Round's Report: Rafting the Nile

On Sunday, Kash and I decided to really get into the tourist mode and go rafting on the Nile. We were picked up in Mukono in the morning and brought to a town called Jinja about 1-1.5 hrs away. There we were greeted with coffee and tea as we waited for everybody from the various hotels to arrive. After getting life jackets and helmets we grabbed our packed breakfasts and headed onto a truck for a 45 min drive to the river. I have come to realize that nothing can proceed in Uganda until you have been offered coffee/tea and food. Arriving at the river we quickly unloaded the boats, got into groups, had a safety talk, and then we were off. We were on team girl power with a mother and daughter from Australia, a girl from Spain/England, and a girl from Toronto. It was so refreshing to interact with so many other muzungus, there were about 20 of us in the entire group. Kash and I both felt we really needed the group interactions as we have not been with that many muzungus since we left home. The rafting was classified as Class 5, the highest level in the classification system, which means the rafting was legit not just floating down a calm river. Although there were some much appreciated long calm stretches for water, cookies, and pineapple breaks. I believe we went through 7 or so major rapids and managed to capsize in all but 3 of them. Being an adrenaline junkie and living for time on the water, I was having the time of my life being launched through the waves. The rafting made me realize how much I miss spending summers out on Caddy Bay coaching sailing. After the day of rafting a late lunch was provided on the edge of the river with unlimited beer. The food was so good as it is catered more to the tourist crowd a.k.a. it wasn’t just rice, beans, matoke, and posho and it was so good to relax with a nice cold beer after a long day in the sun. My poor white Canadian skin sure did not appreciate the long day in the sun and despite copious amounts of sunscreen my arms and legs are rather lobsterish, thank god for aloe! Anyways, after a nice meal and some time just to hang out and chat we were loaded back onto the truck for the drive back to get the shuttle home. On the truck more beers were passed around which was quite an interesting combination with the rather bumpy and uneven roads. If you weren’t paying attention to your beer it would end up all over you bubbling out of the bottle so logically you just had to keep drinking. This was a fantastic end to an incredible day with many great people! Kash and I hope to go back to Jinja in the next little while with an overnight stay to do some other touristy things and interact with more muzungus!

Here are some of the pictures from the day: