The rainy season is now in full swing, i´m getting regular soakings. I have NO clean clothes apart from what im wearing now, everything else has been packed wet and is STINKING !!! Nothing´l dry and i´m still looking for a laundrette.
DAY 186 MON 6 July I went white-water rafting, my god, i thought i was going to die. Seriously. The river had been at 105cm the past 4 days, too low to raft. Overnight it rose to 230cm. (No i didnt make a typo) Maximum safe level for the first, big, rapid is 180cm ! We walked (humped-struggled-groaned) the rafts round that one, but of course everthing else was that much bigger and the raft flipped at the next huge rapid and 4 of us got dragged under the water and hurled downriver underwater at supersonic speed. Didnt know which way was up, got pushed to the surface for the odd desperate 5-second gasp of water-logged air then under again. Remember thinking why on earth did i want to do this and thinking i couldnt take much more of it. Was like being a rag-doll inside a washing machine. About the 5th surfacing found me about 20 meters from the next patch of boiling water and though the river was still fast and strong i was desperate! Just short of that patch i made it to within 10 foot of the nearest bank , which was hanging with lianas from the trees. First broke but second two a foot above the water held, but i still had no way of getting to the bank, im just hanging on for grim life. Felt the water tear my shoes away, nothing i could do about it. Then through the trees fleetingly spyed some local men running in the forest and never in my life have i yelled so uninhibitedly! They heard (you probably did too) and executed a textbook rescue with a branch hacked rapidly from a tree. Halleluja for machetes and no thee-inch-blade rule round here ! The other 3 had it much worse as they all got picked up much further down the river than me, and two others who managed to hang on to the boat didnt seem to have too good a time of it either. I still cant believe nobody drowned. I think i´ll stick to gentle rivers in the future.
