|
White Water Drowning.........Nile River StyleApr 21, 2005
|
|
| The last few days have been spent in Jinja,by the banks of the mighty Nile river.On the way back from the gorillas,a night was spent once again in Kampala.A few of us headed out to the casino which was somehting a bit different to what we had been used to.Unfortunately,we all lost money which for me is something I am used to at the casino.... We arrived in Jinja for the sole purpose of partaking in some white water rafting.I was looking forward to this as I've been rafting a number of times over the years,with rafting the Zambezi being the highlight.... It all started off nice and calm with the usual safety advice and rafting techniques until we came to the first grade 5 rapid.We had five of these to get through during the day so coming up to the first one you could sense the tension and hear the puckering of bumholes from within the raft.This rapid was called the G-Spot,which basically consisted of a massive drop through large waves hoping to miss the G-Spot,which would severely fark us up if we got caught in it.As with a normal G-Spot,the guides said it is very rare that we would find it on this rapid.... Lucky us,we found it all right and it farked us up big time.We got caught in a bit of surfing where the raft just stays in 1 spot getting hammered from all sides.After what seemed like ages,I got flipped out and went straight under the water.I'm used to being held under water as I've spent a few years trying to surf,so I'm prety calm when in the water.Also we had life jackets on which are supposed to bring you to the surface after 7 seconds.So when I was under tha water I was counting to 7 rather calmly.When I got to 10 and I was still underwater then I shit myself.Luckily I bobbed up so could take a big breath before I was sucked under again.By this stage I wasn't enjoying myself and had swallowed a large amount of water.Finally I popped up and managed to get some more air into me as I made my way to calm water.One of the rescue kyakers came over and I clung onto his kayak for dear life while coughing my ring out and trying to suck in oxygen. Eventually making it back to the raft,I discovered that everyone else had a similar experience.To say there wasn't much laughing and joking going on at that stage would be an understatement.Drifting down the river, we recounted out tales of near death while preparing for the next rapids.We managed to get through the next few unscathed and it wasn't until the last rapid that we all got dunked again. This last rapid was a big bastard.Our raft flipped and I somehow managed to land right on my head when I hit the water which really hurt even with a helmet on.I think i ended up with some concussion from the landing and had a beauty of a headache for the next 3 days. All in all it was a good day out even after geting sunburnt like champions and nearly drowning.I don't think I'll bother rafting the Zambezi after this.My rafting days are over the the time being...... |
Advertisement 
|
