White water rafting on the Nile
Trip Start
Feb 25, 2007
1
65
74
Trip End
Nov 12, 2007
Jinja,
Uganda
Friday, August 24, 2007
the rapids at the beginning of the worlds longest river do not
dissappoint. The day started with an early pick up in Kampala and a 2
hr drive east through the country side to a little town called Jinja.
Here, just below the damn is the start of the 31km rafting journey. I
got on my raft with 9 strangers and a Canadian guide and we headed off.
First was practicing a few skills (paddling, holding on for dear life,
getting
back in the boat when it flips, etc...). All said and done, we hit 12
rapids. 7 in the morning and 5 after lunch. There were 2 grade 5s,
mostly grade 4s and a few grade 3s. Oddly enough, we made it through
the first grade 5 and all of the grade 4's without flipping but some
how managed to flip on a relatively simple grade 3 early in the day.
There were plenty of opportunities to go swimming during the long
streched of calm parts. The highlight of the day was the last rapid.
Its actually multiple rapids. At the top are 3 grade 6 rapids that all
merge into 1 grade 5 at the lower section
Areal view of the last rapid
. The upper part, the grade 6,is considered un-runnable by raft so we had to walk around it while
porters carried our boat to the beginning of the grade 5. The group
agreed to head directly for the worst part of the rapid called Itanda
(meaning "the bad place"). We hit directly in the middle of it and
flipped almost instantly. After that it was under water for me taking
in more water than air. After about 5 second sI popped back to teh
surface in time for another breath as I floated into another huge wall
of water and was submerged again. After repeating this cycle once more
i was out of the rough white water and floating into a small eddy until
the boat could be flipped back upright and the lost passengers
recovered. This was the end of the day. We paddle a bit further down
river to the exit point where we loaded into the van for the trip back
to Kampala.
