We travelled to Jinja, Uganda on thursday of last week. It is the outdoor capital of East Africa and comparably the Whistler of Uganda; hippies included. The Nile River is the highest volume (water) commercially rafted river in the world, and the safest as there are very few rocks. This uniqe combination provides arguably the best rafting in the world. We went rafting in Whistler a couple years ago and saw class 3 rapids, it was pretty fun. Anything above a class 2 is supposed to be able to kill you; a nice way to classify. 6 and up is supposed to be humanly impossible, however there is controversy around this system as there are arguably class 6 rapids that have been run by seriously insane people. If you survived Niagra Falls on a raft it is supposed to be classified a 5.99. We saw at least 4 class 5+ rapids during our day on the Nile, plus many others.
Typically, the idea behind white water rafting is to travel down the river in this nice safe raft and try to avoid flipping over; not the case on the Nile. When we started our intro training our guide Chloe said "Ok, when we flip over this is what we will do....." The goal of the guides at Adrift (rafting company) is to flip the boat as often as possible; we flipped 4 times. It is completely insane, we bought the video and watched our guide ripping the side of the boat up to ensure a flip. What a nut, but soooo much fun. I have this picture implanted in my mind of us in this raft at the bottom of a 10 foot wall of white water, then being sucked underwater, tossed in every direction feeling absolutly helpless against the power of the water wishing for nothing but a breath of air at the suface and just reminding myself of Chloe's advice "you will come up" and we did; eventually. Absolute craziness, what a rush!
We travelled to Jinja, Uganda on thursday of last week. It is the outdoor capital of East Africa and comparably the Whistler of Uganda; hippies included. The Nile River is the highest volume (water) commercially rafted river in the world, and the safest as there are very few rocks. This uniqe combination provides arguably the best rafting in the world. We went rafting in Whistler a couple years ago and saw class 3 rapids, it was pretty fun. Anything above a class 2 is supposed to be able to kill you; a nice way to classify. 6 and up is supposed to be humanly impossible, however there is controversy around this system as there are arguably class 6 rapids that have been run by seriously insane people. If you survived Niagra Falls on a raft it is supposed to be classified a 5.99. We saw at least 4 class 5+ rapids during our day on the Nile, plus many others.
Typically, the idea behind white water rafting is to travel down the river in this nice safe raft and try to avoid flipping over; not the case on the Nile. When we started our intro training our guide Chloe said "Ok, when we flip over this is what we will do....." The goal of the guides at Adrift (rafting company) is to flip the boat as often as possible; we flipped 4 times. It is completely insane, we bought the video and watched our guide ripping the side of the boat up to ensure a flip. What a nut, but soooo much fun. I have this picture implanted in my mind of us in this raft at the bottom of a 10 foot wall of white water, then being sucked underwater, tossed in every direction feeling absolutly helpless against the power of the water wishing for nothing but a breath of air at the suface and just reminding myself of Chloe's advice "you will come up" and we did; eventually. Absolute craziness, what a rush!
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