APRIL 7, 2008 (Holy Crap, I'm Happy to be Alive)

Holy shit! Today Mags and I went to Jinja to white water raft the Nile at its source. I can now safely say that I have swam in the Nile at both ends of it! First of all, let me begin by saying that upon arrival I learned that this white water rafting experience is second only to the Zambezi river as the gnarliest white water experience in the whole world. Secondly, I will say that the Ottawa river is not even one fraction of the intensity of what we encountered today... We began the day boarding a bus with 16 Christian missionaries...no comment at my first reaction to that. When we got to the rafting centre we were joined by another two people as well, making our total for the day at 20 people. We had to split into three boats, which we had to designate as "Mild" or "Wild". The missionaries all decided that they absolutely had to be together in two rafts, which left only four of us in the last raft. Fortunately, Mags and I were paired with two really cool people from Montreal, Canada, so our boat was Team Canada for the day. The Nile river at Jinja is designated as a Category 5 rapid experience, which is the most intense they will allow rafters to do, however, the river itself has Category 7 rapids, which only kayakers are allowed to go down. In the morning, we hit 6 rapids and our boat was definitely the more ballsy of the three. We hit all the rapids as hard and as wild as possible. On the third rapid of the morning, we were primed to hit a Category 5. Man, we did not know what we were in for! We went down the rapids first and essentially there were 4 major static waves to hit in this series of rapids. We were hoping to get to the last one before we faced any major intensity, but our boat was so light with only four people that as soon as we met the first major wave, our boat went right up and flipped. Like this wave was literally the height of our boat. We had practiced a bunch of times how to deal with flipping and getting stuck under the raft and air pockets, etc., but holy shit we were so unprepared. When we hit that first wave we were launched into a major series of rapids and there was nothing we could do but try to scramble for the surface for air. This proved to be utterly impossible for me. As soon as I hit the water the wind was completely knocked out of me. I fought against the next three major waves crashing down on me and the swirling rapids in between to get to the surface but I didnt' know up from down. I ended up getting thrown under the raft and I punched hard to free myself. I got a brief attempt at air before being thrown under water again and then I found myself sucked under the raft yet again. I managed to calm myself long enough to find an air pocket but I could not for the life of me catch my breath. I was still surging through the rapids under the raft and the wind was still knocked out of me... SERIOUS NOTE: Of all the crazy stupid intense adrenaline rush things I have ever done, this was the absolute closest to death that I have ever felt. I honestly thought I was going to drown on the friggin Nile today. All of a sudden, when I was under the raft trying to breath, I felt two arms grab me. At first I thought it was a fellow rafter who was panicking and I honestly kicked them away cuz I was like screw that it's every man for himself until I can catch my breath! Fortunately, on the second attempt, the arms pulled me out from under the raft and out to the surface. It was my guide and he just looked at me and said, "just breath, it's okay". He had the most panicked look on his face, which made me panic even more as I grasped to get my breath and make sense of the situation. All I could think was, holy shit, I have lifeguard training and I almost died and my guide is shitting himself and there is no one else around, am I going to see at least three other bodies upside down unconscious in the water? Fortunately, as my guide frantically tried to orient himself with the situation and flip the boat back over, we spotted Maggie and the two others who had been rescued by kayakers. Apparently, I had the worst go of things, getting stuck under the raft and not being able to free myself long enough to get to the side in the gentler rapids. I literally got stuck under the raft and surged into the heart of the rapids for the next three waves. The next two boats to go down also flipped, but they did so on the last rapid. Our problem was that the guide expected us to only flip on the fourth and since we flipped on the first, we had to get through the rest of the rapids out of the boat. I can only say that you guys have to see the pictures in order to understand what we are dealing with. I shit you not, that was the scariest experience of my entire life. I would rather jump off the Bloukrans Bridge 100x over than do that again! After lunch (where incidentally we lost one of the people in our boat who sustained a concussion during that crazy boat flipping experience), everyone got their wounds fixed up and we set out for the afternoon series. We were assured that we would not get flipped out until maybe the last rapid of the day. Bullshit. The second rapid of the afternoon, which was a Class 5 again due to tons of rocks, our boat guide decided that our boat was more extreme than the others so after going down a 3 metre waterfall (which none of the other boats did), he paddled us down a different channel than the other boats went down. Again, our boat was too light to handle the rapids and although we made it through the first set, our boat totally flipped on the second set again. This time fortunately I did not get stuck under the boat but I still got the wind knocked out of me. By the end of the day, we hit the most intense rapids of the day. We literally had to get out and carry our raft on land past the Class 7 rapids, which made me want to shit my pants just looking at them. We put our boat in at the end of that set, considered a Class 5 and surged down...all three of us were absolutely terrified by this point, begging our guide to keep us from flipping at all costs. I actually sat at the back of the boat (as the strongest swimmer nonetheless) and begged our boat guide to grab onto me as soon as we flipped in case we flipped. Fortunately however, we muscled it out and managed not to flip. Even more fortunate (for us Canadians at least...not for the missionaries), there was unlimited beer awaiting us at the end. Anyhow, craziest experience I've ever had. Mags and I are going balls to wall here in East Africa. We are hoping to go to Jane Goodall's chimpanzee sanctuary tomorrow where we hope to be keepers for the day and help to feed and provide medical treatment to orphaned chimps. We will keep you updated.