You could almost feel everyone's slight nervousness as we got off the buses, took off our shoes, put on sunscreen and headed down to the put-in point. After a brief overview of how to get back in the boat when (that's right WHEN) it flips, we split ourselves between two rafts, and got introduced to our guides. Our guide quickly became our best friend, even though he flipped us on purpose to practice within minutes of getting into the raft. Nathan was absolutely hilarious, amazingly ripped, and settled any nerves before we took on our first rapid. Our first rapid was a Class 5 waterfall. Going over that waterfall, we paddled as hard as we could, and we made it through like champions! The adrenaline was definitely high after that one!
On our second rapid, a Class 4, we actually flipped, and somehow I ended up 20 yards away from the raft and had to get picked up by one of the kayakers (see video at the end of the blog for an example from my friend Nicole who was on the other raft).
Between the rapids, we floated at a relaxed pace and told stupid jokes with our guide. One of the supplies rafts brought us a snack mid-trip: we each ate almost half a pineapple! It may have been the best pineapple I'd ever had, a combination of being really hungry and it being so perfectly fresh and ripe!
Some of the later rapids blend together a bit, but a Class 6 was too dangerous to raft over as amateurs, so we walked around it and only rafted the last quarter of it. My raft went through really easily, so our guide waited until all the rafts had gone through, and we went through again. He aimed us perfectly through it so that the entire left side of the raft ended up in the water, and those of us on the right hung on tight while we were up in the air and managed to pull some of the people back in right away. The others got picked up downstream within a few minutes.
The last two rapids of the day are some of the biggest ones, and by that time I wasn't interested in flipping anymore - much to the disappointment of my fellow rafters, so I jumped over to the safety raft that goes through the rapid but is guaranteed not to flip, and I got to watch all of the other rafts come through the rapids with varying levels of success (I filmed the final rapid in the video below).
We ended the day in true adventure-travel fashion - with beer and a hearty meal waiting for us at the end of the trip.
All in all, rafting Class 4 and 5 rapids is something I never thought I would do, and I'm so glad I got to do it with such a great group of people!
The company we went with took lots of pictures, and I hope to post them as soon as I get my hands on the CD that we bought!
1 comment:
What an amazing adventure! I'm not sure that I'll ever get to Uganda, so I enjoyed reading about it through your eyes.
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