Day 75 – How’s your wife …. and my two daughters?

Jinja – Timton Hotel

We phoned the rafting company, Nile Explorers, first thing this morning to check on a few things – they offered to come and pick us up, even though we were only a five minute walk away. The service given by this company is extraordinary, driven around, free shuttles, great food, and a great time rafting on the Nile – we can’t recommend the company enough.

There were eight of us rafting today (two rafts of four people, plus guides) - we were all fitted with lifejackets and helmets, and given an initial briefing as well as breakfast. We then hopped into the back of a large truck and driven to the starting point on the Nile. Once there we had further briefing for our Grade 5 rapid adventure. In hindsight it was just as well we hadn’t youtubed “rafting Nile” as some of our companions had (and terrified themselves) – it’s worth checking out – here’s an example!

Grade 5 is only one grade less than the highest Grade 6 – and there were a couple of Grade 5 rapids on this trip. We did not expect it to be so exhilarating and scary, being dumped from the raft time and time again into these huge rapids. Ignorance is bliss – hindsight a wonderful thing. Our guide was a real larrikin, who entertained us constantly – which made the longish paddles between rapids go quickly. Knowing full well that a local fisherman didn’t understand a word of English, he asked him the question that we’ve put as this post’s title!

The trip was brutal in more ways that one, the rain was so cold and hard we left the raft to swim/float down the Nile as it was warmer than being on board. Quite unreal to find ourselves floating down the Nile in Uganda, in torrential rain!

We rafted 8 rapids in all – another one was too dangerous so we walked around it (we were told it was Grade 6+) – and our guide told us the story of the dodgy rafting company that sent some Japanese tourists over it, resulting in many broken bones. The eighth rapid was the one where we were all dumped very violently – K was quickly picked up by a safety kayak, while M ended up running the rapid in his lifejacket!

With a little luck we’ll have some photos to upload to the blog, but not yet, as we need to wait for some of the photos taken by the rafting company to be sent through.

We were met on shore with a great BBQ lunch, after which we were taken back to Jinja. A nice dinner at restaurant near our hotel, and then an early night as we were both quite tired after our Nile adventure!