So Day one we land in Uganda and we arrive at our campsite at 2 am and stumble through the darkness to pitch our tents and find our pillows just in time to not pass out on the dirt. We arise the next morning to the fun realization that we as leaders finally get to tell our teams that we are going to white water raft on the Nile River for the rest of the day!!
We arrive at the Nile early in the morning and are told to bring nothing with us, not even shoes, except lots of sunscreen. We have a light breakfast and then get in groups of 8 and head down the river into the amazingness that is Class 5 rapids. Each twist and turn of the river brought new excitements and adventures for our boats. Some boats flipped over, some people fell out, some people swallowed a little water, but everyone had a blast!!! It was an amazing experience for sure.
About half way down the river we came to a very calm section where we were told we could take off our helmets and relax for a whiel because no rapids were coming for a bit. So naturally I was the first one to do this. And the I decided to take it a step further and ask to go for a quick swim. My river guide said it would be no problem so I jumped in with my lifejacket on and a few of my boatmates followed suit. It felt so amazing just to lay there and let the river take you down stream in the cool refreshing water. After about 10 minutes I looked up and realized I was further from my boat and friends than I realized but didn’t think there was anything wrong with that since my guide didn’t seem to mind. We were all laughing and having a good time from a distance. I soon realized I could hear in the distance the sound of rapids quickly approaching and realized that I needed to get back in the boat. I started laughing and calling out to my boat who was also laughing and my situation as I struggled to swim upstream to get back to the boat. A different boat near by called out and taunted me saying that “it was to late” and “to just give up and let the rapids take you”. As the sounds of the rapids got louder and louder I soon got a little more panicked and tried more frantically to get back to the boat. All the other swimmers had stayed so much closer to the boat and had since been pulled to safety and were calling out to me to “try harder” and “swim faster”, which of course made me all the more frustrated because I was trying as hard as I could at the time. For a couple of minutes I just stopped trying and yelled out that I was giving up and letting the rapids take me and I would just have to hope that I survived without a helmet…….
stay tuned to find out if I make it back to the boat in time or not……… 🙂
