NILE!

I was awoken by someone tapping on my face trying to sell me something. As I focused and tried clearing out my drowsy mind, I realized that this someone was trying to sell me bananas and was tapping on the window against which I had been resting my head. It came to me that I was in the bus heading to the River Nile at that god forsaken hour of the morning. It was actually almost 9 am at that moment, but I had woken up at 6 to get ready for this trip and that is a time that I’m not really fond of. This trip would definitely be worth it though. The bus started moving again and I looked around to see that most of my companions were also sleeping. The ones that had finally decided to come after much deliberation were Stefanie, Meredith, Matt Boynton, Matt Brown, Alex and I. Accompanying us was a mild-mannered local by the name of Steve who Stefanie had been dealing with in her project.
After much waiting, we finally reached the river by 9:30. This was definitely a momentous occasion for all of us as the Nile is something that all of us have read about in our history books all throughout school, but none of us had ever expected to actually see it, let alone go rafting on it. Leaving all of our valuables in the bus, we went off to get registered and have a briefing session before the experience commenced. The people who ran this rafting company were Australian and it seemed today would be an extremely good day for them as they were completely booked which meant that there would be 5 rafts going down the river each with a capacity of about 8 to 10 people. As there were 7 of us, we invited another guy who was on his own to join us to complete the team. His name was Alan, and he was a student from New Zealand presently visiting his father in Uganda. We were assigned to an instructor called Jeffery who would steer us down the river and its rapids today. After getting our gear consisting of a life jacket, a helmet and a paddle, and taking a final picture, we hopped onto the inflatable raft and pushed off. Before we went anywhere though, we were given a crash course to help us prepare for the rapids and any situation we may land ourselves into. After being taught a few positions and commands such as “Hold on” and “Get down”, we were asked to jump into the river. This took a while to digest this was such an unbelievable experience and also because some of looked like we expected sea monsters or something in the river that would grab us and pull us down into the murky depths. I personally was a little hesitant as I had not gone swimming since my lung had collapsed two years ago and I didn’t know how I would react to swimming again. I had been an excellent swimmer before that incident, but had not been able to enter any body of water since due to pains. It had been a while since I had tried though, and with a quick breath I plunged myself into the river. Within seconds I knew that I was going to be fine and that I was going to go down this river without any health related worries. To our utter shock, we were not let back on board by Jeffery. The reason for this he said was that we would be swimming down the first rapid. The entire group laughed and tried climbing back on board but he insisted that he was not joking and we had to stay in the water which was speeding up as we could see and hear the first set of rapids approaching. Taking it in our stride, we got over the absurdity of the idea and swam towards the rapids. After being bounced around and taking in a few mouthfuls of water, we emerged on the other side absolutely ecstatic. This was going to be an amazing day it seemed. All rapids are classified on a level based system having 6 levels of difficulty where 6 is the highest and 1 is the lowest. The first rapid that we attempted while seated on the raft was a level 3 thus we did not expect it to be very powerful, however this expectation was wiped away as the raft did a massive flip on the rapid throwing all of us in the raging water. Plunging into that water was an exciting experience and as I emerged on the surface I found most of my friends already filling their lungs with air and screaming and shouting excitedly. The one exception was Meredith who surfaced with a scared face, vowing not to go down any more rapids. We were not going to let her chicken out that easily though. As we climbed back on board, we started to convince her to stay on and enjoy the experience which she agreed to hesitatingly. After a few hair-raising rapids, we were starting to tire by the effort of paddling, but the thrill of the rapids kept us going as we plunged into more level threes and level fours. Our first level 5 rapid proved to be our undoing. This rapid was called Big Brother, and as charged into the middle of it, we looked up to witness a massive wave crashing down upon us catching us mid-scream and filling us up with water as it over-turned our boat. Almost immediately I lost my paddle and my grip on the boat and found myself tossing and turning underwater. It was a battle of arms and legs as we became entangled with each other in our efforts to make it to the surface. I was locked in a major battle with someone trying to make it to the surface which I finally did, only to find out that I was stuck underneath the raft and had to dive under again. I managed to break the surface again, and was being helped by Alan when I was again sucked under by the rapids to emerge on the other side after what felt like an eternity sputtering and coughing water. Such abuse had never felt so good! Being the last one to emerge, I made my way to the raft where we helped to flip it over and climbed on board. As it turns out, the “someone” that I had been locked into battle with underwater was actually two people in the form of Alex and Stefanie. Everyone had their personal experiences to narrate, and it was a pleasure to see that Meredith also had enjoyed herself just as much that time around. With that we made our way to an Island where lunch was being prepared for the 40 or so people on the trip today.
After a delicious yet simple meal of salami sandwiches, we once again took to oar and headed out into this relatively calmer section of the river for what promised to be a lazy afternoon interrupted every once in a while by a massive white-water section. It was quite an experience to just jump into the Nile and swim alongside the boat for some distance. As Alex and Matt practiced their back-flips, I took some joy in diving off at a perfect 45 degree angle just as I had done 2 years ago. Stefanie also joined me in doing so while Meredith resorted to just stepping off. In the midst of all this, there were 2 people missing, and both were to be found still on the raft. Steven was spread out lavishly on the raft fast asleep as if he had been rowing for a week without break. Matt Brown however was a sight of his own, sitting there still wearing his lifejacket and helmet while holding his paddle. Why he did this, no one knows, but it was hilarious either way. He did join in with the fun eventually, as we all ended up spreading our bodies on the raft just lazing away under the African sun.
The afternoon was completed by four brilliantly violent rapids that kept us on the edge of our seats. We conquered each and every one of them while teetering on the very edge of flipping the boat over. Twice, we found ourselves in very precarious situations as the raft was almost at a 90 degree angle, but we somehow managed to control it and keep our backsides inside the boat. The day ended with a massive level 5 rapid which soaked us all thoroughly but we got through it with cheers of “Champions” from every one of us.