Jan 17, 2010 pt 2

I went rafting today again. The managers of RnR came by the other day asking if I had a famil yet. I explained that I went with RT, so they insisted on me going with them as well. They didn’t have to twist my arm! Alarm was set for 7am, and I slept straight through it! I’ve never in my life done that. I’ve turned it off then fallen back asleep (like once), and I’ve forgotten to turn it on, but I’ve never slept through it! I woke up a few times throughout the morning checking the time thinking I had a bunch of time. I woke up at like 720 but I must have thought that I needed to be up at 8 because I went back to sleep. I woke up at 752 and realized the bus was picking me up at 750! I peed, changed, grabbed a banana, and I ran out to the bus. Luckily I packed my bag the night before, but I forgot my towel. Oh well. I was dirty, and didn’t brush my teeth, but it was alright. This trip wasn’t the “extreme” trip like the one before was, but it was still good. The water wasn’t as high either, so it made for a little different trip. Our boat had 4 people on it; pretty sweet considering I thought 6 was a light load. Unfortunately we had to take a lot more breaks. They had a lot of crew jumping out helping through rapids compared to the other company. The random crew guys would jump in random boats and ride with us, which was entertaining, but waiting for them to jump in and out and having them there to help instead of letting us work it out ourselves annoyed me a bit. It was a great time though. This time, I brought my own waterproof camera so I took a lot of photos. It’s not a digital camera so I have no idea how long it’ll take to get them developed, and I don’t know if the place out here will be able to give them to me digitally haha. Old school town. We got to swim a lot more than last time, which was nice. It was a bit cloudy for most of the day and not too sticky so it was a pretty good day for rafting; warm, but not unbearably hot. We got to get out of the raft and ride down more rapids than we did last time. There was one that we rode in the boat… we had to lay on our stomachs toward the front of the boat and when we hit the bottom, the boat tipped and we all fell out. It was a short, but steep drop. At the bottom we swam around for a bit, then we were given the option of riding that rapid alone, without the raft! I had to climb through the jungle, jump in the water and have three guys instruct me on how not to die while going down. I had to float on my back, arms crossed in front of me, hold my nose and stay as flat as possible going down. Once I hit the water I’d go underwater pretty deep and I’d have to equalize. So they said to take a deep breath, equalize and rise back up. The fear that they gave me was way worse than the actual drop. I have photos of the actual drop, and I think of people going down, so I’ll be sure to label accordingly. The rock jumps were a lot easier this time. There were only two this time around instead of three. The first, I just took a breath and jumped. The next I hesitated for a minute, but I went without a hitch. I think me jumping out of a 14,000ft plane made jumping off a 15ft rock fairly easy haha. Their base is at a hostel and it turns out it’s the hostel Joe has been staying at. I didn’t think about it early in the morning, but on the way back I did. I checked with the front desk and they told me where his room was. Before I went and stalked him down I called and he said he wasn’t at the hostel. He didn’t seem disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to see me (I’m not surprised), but I wrote him a note that said “You owe me a visit” and put it in his swim shorts that were hanging outside his room. I know I won’t get that visit, or even a comment about the note, but I’m pumped I did it. Driving home, the bus was small with three rafters and four guides. I chatted with two of the guides most of the way home, and the two other rafters joined in for a bit. I really enjoyed all of them. One of the guides was fairly young, and seemed like a huge charmer. If it weren’t for his rat tail, I would’ve said he was adorable.

I got home and found out the bus was headed to The Shrub in seven minutes. I showered and practically got ready before they were ready to go, but the bus was full so they left without me and came back later to drive Vera and I. Dez was there when we got there so we chatted with him for awhile. He noticed the huge bruise on my arm and I said that it was from skydiving with him. He gave me a puzzled look. I said that I didn’t understand how, but that Peta insisted that’s what it was. He was like, come here. I went closer, held up my arm, he grabbed my shoulders, turned me around, and grabbed my arm from behind and we noticed that his fingers made a perfect imprint of where the bruise was. So apparently, at some point in the dive, he must have grabbed my arm and squeezed or something because it’s definitely his hand that bruised my arm. I gave him shit about it for the next thirty or so minutes. Good stuff. As always, we always enjoy the bar. I got to stick around for a bit of the live entertainment this week. Normally we leave just as it’s starting, but we stayed a bit later. A guy, Dave Cooke, played something called a didgeridoo. I’d never seen one played before, but it was pretty awesome. He was a lot of fun to listen to. Vinny bought the CD, so hopefully I’ll get to listen to him a bit more. Anyway, a few drinks at the bar and some visiting, then headed back for the night. I’m a little exhausted after the rushing around all day. Finally got to relax a bit at The Shrub, but I’m happy to go to sleep fairly early tonight.