White Water Rafting the Nile!!
06 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Dearest Peeps..
You either must be really bored or really love my blog if you’ve read all 3 posts in this one day. Just FYI.
But here is the promised blog about rafting with pictures! And within the next few days, I will post about my weekend with my friend and my recent work life. Plus, the fears about the upcoming elections.
And also with the modem working and my new webcam and microphone (Thanks Mom and Dad!) I can now skype with people and I’ve semi-successfully skyped with Sandra for like 3 minutes. And I just had a really good skype session with my cousin, my aunt and the family which was awesome!! SWEET!
Modem Troubles:
So, I’ve been having trouble with my modem since the end of In-Service Training. My modem decided on its own that since it was in a 3g zone during Training that it changed itself to only connecting to the network in a 3g zone. Kamuli is certainly not a 3g zone, it’s a 2g zone. So, I went through a bunch of trouble trying to contact the people and go to the service centers of the company that makes my modem (MTN) so they can assist me with my trouble. I didn’t understand why it wouldn’t work in Kamuli, but it would in Jinja and Seeta (near Kampala). I called the people and the guy’s best piece of advice: “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Restart your computer and then plug in the modem again and tell me what happens.” My response: “NO! I did that like 50 times. I uninstalled and restarted and reinstalled and restarted and then plugged it in. I tried everything I don’t know what to do.” His response: “I’m going to have to call you back.” This was 4 days ago and I still haven’t heard from them. It turns out I just had to de-select under network preference “3g only” to “2g and 3g preferred” and seconds later it was picking up the network. Hence me having the internet right now. Sweet!
About the New Year’s post and Shisto:
So, my friend Anna got sick the past week and went to Kampala for treatment. And she was diagnosed with Schistosomiasis, a parasite that lurks in all bodies of water in every country of Africa, a few in Asia, and 4 in South America. When asked, did you go swimming by the doctor.. she said “Yes I went to the Hairy Lemon (refer to New Year’s blog) on New Year’s” and what did the doctor do? He laughed! He said that almost everyone that goes to the Hairy Lemon gets Schisto because there’s a place of standing water where they have a volleyball net in the water. Schisto is mostly in lakes, but it also appears in the Nile. So, hence I’m probably going to get symptoms of shisto within the next few weeks! hah! I’m just going to take the meds from the pharmacy as a precaution before I even get symptoms just to make sure. Because during the elections, which take place on the 18th, would be a very bad time to get sick. And there’s a 6 week period from swimming to getting symptoms placing the 16 of us in the middle of a bad time to get a parasite! But I’m going to continue to go swimming in these beautiful places and continue to go rafting because it’s too much fun to miss out on when in one of the most beautiful countries of the world.
Rafting:
So, Rafting on the Nile was probably one of the most amazing, beautiful, exhilirating, adrenaline pumping experiences of my life. I’m going to post some of my friends pictures of their raft and rapids because our raft didn’t buy the pictures of ours because it was too expensive but we did the same exact rapids as they did so just pretend it’s me in the pictures.
So, after training about 37 of the 45 from our group got picked up from the training hotel in Seeta and traveled shortly north of Jinja to the Nile River Explorer’s lodge where we were to stay for 2 nights, 1 day of food included, and embark on our rafting trip. We settled into our hostel style rooms and they offer a booze cruise, which I opted not to go on, and went to Jinja with a few friends instead. Apparently, the booze cruise was fun because when the 30 volunteers came back from it (20 bucks for dinner, free alcohol during a 2 hour boat ride on the Nile/Lake Victoria), they were way drunk, which was hilarious for those of us who went to Jinja and had dinner, went shopping and came home and had a beer or two.
So, we hung out that night for a while. Went to be to arise for a 9 am departure to the rafting prep center. At the prep center, we had breakfast (chapatti, toast, fruit, etc.) and then we got our life jackets and helmets. It was then, after all of our stuff was at the hostel, that they told us what we should bring on the rafting trip. Which, most of us just brought sunblock and what we were wearing. So much for that! So, then they the put us back on the trucks, there was about 50 of us including visitors from home and some other people visiting from other countries who happened to be rafting that day.
We got to the push off site where we got our paddles and picked our groups. My raft was my friend Anna, her two wonderful British friends from her place that I met during Christmas, Chelsea, my friend Joanna, and another volunteer friend Gary (who is 49 and took hold of the raft along with me in the front! hah!) and our guide Bonnie, who was awesome. He’s from Zimbabwe, is a well traveled raft guide, has rafted the Nile over 500 times and has lived in Colorado for a while (He was wearing Vail, Colorado shorts that day, which Joanna noticed since she’s from Colorado).
Push off point:
Loading Up
So we loaded up, got our paddles and we were the first group on the river! So the first part is kind of boring, but it’s mainly for safety. They teach you about how to hold paddles, that they’re the most dangerous part of rafting since you can smack someone in the face if you’re not paying attention and when you flip over (which you will, you won’t have control because you’re so worried about staying afloat through the rapids). Then, you do a flip test, in the calm water, where every one gets onto one side of the boat and the instructor says, “hey look it’s a monkey over there!” and then flips you over while you’re not paying attention which is quite hilarious. And they teach you how to get to the safety kayaks if you fall off and how to reflip the boat or breathe underneath it and get back onto the boat.
Flip in the rapids!:
My friend's boat flipping over in the middle of a rapid!
So, the first rapid that we went over I think is either a grade 3 or 4 and is called Bujagali Falls and is a semi-big tourist attraction in the area. It was a good, cool first rapid, but a lot of us were like that was it?! We want more! Bigger! I wasn’t sure about flipping the boat yet, but the guide sitting in the back of the boat has the most control over flipping, because he acts as the rudder and if he deems you a crazy bunch, you will flip on every rapid. And flipping isn’t as bad as it sounds, it’s pretty fun.
Bujagali Falls:
The first rapid
The second rapid was much crazier, called the 50/50. Because 50 percent of rafts flip on this rapid. And my boat happened to be in the 50 percent that flipped. It was awesome, and disorienting and fun, but they tell you exactly what to do when you flip, so as long as you stay calm in your mind and aren’t completely retarded or drunk, you’ll be fine. So, they tell you basically, you always wanna keep your feet first in case of rocks and curl up into a ball and you’ll float to the surface (I was, after all wearing a life jacket). So, we’re going over into it and he’s like “Paddle Paddle Paddle, GET Down!” and we all get down and the boat turn sideways, went down into a wave and then, BOOM, I was flying through the air on my way into the water. In the water, I was so disoriented, but thinking okay feet first curl into a ball as I’m rapidly being tossed and turned underwater in these rapids. And then up I come, perfectly fine and everyone from our boat is cracking up laughing and both Anna and I, fell far from the boat so the safety kayak picked each of us up and took us back to our boat where we re-flipped the raft and got back onto the boat. When getting onto the boat again, it’s really difficult to pull yourself up, so someone has to pull you up by the shoulders of your life jacket. You end up landing on the boat like a beached whale, on other people’s paddles, legs, halfway over the side of the raft. It’s hilarious. I think the 50/50 was a class 5. And it was spectacular.
The 50/50:
50/50
I can’t really remember which rapid came next, but I think there was another good one and then my favorite one and probably the most intense one called Silverback. Here is a video of a guy going through Silverback on a Kayak:
Silverback was crazy!!! So they stop you before to prep you to go over it. This is where they’re currently building a dam which is going to completely ruin all 3 rapids I’ve talked about so far. The dam they’re building is supposed to bring a lot of electricity to the people in the region, but the way things work here, I don’t think it’s going to have as big of an impact as they say it will for the Ugandan people. You can see they’ve started building the dam on both sides of the river but it’s nowhere close to being done, though they say it will be done in 2011, actually in Feb/March. But that’s definitely not happening. Also, the dam is highly contested by Egypt and its government because it will affect the water flow up the Nile all the way through Sudan into Egypt. So, they started building in 2006, and they say it’s going to be done this year, this year, but this is Africa, maybe next year. Anyways, Silverback goes around a small island in the river so the rafters go over the left side because it’s more easily navigated. But the river runs around the island and converges into one HUGE rapid that looks like a rooster’s tail. So, you paddle all the way towards the island get down in the boat and fly downwards for a few seconds and then straight into the convergence point blasting your raft with water and you fly up over the rooster’s tail into the remaining rapids. This one was my favorite. And we didn’t even flip though, as we were flying up into the rooster’s tail, Anna flew out of the boat and started heading down the river.
Silverback:
Silverback rooster's tail
So, then they’re some calm parts after this rapid for a while where you have to paddle a lot to get through and this is where you meet up with the safety raft and get your lunch which is cookies/biscuits and half a pineapple per person. Not too filling, but it does the trick and is easy to eat on the river because you can throw the ends of the pineapple into the river and it will get eaten by something. And this part is where you get into Crocodile territory. But they generally stay after large rafts and this is where you can go swimming and cool off as you’re being cooked in the sun all day. Which was nice. We also played a game called Rodeo, where the rafters spin the boat around and one person stands on the side and tries to stay on as long as possible without falling off! haha Needless, to say no one lasted very long. And Anna decided in the middle of lunch that she wanted to stand on the side of the raft, where she proceeded to try and talk to other rafts, and VERY hysterically and ungracefully slipped, hit and fell off the raft and lost part of her lunch in the process. So funny.
One of the next rapids, was funny because we were almost about to flip, but didn’t. The boat tipped enough so that when I quickly looked to my left and Gary and Joanna just WHOOP flew off the raft, in a split second and there were people sitting in between them who didn’t fall off which made it even more funny. After this, is when I decided I was already getting sunburnt, so now was the time for me to put on some suntan lotion, good thinking. Chelsea took it upon herself to put a crapload of suntan lotion on her face, she did NOT want to get burnt, and her whole face was white with suntan lotion. Then, she decided she wanted to go swimming and jumped in. So, when she got back on the boat for the next half hour Anna had to use her handkerchief to stop the lotion from burning Chelsea’s eyes out hahhaaa Being with the two Brits made things even more funny and their stories were wonderful and Dulce, decided that we all wanted to flip on the next rapid, which we didn’t but she was egging us on.
The next rapid, was supposed to be pretty much like going over a vertical waterfall but you have to paddle it correctly or the river will take you the opposite way and you go back wards over another rapid. Well, he didn’t tell us during the paddling that we were doing it wrong, so we missed the waterfall, but it was still a fun rapid and we ended up being one of the two boats going over the rapid looking something like this:
Whoops!
But, we were one of the first to go through so seeing everyone’s faces drop when they saw the vertical drop they were about to go over was priceless!!
Then, there was some more downtime and some chatty fun until the last rapid. The last rapid has two parts, one is a Grade 6 rapid — the highest — called Bad Place and the other part is called Other Place. I was trying to get them to let me go through Bad Place on a boat with some people that wanted to, but they said the water level was too high and it was too dangerous. So, for this part they get you out of the raft bank on to land. They take a picture of your raft group, and then they carry your raft past Bad Place and you raft the Other Place rapid, which was alright but not that exciting.
Bad Place:
Scary! but I would totally do it if they let me.
Then, you turn back around and bank on land and your 5-6 hour journey rafting the Nile is finished. They pick you up back on the trucks and buses and take you back to headquarters where the hotel is and the have a BBQ feast of delicious food and beer tickets waiting for you upon arrival. So, you get back, eat, decompress, shower, change, and then the video guy makes a video of you going over the rapids and of the whole trip traveling ahead of you all day. So, around 9 pm everyone gathers with their beers and friends and they play the video of the incredible day on a huge projector screen. This was especially great, because we all knew everyone who was rafting and their personalities, so seeing their faces and them on video was funny and more personal than if you had gone rafting with a random group of foreigners. We have a copy of the video which I will bring home and I will show it to you in 2013 upon my arrival home after the world ends in 2012.
Well, this must be my longest post yet! Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it and felt like you were there. Because it was an experience I’m never ever going to forget. And an experience which I’m going to do at least 2 more times before I leave the country! Hopefully, once again in the next month or two with Anna and the Brits, Dulce and Nate.. and then once with my Mom and Dad in May! Some more random pics:
50/50 again I think
Mid-Rapid Friends
Mid-Rapids Again
Well, thanks for reading this far! And I hope everything is okay at home.
Love,
Dan
