Wandergliding: Rafting on the Nile

November 10^th, 2023

One of the main activities to do in Jinja is rafting on the Nile…who could say no to that?!? I’ve gone rafting a few times before, but the photos looked more extreme than what I’ve done before, with a real chance of flipping the raft!

The resort where I was staying was pretty quiet, but I knew that there were 3-4 other rafters joining me. I had seen a group of young travelers the night before, 4 blonde women and a blonde guy, but that was too many people to fit the bill. Turns out it was the right group of people although only 3 of them were rafting as the other 2 were feeling ill from the effects their anti-malarial pills. We sat for breakfast, a slightly more substantial breakfast than the usual one included with the accommodation, and got to know each other better.

They were Danes who were on their gap year before starting university and they were all staying at an “adventure school” on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, which is a place I plan to visit on this trip. They were very friendly and it looked like it was going to be fun day. There was Ina, Sophia and Signe (supposedly a common Danish name, pronounced “seen-uh”). After we finished our breakfast, our main guide, Tim, came over and introduced himself. We grabbed our gear on got on the bus that was pulling a trailer with a couple of rafts. Tim told us that it was about a 50 minute drive to our destination.

We arrived at the put-in spot and had our safety briefing from Tim. We were joined by one other rafter who had come by mini-van, also named Tim, who was from Michigan. Rafting Tim is aspiring to become the main guide for the company as the current head honcho, Juma, is ready to retire. Juma was there to observe and provide feedback to Tim. I had read that there was a big water slide to enter the water to start the trip, as there was also a big slide back at the resort, but unfortunately the one at the river was out of order. Juma claimed that the river water was too low, but my suspicions were that the pump wasn’t working to get water to the top of the slide to make it slippery. No biggie, we just walked down the stone steps as the rafts slowly slid down a couple of slim steel pipes.

Tim's safety briefing:

Starting out...all nice and dry at this point.

Once we were in the water, and out towards the middle of the slow-moving Nile, we started our safety exercises. Tim talked about how to get back into the raft and then proceeded to flip the raft on us, so we could practice for real. I was quite impressed with their focus on safety. There’s a chance that you could get stuck under the raft if it flipped (a little bit of foreshadowing here), so all of us had to swim under the upturned raft, hang out for a bit, and then duck back out, which isn’t super easy while wearing a life jacket.

The flip:

Not dry anymore...

Seeing what it's like under the raft:

There were going to be five sets of rapids on our trip. Unlike my previous rafting trips where it was relatively continuous class 3 or questionable class 4 rapids, this section of the Nile has been quietened by the installation of a couple of hydroelectric dams. So, there were a few half hour sections of quiet water, followed by some class 4 rapids and perhaps a class 5.

Getting under way. I'm in the yellow helmet.

The first rapids were class 4 (or grade 4 as they call it here). I was in the front of the raft, and we slammed pretty hard into the first wave. One of the Danish girls lost her paddle but I was able to grab it. Everyone enjoyed the rush of our initial introduction to the power of the Nile.

The second set was pretty decent but for the third one, we actually had to put to shore and walk a little way before we put back in. The bit we skipped was considered class 6 (I didn’t realize there was that level) and we were glad we didn’t have to run it as it looked quite treacherous. Tim ventured down the rapids solo in our raft and Moses (good name for dealing with water) in the safety boat also rode it down. Impressive stuff guys!

On the portage:

It was the third set that would prove to be interesting. Once again, we got out to skip a nasty section and then Tim gave us a visual briefing of what was planned…if we wanted to do it. It was a pretty serious hydraulic hole that could very likely flip us if we hit it wrong. He gave us the option to take an easy route, but everyone was willing to give it a go.

Heading into a deep hole!

Our pineapple break...do you like my smile?!?

We put back into the river and as we approached the big standing wave, Tim yelled out “Paddle hard, paddle hard!”. No offense to the young Danish ladies, but I don’t feel a few of them understood the idea of leverage of how to hold a paddle properly and the power just wasn’t there. We started to spin and hit the wave which immediately flipped us over to the left side…my side. I found myself trapped under the raft, in the middle section. I was glad that we had down this drill right at the start of the trip. There is a pocket of air under a flipped raft but when you’re in class 4 rapids, there’s a lot of shit going on. I tried three or four times to get out from under the raft but with the craziness of the turbulent water, I couldn’t escape, and swallowed a lot of it.

The big flip:

In what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only 10-12 seconds, I finally escaped the underwater cavern but still swallowed some more water as I gasped for air in the rapids. Then I realized the exhilaration of scaring yourself almost to death…well, it wasn’t that close, but it sure got the adrenaline going.

I happened to find a paddle floating beside me, which I grabbed, and then saw Tim on the upturned raft close to me. He flipped it over, I handed him the paddle as he had lost his, and then climbed in. We saw US Tim and one of the Danish girls nearby and pulled them in to the boat. We could see that another paddler was in the safety boat, but where was the last of the five of us? Tim spotted her. It was Ina who was straddled around the front of one of the safety kayakers, way down river from us. Whew, everyone survived!

We survived another set of rapids.

Once we were all reunited in the raft, the Danish girls excitedly replayed the scenario, unfortunately in Danish, to each other. I almost asked them to speak in English so we would know what they went through, but I thought I’d let them have their moment.

Juma joined us after that set of rapids and did a bit of debriefing about the flip. I was impressed with his insight and how he attempted to calm people’s nerves and trepidations. He offered to the girls, who seemed to be a bit frazzled from the event, that they could ride in the safety boat to avoid the fourth set of rapids while American Tim and I would go for it. They were happy with that but as we got close to the rapids, there were calls by Juma to paddle hard to try and avoid them. We spun around backwards and slammed through a nice standing wave, similar to the first one we had hit. All was good and I kinda of figured, correctly, that Juma had put them through that rapid knowing that they would enjoy it. He mentioned later that the fact that they didn’t see it coming assuaged their fears and I do think they enjoyed it.

The backwards run through the rapids:

Young Emma, the son of the photographer, has just started to learn how to kayak.

Almost immediately, we paddled hard to hang out in an eddy behind a small island off to the side. Juma instructed us to get out onto the rocks and the raft was pulled out of the water and dragged a bit upstream from where we had just come. I didn’t understand what was going on. I joked with Juma that it was easier to go in the other direction, with the flow of the river.

The idea was that we were going to hit that standing wave again, but we were going to try and surf it. The Danish girls opted to stay in the safety boat while US Tim and I were in, along with Juma and Tim. They deflated the boat a bit to give us a better chance of hanging out on the standing wave. We were given a briefing about our plan of action. If we were told to go right or left in the boat, it meant chuck your paddle away and just focus on getting to the upside of the raft, to see if we could get it to stay stationary on the wave.

We set off, paddling hard upstream before being twisted quickly around before riding up the slope of the wave. American Tim was immediately chucked out of the raft and soon after the boat continued a bit downstream. Juma, guide Tim and I paddled hard to harbour behind the island again, and we decided to try again. Meanwhile US Tim was rescued by one of the safety kayaks.

Losing Tim:

This time we lasted a bit longer, but I was ejected, not realizing that I should get super low in the raft. Well, it was fun none the less. I felt like I was bucked off a bronco.

Now my turn to get thrown overboard:

One of the safety kayakers having fun:

The last rapid was pretty tame and Tim and I decided to jump out of the raft and swim down it. We reached the exit point and after changing and getting a nice cold beer, we started our drive back to the Nile River Explorers place. What a great afternoon!

That evening, the five of us in the rafting group went for a sunset cruise on the Nile. We set off from the resort with our host Davis, captain Andrew, another Moses who was the boat engineer and 15-year-old Emma (a boy’s name here in Uganda, I think short for Emmanuel), who was kayaking with us earlier. His older brother was one of the safety kayakers and his dad was the photographer during the day. Lucky guy to be exposed to this sport at such a young age in this country.

Our sunset cruise boat:

On the Nile again.

We had some appetizers and drinks and enjoyed a cruise up the Nile towards Lake Victoria (although we didn’t reach it there). We did get to see a bungee jumper and some amazing birds.

From left to right, Signe, Sophia, Ina and Tim.