Near...'Death on the Nile'.....extreme rafting
Trip Start
Sep 25, 2003
1
51
59
Trip End
Apr 23, 2005
Kampala, Uganda
Monday, February 14, 2005
Abstract: Went on the scariest white water rafting trip yet at the source of the Nile , including the final rapid 'bad place', where one person (a client) stayed in the raft out of 21, all the guides went for a swim too...
Nitty Gritty:
Jinga an hour or so to the east of Kampala, sits on Lake Victoria at the the source of the Nile and it was here that we did some amazing white water rafting. The river is dammed and has a huge amount of water surging down it with some truely huge rapids.The rafting company, Adrift's, HQ was in a lovely spot over looking the turbulent river below. We teamed up with 3 americans in our raft, donned crash hats and life vests - soon we discoverd why they were so keen that these fitted really well....The first stretch of water was pretty calm with a small rapid we had to float down to check we could all swim etc. There were 3 rafts and a support raft rowed by a huge strong Ugandan and several other Ugandans in sport kyaks to lend assistance at the rapids. We rafted 4 huge rapids in addition to others. The finale looked unraftable and the rafts had to be portaged to the start of the raftable part - claimed to be the largest commercially raftable rapid in the world.
It was white knuckle all the way and by far the best rafting we've done. The boat bent and squashed under the force of the water and when the 'get down' command was shouted by the guide, we'd all been in the bottom of the boat for a few seconds all ready, the waves were scary and immense.R got flung out of the boat at one rapid, being rescued by the support raft and Kish at another - he ejected over R's head and it was a scary few seconds before we saw his helmet bobbing in the surf and he was returned to us.At another, we all stayed in the boat, but we lost the guide who was catapulted out and we waited anxiously for him to surface. The water was like being in a washing machine. There were a few long stretches of flat water where we bore the full brunt of the sun.
The final rapid was awesome 'Bad Place- a long frothy mess with huge standing waves. We watched the other two rafts go first - the rafts flipped over head over heads, and all the rafters were flung out, the raft stayed in one place being tossed around for more than a minute before popping out. Our guide was shouting for us to paddle hard, but we were all in the bottom of the raft already...he'd already told us to chuck our paddles when we entered to biggest wave and all R can remember was G shouting 'what about the paddles?', before we were all ejected, getting wacked by paddles and limbs and waves. Out of the boat, and floating towards a huge wave which we floated over, and the next and the third broke on R's head pounding the helmet and feeling as if it were being wrenched off her head even though the chin strap was still done up, G swallowed more nile water than was healthy and was still retching and coughing minutes later....and then it was over.....hauled into the rescue craft and reunited with our paddles, boat, guide and fellow rafters. Very exhilerating!
Back near Kampala, the driver dropped K & G at an ATM as we were without Ugandan shillings - luckily they were successful as R was really worried about them having to go into central Kampala in the dark wearing flimsy swimming shorts.
Comments
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