Rafting the Nile

My final desired trip before I left East Africa was to go white-water rafting on the Nile River. In the first weekend of November, Aron and I jumped a bus for Jinja, Uganda; met up with our friend Tara at the bus stop on the other side, and met our friend Sarah who was in the area for business at the adventure office.

View from campsite

Through Nile River Explorers, for $125 (the most I’ve ever spent in a single weekend) you get three meals, housing for a night, and not to mention a full day of rafting on the Nile River.

And not just any rafting. During the course we were on for the day, we hit twelve grade four and five rapids, the largest you can legally go down. The four of us, plus two more Americans who filled our boat and our guide, flipped over three out of the twelve rapids, and I managed to fall out an additional two times.

When we were done rafting for the day, we were taken to the backpackers campsite on the mouth of the river for dinner and drinks. The place was filled with fellow rafters and campers who simply enjoyed the extremely affordable lodging. The evening was spent playing cards and sharing stories with many newly made friends. At 9:00 pm they showed a slideshow of pictures of the days events, and then a collection of video footage the company took as well. It was a lot of fun to watch our boat take its spill, over and over again.

Sunday we took our time waking up and heading out of camp. We took a cab the 10 kilometer walk to town, where we left our bags at the adventure office and then walked around Jijna, a quaint old colonial town with beautiful architecture and friendly people. After lunch, Sarah headed back to work and Tara and Aron headed to the airport to catch their flight home, so while I waited for my bus, I walked down to Lake Victoria, just to say I saw it.

Around 6:00 pm my bus came around, and arrived back in Nairobi at 5:00 am. I headed back to the house and got some sleep before being at the office at 9:00 for my last week of work.

Lake Victoria and old Colonial house