photos from the pearl of africa.

uganda photos.

real life splash mountain.

This weekend was a blast! I RAFTED THE NILE RIVER!! In africa!!

We rafted 30km up the Nile River, in class 3-5 rapids. J It was a crazy day. I almost cried in fear at some points, but I was brave- I swam with fishes, rafted class 5 rapids, saw more white foam then ever before. Thought my life might end. Body-surfed a class 5 rapid, after I was thrown from my raft, then floated down the Nile (and felt like baby moses!).

The feeling of knowing you are entering extreme waves and then you see the foaming crests! The anticipation of tipping or getting launched from the boat is awful!

Our raft was full of nine awesome people, and our team was called “So Wicked” (which our guide, Roberto, gave us). So before and after each rapid, we would put our paddles together and shout!! :) Before we really got going far, Roberto gave us a mini-lesson. We had to practice paddling, getting down and holding on (TIGHT!), falling out, swimming with our feet up in a small rapid, flipping the boat, and breathing under the boat. It was thoroughly frightening, but beneficial I am sure. Then we started…

…. And we come to a rapid called, Big Brother, which is our first CLASS 5 RAPID of the journey. As we were preparing to go, and Roberto was telling us everything we needed to know, we looked on the shore and there were swarms of red-tailed monkeys… everywhere!! :) But I was still almost crying before we started paddling to the rapid. Our raft was silent as we were rafting to our doom, it seemed. Then we started singing, “as we go on, we remember, all the times we had together…”- which is so morbid and depressing we realized! :) (my prayer: God make me brave!!) As soon as we went over the edge, we saw HUGE crests and flows of white water waves. AHHHHH!!!! The story according to the guide: we almost were out of the rapid, when we went too low down to clear the next crest. So our raft went perpendicular to the water and flipped upside down! The story according to me: I was a huge wave, then all of a sudden I was launched into the water. I think I blacked for a second, and then tried to remind myself to hold onto my vest, (don’t panic), count to seven, keep our feet up. It was a fast struggle, but not as bad as I imagined it to be! Then I body-surfed the next two or so pounding waves. I didn’t panic because I was trying so hard to keep my legs first and to merely survive. Then I followed the current (trying not to imagine what animals were below me in the deep deep water) for over ten minutes until I was taxied by a kayaker to my raft. Where I found that we flipped! :) For the anticipation that I was feeling before, it was SO not as bad as I imagined… actually it was REALLY fun and I just had to laugh out loud as I floated at how insane the whole situation was: flipping in a class 5 rapid on the Nile in Africa…. Wow!! :)

Throughout the rest of the trip, we never flipped again and I stayed in the boat, although we continued to go through class four and five rapids (there were some fives, but we took a “mild” ride, not “wild). We got an awesome lunch of SANDWICHES and even a lollipop break! (on the lunch island I saw a monitor lizard- sickeningly large and gross- alli you would have flipped!) :) Two more crazy stories include almost flipping over a rock into a class five waterfall that we were trying to avoid, and almost entering a dangerous class 6 rapid (called The Bad Spot) due to our pathetic paddling maybe! :) AHHH!! But then at the end our guide told us to jump out and we finished the rapid in the water. “SO WICKED!!!”

We rode in the back of the open air truck carrying the rafts. It was surreal to be on the dirt roads in the truck, like in the movies! :) This morning I woke to the sound of monkeys dancing on our tin roof and got another (#2) warm shower. And journaled overlooking the nile and a bunch of monkeys playing in the trees and running in the field. Amazing!!

Then I took a ton of pictures of my friends bungee jumping, in the safety boat for almost three hours. I made friends with the two nice boat guys: moses and Isaac.

What a fun trip! And exhausting! I love Africa and thought of many of you back home who would have loved to be here doing this (and who I would have loved your company of and would have felt brave with). Thank you God for great weather and no extreme sun burn and my roommate and especially for a safe trip rafting the nile. And for the beauty of your creation, especially sunsets over the nile! :) :)