Rafting the Nile

When you think of the Nile River, do you think of the slow flowing, flat, lazy river meandering past the pyramids in Egypt? I used to, until I traveled to the source of the Nile out of Lake Victoria near Jinja, Uganda. We mountain girls were skeptical of what rapids the Nile would have to offer, and boy did we find out!

That's right I rode down this. Only part of it in a raft...

Early Saturday morning we left Kampala (after having just arrived the night before from Kiboga) to catch a shuttle to the rafting company's base camp in Jinja about two hours away. We met two Danish boys who were also going to be rafting that day, and before we'd pulled out of the parking lot Shalina and I had silently agreed we wanted them on our raft with us--they were young, fun, strong, and cute, so it seemed like they'd be able to save us from drowning! We also met a group of teachers who were rafting the next day, and randomly we ended up sharing a cabin with them that night.

We got to the base camp, dropped off our luggage, and waited for the 100 other people that were rafting that day to show up. Once we were all together we got some safety instructions, life jackets, and helmets, and loaded up in buses/trucks to head 25km down stream to start the trip. We piled out, abandoned our shoes and everything else we had with us, and hiked down the hill to the Nile. Shalina and I were hesitant to walk barefoot through the mud/river sludge/poop, and listed all the parasites we were catching on the way down the hill. We were listing the parasites we'd be catching from the Nile itself that day when the Danish boys reminded us "Hakuna matata, that's what deworming meds are for." We split into groups, and Shalina and I ended up with four other 20-something guys in our boat, plus our awesome South African guide named Q.

Look at me hanging on like a baller!

We practiced doing commands and drills (like how to flip over and get back in) before we heading down stream for our first rapid (the one pictured at the top). Due to the heavy rains it was rated a 5+, and while we did our best to blast through it we ended up flipping over.



I desperately want to give a blow by blow of each rapid series we went over, but there were 8 of them and they were all amazing. Luckily our boat and another one of medical students pooled resources to buy both the picture CD and the awesome DVD they made of our trip, so believe you me I will be showing them to people when I get back. I'll just tell two quick stories here.

The first involves a crazy series of rapids ending in "The Bad Place" (the ominous name of one of the rapids). Q told us there was a 95% chance we would flip before we made it out, and to not even try to hold onto our paddles. The nickname of The Bad Place is "rodeo", and he said it'd be just like riding a bucking bronc once we slid into the pocket. And slide into the pocket we did!

You'll have to see the video to appreciate how ridiculous this was, but after two bucks--and two ROUGH landings smashing into people--I decided I would just bail on the next buck up. Apparently everyone had the same idea and most of us bailed on the third round. All of us but Shalina--she ended up in the front of the boat bounced around like a pinball for several more rounds before she escaped out the front of our raft. Apparently our raft stayed in for over 4 minutes, the longest of the day!

While our raft was bouncing merrily around in the rapid I had been dunked deep underwater and hit some underwater currents HARD. I was under water a long time before coming up for a brief gasp of air before I was dragged down, and then up, and then down, many times over. Surprisingly, running out of air wasn't my biggest concern (though it was getting kind of scary before I made it out). My biggest concern was my shorts!

When I'd been launched out of the boat and dragged around a bit my shorts and swim suit bottoms were ripped off very quickly. By some miracle I felt them coming off and managed to catch my shorts with the big toe on my right foot. Only my big toe.

Our boat chillin' by itself in The Bad Place

When you get dumped off the raft in the middle of rapids you're supposed to tuck into a ball and just ride it out, focus on getting what air you can, and swim towards the shore out of the rapids when you get an opportunity. I did not follow these instructions and instead dragged my upper body against the current to try and grab my shorts before they slipped off my toe and ended up in Egypt. I managed to grab them and was surprised to find that my swim bottoms were still inside too! I wouldn't be bottomless the rest of the trip!!

Once I had my shorts in hand I focused on breathing and getting out of the rapids, and as soon as I swam out a helpful kayaker showed up to help tow me back to a raft. As I was still bottomless I refused his help for awhile until I got into calmer water and could pull my bottoms back on (this greatly confused the kayaker and he was very concerned for my sanity). I mostly got them on and accepted his ride to a raft, where a med student friend hauled me out of the water and in the process managed to mostly pull off my shorts AGAIN. Now that it felt like the whole river had seen my bum all I could do was laugh and share the story with my boat once we were all reunited again...and tie my shorts on REALLY REALLY tightly for the rest of the trip!

ALMOST a back flip. Note Shalina's leg-hilarious!

The rest of the trip was a blast, eating lunch on the river, cruising through more rapids, and spending time swimming and goofing around (trying to secretly push each other in, playing games of chicken, wearing river plants, etc) during the calmer bits. By the time we got to the final series of rapids our raft was a pretty tight group, and Q thought we should go for glory on the last rapid, the Nile Special. We decided to shift all our weight to the back and try and hit the rapid just right to pull a sweet back flip and be the stars of the video, which we half succeeded in.

That giant splash in the front left is me!

We made it straight up in the rapid before slamming back down. We lost two people on the first trip up, so then one of the Danish boys and I got dumped out due to the weight imbalance. He somehow (SOMEHOW) managed to hold onto the boat and ended up getting rescued by Q. The four guys left in the boat hammed it up for the camera and ended up stealing the show when the boat stayed in the rapid for several minutes. I ended up downstream again, but at least I kept my shorts on this time!

Overall it was an amazing awesome super fun day, and the barbecue afterwards was delicious and so summery. That night we painfully crawled into bed (while we like to say we conquered the Nile really the Nile kicked my butt--I lost a decent amount of skin and have some MONDO bruises...not from the river, but from being hauled back into the raft a little too energetically and dropped onto the paddles) and were soon passed out. Unfortunately, our night was not over.

Around 2:40am I was woken up by the American teachers in our room. I could hear them talking to each other and there was a flashlight on. Barely conscious, I realized there was another noise in the background as well. I half sat up, turned on my flashlight, and peered through my mosquito net at our vet-student-friend's bunk. I didn't have my contacts in, but I could just see his leg and asked "Is that noise M? Is his leg shaking?" Shalina started to wake up hearing my voice, and one girl said it was M making the noise, and that his whole body was shaking and had been for 5-10 minutes.

I thought I was out of adrenaline, but I was instantly awake and alert. M is a diabetic, and I yelled, "Hypoglycemia! He's having a diabetic seizure!" as I floundered out of my covers. Flashlight in hand I vaulted down from the top bunk, slipped on my shoes, and said, "Shalina? Are you ok?"

"I got it! Go!" she said as she fought out of her mosquito net, her adrenaline kicking in. I bolted out the door into the darkness, hurdled over a couple low hedges, and headed for the bar, hoping there'd still be some staff hanging out. Fortunately there were still guides around, but unfortunately they'd been drinking since 9pm. I had no idea how emergency medical assistance could be called, so I prayed that drunk help would be better than no help at all.

I found Q and another guide, and had to convince them that I was not there to party and flirt, but that we had a medical emergency. Q knew that M was a diabetic, so he snapped out of it and followed me back to our cabin with another guide to check out the situtaion.

While I was wrangling drunk 20-somethings guys (which luckily I've had lots of practice doing as an RA), Shalina was dealing with a seizing friend and two unhelpful, freaking-out teachers. Shalina had to push past them to turn on the lights, and as she was digging through M's things for glucose the power went out. When then finally got flashlights on and M managed to stutter out where his glucose tablets were Shalina quickly popped one into his mouth. She said it was amazing how quickly his seizing calmed down.

This is when I arrived, and the other girls went outside (probably to vomit, but hopefully just to be out of the way). We kept feeding M glucose until he could talk to us and we could test his blood sugar. It was crazy low--under 1/4 of what it usually is. He turned off his auto-insulin pump but said it would keep working for half an hour, so we battled his ever-dropping blood sugar levels with cookies, granola bars, and some soda for 45 minutes before it started inching up.

While Q was good at first in providing a calming focus to the situation, he got distracted after a bit and kept wanting to poke people with lancets and talk about murdering people with insulin. The other guide was trying to be helpful by gathering sugary supplies, but ended up exploding a glass bottle all over the floor and stealing someone's cell phone (don't ask).

Emergency averted, and our last stores of adrenaline depleted, Shalina and I dragged to bed around 4am. I almost slept in her bunk because I couldn't pull myself up to my top bunk, but I finally managed to flop into bed and immediately passed out.

Shalina and I were so extremely glad that we had been sharing a room with M that night--there's a very high chance he would have died without us, or without competent people around to react when he was having a seizure for close to ten minutes. He was fine the next day, and traveled with us to Sipi Falls where we continued to pester him about his blood sugar levels the rest of the weekend, especially during the monster hike we did to the waterfalls.

Sipi is a gorgeous, green, jungly area on Mt Elgon in the far east of Uganda, and I will post pictures from our time there soon!

5 days left in Uganda--eek!

Alive!

We made it through rafting the Nile and some crazy sauce rapids, saving a friend's life in the middle of the night, and doing a way-too-long hike to all the waterfalls in gorgeous Sipi. So many stories!

Back in Kampala now and heading to the hospital tomorrow morning before hanging out with Shalina before she leaves me in 24hrs!

I will post pictures and the epic stories soon!