Tuesday, July 28, 2009

White water rafting for those not ready to FALL IN

July 25th, 2009
Written by Michelle Averna, Executive Director of Fount of Mercy

I have been traveling to Uganda for awhile now. Every summer many of our volunteers choose to go white water rafting up the Nile. With out fail there are always a few volunteers who after watching the rafting video choose to sit out of the activity. Who can blame them with 12 rapids, 8 of them being grade 5!! Some of you reading this blog have rafted the Nile braving the grade five current. Many of you have said "That was fun, but I'll never do it again!" Well for the past three years I have sat out. I like to think I have a health fear of the rapids.

Well this year the company we raft with added a grade three rafting trip! The goal of the trip is to experience the Nile and the rapids but at a comfortable pace (and without the fear of death...ha.

So three of us signed up and had a blast. I'll share two highlights:
1. Often in between the rapids there are long stretches of water. Instead of staying in the rafts, all of us jumped into the river (with life vests on) and let the current float us down (or is it up) the river. Since we were wearing life vest we were able to lay back, look up into the clouds and just let the current take us along. Truly relaxing and breathtaking.

2. For our last rapid our raft was feeling particularly brave so we asked our guide to take us through a grade four. He agreed, we prepared and through one wave we went. Success, we all stayed in. Wave two hit and we all fell out. Wave three and we all survived!! I am so glad I was able to experience falling out or into the river. But honestly once was enough!

1 comment:

Bonnie Arthur said...

Grade 3 - hah! my 'drink' of the Nile was enough for me to have learned that I can get into the safety boat when we come up to the rapids! I'll enjoy being in the raft with everyone else during the rest of the trip. I would definitely do it again now that I know this!