I’ve been having a love affair with Jinja.Who’s Jinja you say? Fine, I’ll admit it, not a person but a place. The source of the Nile. It was the third weekend I had been up there, the first time for rafting, the rest to kayak.
The kayak skirt tucked tightly around me, my red Spice playboat responding to every movement of my hips as we paddled along. I feel a bit guilty, you know, with the water shortages in this part of the world, that I should be inhaling so much of the Nile into my sinuses…so wasteful.
My teacher David and I had spent hours working on my rolling, you know, the second 180 degrees that gets your head OUT of the water. As I feel I have a gift for easily accomplishing the first 180.
We now paddled down the river to approaching rapids. The sky was bright above us, the sun beating down, but ahead huge dark clouds loomed. Like a prairie thunderstorm on a steaming summer day, we could see a sheet of rain approaching in the distance. The clouds flashed like fluorescent bulbs, trying to flicker to life and I heard deep grumbling in the distance. I cursed myself for not having invested in a waterproof digital camera as the light show was breathtaking.
It was exhilarating. The pounding waves, spray and foam of the rapids, David convinced I was capable of turning my kayak backwards and surfing the wave. Of course I was, but it took few runs to maximize the percentage of time my head was out of the water.
Then the storm hit us, pelting down, the rain seemed to have the force of a waterfall. Powerful, overwhelmed equally by beauty and adrenaline.
An affair I won’t easily forget.
1 comment:
Oh... Jinja, and running the rapids.
Never been so scared in my life, never had so much fun in my life. I still remember our guide (who looked about 15) speaking in hushed tones about "The Bad Place".
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