The Rafting Trip

The Tour Company Jargin (my own words).

The rafting trip is a pleasant 5 day, 4 night trip casually drifting down the river marvelling at the beautiful landscape flanking you. From tropical cloud forest to deep and awe inspiring canyons the rafting trip is the quintisential way to see the jungle and reach your destination of Rurrenabaque.

When not slowly meandering round the graceful curves of the river there will be stops for us to explore the rainforest, experience the flora and fauna and swim in beautiful lagoons and waterfalls.

At night you will camp on the side of the river or in local communities adding to the experience of a lifetime by hearing the nighttime calls of the jungle.

This is an experience you will not forget!

For more information go to www.deep-rainforest.com

The Reality.

It did not start well.

We were due to leave at 5am, so at 4:50am we were up, washed, clothed, packed and ready to go. We got downstairs to our hostel reception to be given a message, delivered the previous evening that informed us that we would now be leaving at 7am! Brilliant! We trudged back upstairs, got back into bed and then just as we were falling back asleep we awoken to the call of our reception clerk telling us our taxi had arrived.

We were met downstairs by our guide for the trip, Ivan and loaded into the back of our car before picking up two girls that were also on our trip from another hostel. They were Trine and Muni from Denmark.

Over the next 7 hours we drove to Guanay along the road that we would have taken if we had gotten the bus. It was potholed, muddy, thin and dotted with landslides – we were all thankful that we were in the car rather than the bus as we fish-tailed around the corners.

Once in Guanay we were given a couple of hours to ourselves before we were to return and start the trip down river. We amused ourselves with a couple of beers and set about getting to know each other a little better.

When we returned to our meeting place we were informed that we were unable to start the trip as one of our guides had been drinking since midday and was now not only completely shit faced but had also gone AWOL!

Due to this fact we were put up in a hotel for the evening instead of camping (as you can imagine....gutted!). We were particularly happy with this outcome when, in the middle of the night it started to rain. Monsoon rain. It rained so heavily that we had to move our bed away from the window as rain was coming in and hitting us (there was no glass in the windows just mozzy nets). By the following morning however, the rain had almost cleared up (a bit of drizzle) and we were set to start our trip.

Over breakfast I enquired with our guide if it would still be safe to go on the rafting trip given the amount it had rained the night before. We were told it would be no problem. This tour had been running for many years and besides we had experienced guides with us.

We then got to the river and saw our raft.......

I am unsure why I am holding my life jacket so weirdly, I think after seeing the raft and the speed of the water my nerves took over!!

So, our raft was little more than inner tubes, bamboo and bailer twine. Excellent! On top of that was to sit, our luggage, the food, tents, stove and 8 fully grown people. Add to that the river was now a raging torrent with whole trees and logs drifting downstream and we had us one hell of a rafting trip/group suicide depending on your point of view!

As we clambered aboard this ten year olds summer holiday project, the people of the town started to appear on the bank of the river to see off these crazy Gringos.....would we be stupid enough to leave.....yes, it appears that in fact we would!

Barely 20 minutes into our trip we were forced to stop at an abandoned (for the wet season) gold mine along the side of the river to fix a puncture. A puncture in a raft. Wonderful! Yet another omen we decided to ignore.

The raft waiting for its puncture to be fixed!

Sitting quite low in the water...

The girls drifting merrily, merrily, merrily downstream (about 5mins later all hats in this picture were MIA!).

Puncture fixed we were back on the raft, crashing through rapids as we headed quickly downriver. By now, although we were wearing rainjackets and ponchos over our lifevests we were soaked from the waves of muddy river water that had crashed over us but were having quite an enjoyable time. Then we started to come round a bend.

Up ahead was the worst rapids we had seen. The central wave about as high as me (atleast 6ft) was looking daunting as we headed straight to it. The main guide started shouting at the other guide in Spanish, I started to shout 'Paddle', we all braced ourselves, the outcome was inevitable. We hit the wave and were immediately flipped into the raging torrent of muddy water.

Given the (bordering on child abuse) dunking I had been given by my father in my childhood everytime we were near water and the fact I am a reasonably strong and confident swimmer I didnt panic to much as I hit the water, found I was still under the raft and pulled myself out. When I surfaced however I was the only one out. Shit! I thought I had been under for a longtime and I knew Alana would be panicking hard. Either that or she could now be half way down river with one of our bags that had come loose and was a good 200m away.

Soon after however, Alana's head popped up out of the water, a brown mustache of mud on her face and I hauled her onto the now upturned raft. Now everyone else started to appear. Trine was up on the other side of the raft, the guides were out, so was Ivan. Muni and our cook Carmen (also Ivans wife) however, we still nowhere to be seen!

Alana then spotted them both. They were still under the raft with only their heads sticking through the inner tubes! Carmen had been hanging on to a rope when we capsized, a rope that had managed to intwine itself around her wrist so that she was now stuck under the raft. Muni, not being a strong swimmer had panicked and not wanted to let go of the raft incase she drifted away. Ivan helped Carmen and Alana saved Muni while I helped the guides get back the few bits and pieces that were floating along side us as we hurtled, now completely at the whim of the river downstream.

We all clambered back onto the upturned raft, now sitting on the inner tubes while our bags acted as buoyancy and the head guide managed to steer us into the side of the river using the only 1 of 3 paddles we had left (typically the one that was already broken!). Once safely at the side we disembarked our vessel and the girls headed up the steep bank, while the guides untied the remaining bags from under the raft and Ivan and I hurled them up to the girls.

Once all the bags were off it appeared that we had gotten lucky and that the only bag missing was the one containing the camping stove. All our bags were safe and thanks to the waterproof bags Alana and I had been given for Christmas a couple of years ago, the majority of our things were still dry. Infact all we lost were one of Alana's flip-flops/jandles and her hat. Unfortunately although not lost, Alana's camera had gotten wet and died, only to be resurected a few days later, but now with a grime film covering the lens.

Off the raft we were in the jungle. Essentially lost. Thankfully, we found a village about 20mins walk away and to the amusment to the local children, turned up dirty, wet and slightly in shock.

We were to spend the night here.

Once we had managed to get into some dry clothes and have a shower of sorts (the water came from a stream and due to landslides was only slightly less dirty than the water we had come out of), we started to feel a bit better. Alana and I played card games with the local children and tried to dry our clothes in the sunshine.

After something to eat we crawled into our tents quite early. It had been one hell of a day!

We were alive!!

Our resting place for the night.

The following day we were taken back to Guanay. As we passed the river it was evident that the day before the water had been atleast 2metres higher than it was today. We could probably get on the raft again.......not that that was going to happen!

After lunch in Guanay we headed to the next town and caught the bus (the bus we had tried to avoid) the rest of the way to Rurrenbaque.

Once we arrived we were straight on to the Pampas tour.