Nile White Water Rafting

The city of Jinja, Uganda is located on the northern end of Lake Victoria. The various Nile tributaries flow into Lake Victoria from the south and west, then the main stream of the Nile flows north past Jinja on its way to the Mediterranean. While this area is not known for wildlife, it does have a reputation as Uganda's action sports capital. The best example of this is the stretch of Class 5 rapids that draw white water rafters from around the world. Nile River Explorers is the largest rafting outfitter on the river. As luck would have it, yesterday they had 47 rafters, but today there was just me and two of my Africa-In-Focus travel companions. So we had a raft and guide to ourselves in addition to a safety boar and 3 safety kayakers. The safety boat is there to pickup people who wind up in the water, or to shuttle anyone around a rapid if it doesn't look like something you want to attempt. The safety kayaks are there to pick you up if you get tossed out in some serious white water. The rapids on this stretch of the Nile are quite impressive. We did one Class 4, 6 Class 5's and we portaged to the middle of a Class 6 below some truly scary water and put in where it turns back into a mere Class 5. That's the one that we got flipped in and wound up getting trashed in 10 ft standing waves. That's when you really appreciate the safety Kayaks because they can maneuver into that washing machine and tow your ass out!. I considered us to be lucky to only flip once, any of the 8 rapids we went through could have done it. The last three Class 5's that we went through were pretty cool because we managed to power through them while coming really close to losing it.







This didn't end well for us: