Taking the Plunge

This post is totally out of order, but it'll probably be the coolest one in my entire blog so I don't care.

Before driving to Entebbe for our Wednesday night flight out of Uganda, the entire group (sans Jacques) went to Jinja for white-water rafting (which everyone did) and bungee jumping (which only three people were going to do originally--myself included--but ended up with seven of nine people deciding to jump).

Let me just say that these two days--the jump Monday afternoon, rafting all day Tuesday--were probably two of the best/most exciting days of my life. Both activities are SO MUCH FUN, and I highly recommend either of them if you ever get a chance. Never mind that I drank more water from the Nile River than is probably healthy or that the risks of bungee jumping include eye trauma, uterine prolapse, and dislocations [source]. Bottom line is that I'm perfectly fine and that I would do either again in a heartbeat. (I might add that I never, ever felt like my well-being was in danger in either situation. Yes, it's a little ridiculous jumping off the platform, but I trusted the equipment since Adrift holds themselves to international safety regulations. On the rafting side, there were 10-15 guys in individual kayaks whose job it was to come fetch people who fell out of the boats. So I was worried at first, but those fears dissipated quickly.)

Here are some pictures and videos from the jump. No pictures from rafting, unfortunately, since (1) we couldn't bring our cameras onto the raft (or I suppose we could have; they would just be soaked with water) and (2) we couldn't get the rafting DVD or photo CD in time since we were in hurry to reach Entebbe the same night.

In case you're interested, here's a video of other people rafting with Adrift on the Nile. These are the same rapids we did (11 total, three of which were Class 5), but these people apparently aren't very good. We had a great guide, so we only flipped once and I think only three people fell out of our raft the entire time (and were subsequently rescued by either the kayaks or another raft full of Italians). I might mention that I was not one of the three--although I expected to be, since this was my first time ever rafting--and I managed to hang onto both the raft and my oar when we flipped. However, I popped out of the water and didn't see anyone else on my side of the raft, so for a few panicked seconds, I thought everyone else had fallen off and that I was drifting away, alone and on an upside down inflatable raft, down the Nile River. A few moments later, Josh (our guide) appeared on the top of our raft and laughed at me. I think because I was the only one still on my side, but who knows.

Okay, pictures for real now:

I'll get the video up if I can post it, but there were issues with the uploader just now so I'll try again later!