A Terrifying Day

Towards the end of the tour I had an extremely terrifying day. With a lot of adrenalin in between, it ended in loving something I thought I'd never love, and disliking something I thought I'd never dislike. It also ended in a bit of a hang over...

The day started with a big wake up when I did a tandem bungee jump into the Nile. Having done a couple before and never really enjoying them and both during/after each one saying I would never do another one, the only reason I did it was because you could touch the water. As it was something I'd never done I thought I'd give it a go, with a friend with me for courage. This time I absolutely loved it. It was still the most terrifying thing making yourself leave the platform, but as we were tied together at our feet no jumping was involved. We just stood sideways and lent over until we fell off. I felt the rope tighten before we'd touched the water and thought that they'd got the measurements wrong and we weren't going to go in. But then we kept on falling down and our heads went into the Nile. Once we'd stopped bouncing we were lowed into a waiting boat and then taken back to shore. I would have quite happily done another one straight away but we had other things to do...

Our next challenge of the day was white water rafting. Again this was something I'd done before, and I remember it being one of the most fun things I had ever done. Oh how this has now changed! Being rainy season, the water levels were high and the rapids were particularly big. After doing the bungee jump my friend and I felt brave and sat at the front of the boat (possibly a mistake). The first white water we came to was a waterfall. We were told this was a grade five rapid and there was some questioning as to whether the water level was too high for us to go down. Our guide decided we would go anyway and said that really we needed to go down either backwards or forwards but not sideways. We messed it up though and ended up going down sideways. Despite this all was fine, we didn't fall in and we were still enjoying it. We had a few more big rapids and waterfalls and then we came to 'what would be the worst white water you would ever sensibly go into'. Before hand our guide asked us what we wanted to do. We had a choice of three different parts of the river, a grade three, a grade four, or a grade five - grade five being the biggest and the one we decided to go for. Our guide did explain that there was a 97% chance the boat would flip over. He told us that unlike all of the other rapids where you were supposed to hold on to your paddle and the boat if you could when it flipped, if we were going to flip then he would instruct us to chuck our paddles and that by no means should we even attempt to hold onto the boat. He also said that it would be like a washing machine and a very long swim. I did not think it through! Almost as soon as we hit the huge roaring waves our guide shouted to chuck our paddles. We all threw them away and jumped down into the boat clinging onto the rope which surrounded it, preying it wouldn't flip. Soon enough though it was very clear that we were not going to stay in the boat. I took a deep breath and then was thrown out into the crashing water. I truly thought I was going to die. There were guys on little canoes who would help you get back to the boat if you came out and I was under the water for so long, completely unaware as to which direction the surface was in, that I thought the only way I could survive would be if one of the rescue guys pulled me out. But straight away my next thought was that they'd never see me under all the waves. After what felt like a lifetime I came back up to the surface. Another instruction from our guide was once we did get to the surface to open our eyes before we breathed in. I opened my eyes and before I'd even had time to breath out, let alone in, I saw another wave crashing down onto me and forcing me back under. Again it felt like forever before I got back up to the surface. By this time I really did believe that this was it. Faced with what looked like never ending smashing waves in front of me and hyperventilating through fear and trying to get some air I resigned myself to the fact that if I went under again I would never come up alive. Fortunately I was out of the worst of the rapids and saw my friend come up and then a rescue guy came and got us. There was a worrying time of wondering if everyone else had come out ok and then we were all back on the boat. My friend who was at the front of the boat with me had felt exactly the same as I did, but no one else on our boat had thought they wouldn't survive. We stopped for lunch and then for the rest of the day spent the whole time completely terrified on what was probably pretty small rapids. Sadly I don't think I'll go white water rafting again.

Once back at the camp and a little bit traumatised we decided the only thing to do was have a stiff drink. The bar looked out over the Nile. Torrential rain pored down and lightning lit up the whole river in front of us. There was an upside down canoe on the ceiling and if you could use the ropes hanging from it to get in, then you would be given a free shot of sambuca to be drunk whilst you were still upside down. This was not a challenge to be missed, and also not a challenge to be only done once. The night ended 45 minutes before we had to get up to face the next day. A day that I was happy to be spending the whole of travelling on the tour bus!