Otters

I gave myself some time chill this morning, as I had the tent to myself because Jack had upgraded. This made a sleep in a bit easier. I then resurfaced, with not too bad of a hangover, because I had slowed down the drinking by the time it was evening. I recovered, called friends, did some journals, and had a big breakfast before I tried to figure out what to do. I had originally planned to do nothing today, but because we missed tubing yesterday afternoon, I felt obliged to do something. As a result, Jack, Lisa, Vic, and I thought we would try SUP boarding. I had never done it, so I was quite nervous about it, but I figured it couldn't be that bad, even if I'm shit at it. One thing we didn't consider was the strong current that is flowing down river. As such, it got us in a bit of strife. Jack and I started with the kayak before swapping with the girls quite shortly after starting. Swapping wasn't too difficult, but battling the current was very hard. I was struggling at first but just decided I would get close to the islands to avoid the stiffest part of the current. Eventually, I started making progress, but Jack had much less luck and couldn't stay balanced. Constantly falling in meant that he was flowing downstream. Given that I had never tried SUP boarding, I left it to the girls to rescue him since they had the kayak. But things did not get easier for them. I ended up cruising around the islands looking at different wildlife, while the other three were battling the current the whole time instead of adopting a similar strategy to me. I still felt kind of helpless as if I went back, I would also then be stuck struggling against the current. To get themselves out of the situation, the girls had to swap one of their paddles with Jack so he could double paddle out. But it meant they were stuck with a double paddle and a single paddle in the kayak. It's not helpful when trying to go straight. I almost went to shore to get someone to go save them. In a funny turn of events, they were apparently worried about me because I had gone off course, but they didn't know I was just avoiding the heavy currents. While they struggled, I kept going upstream as I was actually having a lot of fun. Eventually, they went back to shore, and I thought that may have meant that we were out of time. Turns out they were all just tired as fuck from the constant paddling, but given I didn't have my phone I couldn't know the time. We then did the slide again because Vic wanted to do it but not alone. That was really fun again.

This was some good physical activity before our final event. A sunset cruise of the Nile, which was once again a bottomless drinks event. This was really cool as we got to see parts of the Nile we would never have been able to see, with another guide who loved to explain the history of the Nile. We then saw the dam that controls the flow of water as well as Otters. Something I did not know existed in the river, but I was very happy to see as they were very cute and not something I had ever seen before. Nick and Laura had decided to bail on the cruise and instead do paddleboarding. It was funny to see them on the river and let Nick punch three beers while he sat on his paddle board attached to the boat. We obviously wanted to make the most of bottomless drinks during the 2 hours, but I was very drunk by the time we got back. I remembered the cruise and dinner, but everything after that was a blackout. People asked me what the score of the rugby game was before I went to bed. I was embarrassed when I couldn't even remember the game they were talking about. One good note was that I had decided to upgrade to a big tent with a bed for the last night. It was looking like rain, and we were not keen to deal with that. It was a God sent and a needed good sleep.Read more