White Water Rafting

During our mid-term break we got the opportunity to go white water rafting on the Nile! Rachel and I were game but most of the others were not until we talked them into it. Part of the fear came from knowing that we would have to raft down Bujugali Falls, a class 5 rapid and would usually mean your boat will flip over. It would be a chance of a life-time.
There were seven of us so we got our own raft. Our guide was native Ugandan and had spent most of his life on the Nile, he knew the water well. Only a few of us had been rafting before so we had to go through all the basics of rafting before we set out on the adventure. On our first training rapid our boat flipped and half of us fell into the water. It wasn't looking good for us from the start. We made it through our first class 4 rapid just fine losing only our guide but on the first class 5 we flipped completely over. The next few rapids we handled like pros but on the next class 5 not all of us came out unscathed. After we came out of the rapid we were congratulating each other but noticed that our guide's mouth was bloody, his tooth hanging by a thread, and his oar broken in two. All the girls sceamed and could not look at him. He was dazed, and couldn't talk but just moan. We were headed straight for Bujugali Falls! So how did this happen to the guide? Well, he got his oar stuck between rocks and it snapped, the bunt of it hitting him directly in the mouth, almost knocking him completelty out. So we paddled the raft to the side and got the attention of a medic. Once he was checked out he decided to stay and guide through to the end. Josh and I were at the front of the boat, Rachel behind me as I could see the Falls approaching. My adrenaline began to rush as our raft picked up speed, I could see the water dropping and hear water crashing against rocks. All the sudden Our boat was straight up end to end crashing into the water. Josh and I grabbed the front of the raft and pulled up hard and held onto the sides so as to not let it flip over. Josh started to fly out but we grabbed him before he fell into the water. Then it was calm. We made it through Bujugali Falls without flipping or losing a rafter. other rafters were not so lucky. One guy was rescued from the eddies at the bottom of the Falls and we took him in our raft. He was so frightened, he almost drowned. At the end the trip we stopped at an island in the river and had cold cut sandwiches, something we had not had since we left the States.