Rafting at the Jungle River Lodge
So, the Jungle River Lodge was a pretty cool place…electricity powered by solar panels, biodegradable toilet, a pair of macaws as pets, and a cool group of guys who run the place. When I arrived I was the only person there…two Israeli couples arrived within an hour after me. I did indeed have a few beers with the boys, and tried some ‘jungle juice’ offered to me by the owner, Oscar. This jungle juice is concoction of rum, wine, and honey with a whole bunch of herbs and plants and other floaty things in it. It was quite tasty, albeit a bit chunky.
So the next day the Israelis were going white water rafting, so I decided to join them (passed on the jungle canopy tour, where you pretty much zip around over the jungle on cable wires, but don’t worry, this will be coming in the future). After breakfast (during which we witnessed a snake eating a frog), we were off to the river entry point in some super incredible 30-year old stripped-down SUV-type vehicle. I don’t think we went faster than 10 mph ever in this thing..I was impressed it was still running (in order to start it, the boys rocked it side to side – fabulous trick).
Our guide was awesome – 100% pure adrenaline. The first thing he had us do was jump into the rapids (not too big) and ride them down a bit, to see how we handle it. A little scary, but the guys lined up down the river with ropes waiting for us. We got in our rafts, got a little instruction, and headed out. The first rapids were the most intense, class IV, class V…awesome. After an intense 1st half, we made it back to the lodge, ate some pineapple and papaya nicely laid out on palm leaves, jumped off a cliff into the river, and headed back out.
The second half of the rapids were pretty calm, but there were some pretty big ones toward the end. Just before we hit those, we pulled over to the side. The guide said something about he wanted us to feel the hydraulics of the rapids, and he just jumped right in. I mean, this was some pretty rough water, and I thought he was totally insane. He came back up the river and started to give me instructions on what to do. “OK. You just jump straight out, keep your feet in front of you, and hold your nose when you go under the rapids.” Wait a minute. What? You want me to do what? Jump in and just ride them down? Seriously? Yeah, that was the plan. I think I just stared at him and laughed for a good while.
Well, this was pretty intense. The other girls ducked out of this one (the guys were somewhere else at this point). But, I figured, what the hell. I did stand on that rock for a little while, contemplating this next move. Of course, Johnny (this insane man’s name) jumped ahead of me, waiting with a rope to pull me out and there was another guy waiting behind me, just in case, so I did feel like it was safe. So, yeah, I jumped. It was pretty awesome, over in no time, and I kind of wanted to go again once I did it. But, we jumped back into the raft and rode those same rapids to the end, hopped back in the ancient SUV, and back to the Lodge.
Tags: Honduras, Tag Index
Tania
December 8th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Saw a snake eat a frog in my backyard growing up. Big deal. Freaked my dog out, though. He and the frog were friends. He used to carry the frog in his mouth. I tried licking the frog, but didn’t get anything out of it. Suburbs are crazy, man.