“We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.” -Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Now it’s Monday and this is thus the first sign of my survival after a completely surreal river-rafting along the Nile and Lake Victoria. With the military command orders from a young whiskey-Happy Scot, we were thrown into one brutal waterfall after another, followed by a massive flow which threw us into the various cliffs. Fortunately, this took place without any major injuries with only my paddle-buddy, Chris had some of his skin torn off because of the sharp cliffs. For that reason our boat was thus filled with blood, sweat and huge amounts of the Nile but after a quick bandage, he was fit again. We were thus not the only team with a dramatic action. One of the other rafting teams even got a little souvenir in the shape of a Nile cobra, which had swum up in their boat after a giant flip.
We were absolute speechless when we looked back and saw the huge rapids which you had just been restrained by. Our guide did not inform us that we had actually been down from the world’s deepest rapid (4.3 m) until after the rapid, I guess, in order not to scare Camilla and 2 other Mexican girls.
We finally arrived to our destination point around 5 o’clock after 7 hours of exhausting paddling down the beautiful yet dangerous waterfalls. It was by far the most insane experience ever, but I am not sure it will be my last.
When I went up the boat my body and muscles were completely sore primarily due to the 7-hours of paddle, but also the massive sunlight had been dreadful. This had thus resulted in a truly couple of shrimp thighs. Therefore, it was nice to have my after-sun lotion which virtually made miracles. After a nice though tiny BBQ it was time to party with the other rafting teams. We had a nice time in the bar chattering with the Mexican girls and guys, before we went to a nightclub in town. Unfortunately, it had been turned into a casino, a place where a poor volunteer-student feels a bit misplaced. At last the fatigue overcame us and we went away with the Mexicans in order to get some sleep.
