Rafting on the Nile

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Rafting the Nile was unbelievable… not only was the rapids insane but also the animals that we saw were incredible.

We set off for Jinja early Saturday and arrived to the backpackers with a welcome of free teas and coffees, which then extended to chapatti with an omelette and fresh fruit. If the rest of the day is going to be as good as this… I… can’t… wait. We got

We got down to the Nile after we got kited up, had a little safety lesson and jumped in the rafts for a further safety lesson. Can I just say, at this point both Meg and I had not been rafting before and didn’t know really what to expect. It’s probably the right to say… mum, dad… we didn’t want to wimp out and go for grade 3 rapids so despite not having insurance that covers us, we went for it anyway. It started with the instructor saying ‘when we fall off this is what to do’. Someone asked the question what happens if we don’t to which he replied, ‘if by some miracle we don’t tip over, I will make it tip over’. So with that we went for it.

There were 8 rapids in all, grading 4 or 5’s. We were hit the first pretty hard but stayed on whilst we watched many other teams fall off and get dunked by the rapids. The second was amazing, not only because of the rapid but also because a little island on the rapid had 100’s perhaps even 1000’s of fruit bats flying, swirling the skies overhead, unbelievable. I was almost too absorbed by the awe of the bats than I was with the fast up and coming rapid. By the third rapid we may have been the only team to stay of for the first 3 until the 4th came.

Just before you hit the rapid the instructor tells you what to expect from the rapid and when to paddle hard and when to hold on tight and get in the raft. This one was manic as it was one long rapid. We did the first drop nosed dived into the oncoming wave when most of the team (including the instructor) fell out and it was left with Me, Megan and 1 other guy left in the boat (there were 8 in our raft). The others getting lost in the washing machine of the rapid went on down the river, the instructor, seeing our scared faces, swam up current as quickly as he could in a little lull, jumped on and started shouting commands at us now there were only 4 of us and 3 paddles. You front, you back, you grab that paddle, Paddle hard, hard, I SAID HARD. We hit the second part of the rapid, and we were under, being washed away, or so I thought. We popped up out of the rapid and now there were only 3 of us, who was missing… Megan.

Between rapids we had sometimes 6 or 7 km before the next in which time we enjoyed flipping off the boats, going for a swim in the Nile and watching other animals. We saw a huge water monitor lizard swim straight past us, an island with loads of yellow weaver birds and nests on and an eagle perched in the tree. This, for me, was almost as good as the rapids. This made me miss (just a little bit) my former life as a zoo keeper. After rapid 4 we stopped for a snack, we didn’t, however, get off the raft; we stayed on whilst the support boat chopped up loads of pineapple and passed out biscuits. Floating down stream with the sun beaming down on us, half a pineapple in one hand and a pack of glucose (otherwise known as biscuits) in the other thinking, this is the life.

My personal winning streak of 4 out of 4 rapids still in the raft came to an end fairly quickly. We did the last rapid twice and I think we fell off 4 out of the remaining 5 times. Before we do the rapids we are told to hold on or not, when the boat flips, according to whether it is rocky underneath or not. We did flip on this one and I held on underwater to the rope, now also underwater. I couldn’t get up though, for what seemed like an eternity, so I braved the rocks and let go thinking it would be good to breathe right about now. I thankfully got out alright and a support kayaker asked if I was alright, I replied in short of breathe, I’m fine (this is not realising that we had only done half the rapids and I had my back to the rest of the rapid we were just about to do). I got turned around under water trying to catch air when I could, when I miraculously joined up with the raft again looking for Megan to see how she was. The raft needed to be flipped right away so there was not time to find Meg or catch a breath, apparently. Straight under water whilst the boat was flipped over our heads and everyone pushed ourselves onto the boat. Everyone is there except her, I asked the instructor did he know where she was and he flippantly replied, ‘I think I saw her back there somewhere’. That’s great, thanks. I stood up on the raft like a meerkat and eventually saw her being towed towards us gripping on to the nose of a kayaker.

We finished the day of rafting with an amazing BBQ overlooking the Nile with a nice cold Nile special. We drank good beers, ate good meat and retold stories of how when Megan fell out the raft one time, she swung her legs round and kicked the instructor off. Good times.

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