Rapids are ranked on a scale from 1 to 6 based on their difficulty. I've gone rafting I think 4 times in the US but I'm pretty sure the highest class I had ever done before was 3. Which is what we had originally signed up to do here, but somehow ended up getting talked into doing Class 5...
(Me, Mandi, Jinna, Bronwen and Michelle + random guy who jumped in the picture)The two Canadian girls we had met the day before came with us so we had the perfect number of people for a raft with the addition of our guide, Juma (which means 'day' in Kiswahili). Juma was hilarious and joked around with us all day which made the whole experience 10 times better.
The run that we did has 12 rapids on it and cover 30 km. Now, I have never ever fallen out of the raft, let alone flipped the entire raft while on the water before... and I was petrified to that it would happen. Approximately 5 minutes after we got in the raft I found myself in the water! Juma made us all jump out of the raft and then make our way back in again just for practice - this was a bad sign.
We got back in the raft and headed down river a little ways. Just before we got to a tiny class 1 rapid Juma made us all get out of the boat again and float down the rapid on our own - no raft... I started questioning the whole class 5 rapid experience at this point...
We made it through the first real rapid just fine, and as we're approaching the second one Juma informed us that this rapid had been renamed in his honor... because he had yet to make it through horizontally. AHHHH! We begged and pleaded with him to do everything he could to get through without flipping... it didn't work.
Out of all 12 rapids we flipped 5 times! And it was amazing! Of course, there was a safety boat that always went ahead of the rafters, along with a fleet of (very cute) safety kayakers who paddled in to the rescue of any rafter that happened to misplace their boat.
(Don't worry, we weren't allowed to raft down this guy - class 6)I swallowed my fair share of Nile River water - but it was well worth it! Aaand the group of us purchased the video that was made of the day so anyone who is interested is more than welcome to take part in the experience via television when I get back!
1 comment:
That sounds like so much fun. I can't imagine actually being in the Nile. When I went to Egypt in 7th grade my grandma flipped out when she saw me touching the water.
Can't wait to hear about Rwanda. I coincidentally just rewatched Hotel Rwanda and I have to imagine going there is going to be a really powerful experience.
Hope all is well, it seems like everything is amazing.
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