We have conquered the mighty Nile!!

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Well, we are back in one piece from white water rafting the Nile river in Jinja. WHAT A TRIP THAT WAS!!! Oh my LORD!! hahaha it was the most fun I think I've ever had - four Grade 5 rapids plus a bunch of 3s and 4s. Our raft tipped twice and I honestly have never thought I was going to die before, but I did that day.

We arrived at Nile River Explorers campsite Tuesday evening, set up our tent, and settled ourselves in at the bar (note: I no longer think it is a good plan to drink the night before you raft). Every night they show a video of that day's rafting at 9:00, so we watched that and thought to ourselves "What am I getting myself into??". After a few more drinks we headed off to bed.

We woke up and met the rest of the group we were rafting with at 8:30 in the morning, had breakfast, and got a rundown of what we could expect on the water. Then a bus took us down to the river and we met our guide. His name was Henry, he's a local who's been working with the company since it started up 10 years ago which was pretty cool and so I felt safe with him since he obviously was not dead yet. Then it was time to start off.... the first couple rapids we hit were pretty tame, some of them we got to hop out of the boat and go down by ourselves, just swimming which was fun. Then we came up to our first grade 4 rapid, which we went through no problem!! The other raft lost a couple people though hahaha... there were between 5-6 safety kayakers with us at all times though, so that made me feel a ton better - if you fell out of the boat they'd paddle over and pick you up. We also got through our first grade 5 rapids with no casualties, and again the other raft flipped. The next set of grade 5 rapids was a different story though- there were 4 standing waves, the last one of which was a monstrous wall of water that we couldn't make it over. Our boat flew up in the air and then over backwards and we were tossed around like rag dolls. I think i went underwater like 6 times!!! SO scary but when you come out of it, it's the best feeling in the world!!

We had lunch on the water, floating down the calm sections of the river with local kids swimming and waving at us from the shoreline. Luckily this section of Nile doesn't have crocs so I felt safe jumping out and having a swim. We came up to our next set of grade 5s (I'm really only telling you all about the more exciting rapids) which included a WATERFALL that we obviously went over, but made it out alive!! Absolutely incredible. The last set of grade 5 rapids saw us again flying into the air and spilling out... this time, I went under only once but it was for definitely more than a few seconds... again, terrifying but so worth it. We got picked up by a truck again, which took us back to the campsite where there were beers and a BBQ waiting for us and where we relived the day's adventures. This was, hands down, the craziest, most exhilarating thing I've ever done, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!!!

We head out tomorrow on our own, up to Fort Portal which is in the northern section of Uganda - I have no clue when I'll get on the internet next, but whenever I get the chance I'll be updating about our adventures thus far.... Love and miss everyone!! Matt says he loves and misses everyone too!! xoxoxo

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