What can I say about the final rapid of the day? It’s called the Bad Place – a class 6, made worse, I think, either by the rain or shallow water. We didn’t have to go through the Bad Place. It was too dangerous so we stopped, got out and walked around to another spot, avoiding it.
The spot we got back in the water wasn’t much better. This was in the face of 50/50, a class 5 that looked just as bad. We were second in line to go. The first raft made it through without any problem.
Roberto backed us in. We slowly edged toward the rushing water. Then we turned around, seeming to head in the right direction. But we turned again and started moving toward the most ferocious wave over. Roberto kept telling us to paddle forward. We didn’t know why but I still trusted him. The raft started to turn back to the right direction and I thought we would be OK.
Wrong. The wave caught us, came right over the raft and flipped us over. We were still on the edge paddling – NOT hunkered down, getting ready for it. I saw it coming, it just passed over. The next thing I know, I was tumbling around underwater, my cheeks swelled with the last breath I could manage. Were my eyes opened or closed? I couldn’t remember. I DO remember that I dropped my paddle and held onto my lifejacket, waiting for it to bring me to the surface.
It took a while, at least 15 seconds. That’s when I felt my head hit something. I thought it was the raft but I guess it was just a paddle. I started to kick and wave my hands to reach the surface. I made it! Looked around… didn’t see the raft or anybody else… only the Slovenian dad. I had only a couple seconds before I took in another breath for the next wave to crash down on me. Finally, I heard someone yell “HI!” at me. It was a kayaker coming to pick me up. I grabbed on from the front as he moved away from the craze.
I hung upside down as he moved around. Another girl from my crew clung onto the back. We ended up joining a different raft for the rest of the journey. I came out of all that with a paddle somehow. And bleeding. My foot hit a rock while I was thrashing around in the water. My knuckles were scraped from a couple unsuccessful attempts at climbing into the raft. I could do it during the day with more gusto than anyone else but by now I was too tired and had to be dragged on.
It was a while before my original crew arrived. We hiked up to the top of the hill for some Fantas. At this time, I was told Roberto was quite shaken up about what happened to us. This part scares me. We apparently hit the Bad Place and flipped good. Roberto was probably flung pretty far. It could’ve been even worse? I’m glad it wasn’t.
Back on the bus to Kampala. Very exhausted. I was glad we checked out of Red Chili and put some money for a nicer hotel. I needed sleep. The next morning we were back on the bus, another eight hour ride back to Kigali.
What a wet and wild weekend.
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