Rafting on the nile

Just a small message from us out of Uganda. Yesterday we took a bus to Uganda with a small group from Kijabe. The group mailed about this oppertunity, and we thought, why not...
The trip took about 10 hours (from Kijabe, Kenya to Jinja, Uganda). The trip was not bad. Pretty comfortable bus, but only three stops (one of which at the border). The bus is also loud, but hey, this is Africa.
At the border everyone looks like a normal street vendor, so it's hard to know if you're at the right person.
After the border thing, 2 hour drive to Jinja and we were picked up by an open truck from Nile River Explorers.
This morning a breakfast at NRE, small talk about the most important things and off to the Nile. There first some drills (jumping out of the raft and swimming, getting back in the raft, tipping the raft over, getting back in, stuff like that). Then a few class 1 rapids (not very exciting since 6 is the highest), but good to practice.
The rest of the trip we went down class 1 to class 5 rapids. The higher the class, the cooler the ride. When you go down a rapid, you never know if you'll stay on the raft. Or if the raft stays upright... We tipped over 3 times (on 12 rapids) so thats not bad. Twice we went over on a class 5 rapid and once on a 2,5 (only because there was another raft in the way). That was pretty good! Tpping over in a class 5 is not very funny, but the water was pretty warm and swimming was nice. We also could not wear rings, glasses and shoes. If we did, we would have lost them!

Just to try to give everyone an idea how it feels:
When you approach a rapid, the guide gives the directions. You heart jumps at seeing all that water churning up and down. You paddle faster, duck in the raft and try to hold on with all your might. Not just to the raft, but also the paddle... The raft goes down, water splashes you, you feel the raft turning, you go under, try to swim up (but don't know where up is), hope you have enough oxygen in your lungs and suddenly your above water. You look for you raft, notice you've lost your paddle and try to fix everything at once. Still with a lot of water coming at you. Way cool!!!!

We're now back, healing our sunburns and tomorrow we go back again. Two days travel for one day fun, but a good day of a lot of fun!
You'll hear from us soon...

ps. it was called the White Nile...