?" "when will I go to the top?" were racing in my mind. I wasn't panicing, however. I was quite calm. Just scared. It was only green water in front of me for seconds. Then I surfaced. I got a small breath before I was covered by the monstrous wave of water. Feet up! Feet in front. Next thing I knew I saw our rescue kayaker. I grabbed onto the hand hold in the front of his kayak with two hands and my two legs curled around each side of his kayak. It was like I was hugging his kayak with my feet. He later had me get on the back of his kayak and he paddled me over to the raft. We were all OK. Frightened but OK. One of the guys got beat up a bit by rocks. He wanted to quit then and there. But our guide convinced him that we only had a small rapid left before lunch. I felt a little shaken up. I was glad lunch was coming. I was thinking, "I just did a class 5 rapid without a raft...ON THE NILE!
The whole rest of the trip I felt so nervous about falling out again. The final rapid of the day was called, "the bad place". Hmm...not a good name. We had to take the raft out of the water because there was a class 6 rapid on top of a class 5 rapid. We were told that we could opt out of the final class 5 of the day. I was going to opt out. However, as we walked to the place where we'd reenter the river I missed my chance to get into the rescue raft. So, I had no choice--no I had to do it. It was a pretty incredible rapid. Especially looking at it with the class 6 above it. The first part went smoothly. Then there was a second drop. Our raft was tipping. Two of our team members fell over board. I was almost out of the boat but when those two members fell out the raft decided it didn't want to tip! I made it through! The two others made it find through the rapid without the raft. One got his own scare under the water but was fine.
We had a rain storm during the day. The river was beautiful underneath the falling rain. Then the sun came out again. It is pretty hard to believe that I went rafting on the Nile River today. Never in my life would I have dreamed about doing this! Never in my life would I have gone if I knew it was almost guaranteed we'd fall out of the raft! Ha. But we made it. I think it is because the Nile is so deep that people can expect to fall out and be OK. After each major rapid there was always a slow moving pool of water. All we had to do was to let the water move us into the pool, not panic and be sure to position our feet up and in front of us. So today I rafted the Nile, I swam the Nile and I did a class 5 rapid without a raft! What an experience. When I got back to the hotel tonight I thanked God to be back! Today has definitely been a once in a lifetime experience. I don't think I'd do this part of the Nile again!
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