It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times 3

Bujagali Falls, the world’s largest “commercial” rapids (whatever that means). Grade Five rapids, officially described as “Extremely difficult, long and violent rapids, steep gradients, big drops, pressure areas”. Lee Musson does stuff like this. I don’t. And I’m signed up for half a day of rafting on it.

But come the morning when I arrive at the Nile River Explorers hostel, I’m told that the rest of the group has phoned in to say they’re ill, so it has been cancelled. I sit back and relax for the day, glad that I won’t have to go through with it after all. And then they say there’s room on the following day’s rafting, and like a fool I sign up. For a full day this time.

Where we start, the water is quite calm and the guys leading the rafting seem to know what they’re doing. They teach us how to paddle, back paddle, get out of the boat and back in again, how to right a capsized raft, how to “hold on and get down”, and the difference between a long and a short swim. I’m not a great swimmer, but at least I have a life jacket.

The first couple of rapids are pretty tame and I’m thinking this stuff is easy. And then we come to the first grade five. Our raft captain (or leader, or whatever the correct title is!) explains what line we’re going to take, and which way to head if we become long swimmers, and then we head into the rapids. A few seconds and some furious paddling later, we’re out the other side and I’m wondering what all the fuss is about.

We’re then on to Total Gunga, another grade five. The leader explains what we’re doing, and again we’re over the edge and into the rapids. It looks like we’re going over, but then we’re flat again, and then there’s suddenly a huge wave right in front of us and I take a deep breath as the raft turns over. I manager to keep hold of the rope round the edge and I’m dragged along for about ten seconds before I can get some air again. I probably could have breathed earlier, but my contact lenses get messed up and when I surface I can’t see where the waves are and end up swallowing quite a bit of the Nile. I finally manage to get back into the raft once it’s on calm water again.

We’re through another couple of small rapids before we’re onto Silverback – a series of four or five large waves, any one of which could flip us. We manage to turn over on the first wave, and I’m underwater again. After a few seconds the water seems to be getting calmer and I try to breathe but the boat is off again and it’s about fifteen seconds in total before I catch my first proper breath. Darn contact lenses! (At least now I have daily disposables I don’t have to worry about losing the things. Or cleaning them. Which is great in Africa.)

We then had a long calm stretch, during which we had some fruit and biscuits for lunch and could go for a swim, before it was back to the rapids. I chose to switch to the oar boat as I couldn’t face drowning again! The oar boat is just another raft, but someone who knows what they’re doing uses oars instead of paddles and manages to keep the thing the right way up – so that they’re able to pick up any long swimmers if they need to.

I probably didn’t need to switch as the second half seemed a lot tamer – but at least I could relax and look around at the rapids as we smashed through them instead of just concentrating on when to breathe. I wished I had a waterproof camera with me, because I could have got some awesome shots.

We all got off the river before the final set of rapids, known as The Bad Place – which is about a hundred and eighty metres of grade five rapids. Several of the kayakers went all the way through, before the rafters decided to try, although only from half way, and they hugged the edge of the river to make it easier. Still, only three or four of the team volunteered to try it. I stayed safely on the bank with my camera.

Overall, I would say it was a once in a lifetime experience. At least, I hope it was! I’m very glad I did it, as it was one of the most fun things I’ve done for a long time. However, it was also one of the worst things at the same time, and so I don’t think I’ll be doing it again. At least not until I’m a better swimmer.