It’s a Wet Wet Wet World!
11 August 2005 (Thursday) – Santa Elena de Uairen, Venezuela
There were 3 Spanish guys – Paco, Jose and Antonio, 2 very young English boys – Max and Keith – and a Venezuelan family of very fat people on this rafting trip. Our guides were Alfredo and Ivan.
As it had rained buckets last night, the river that the company normall raft in – Rio Yurani – was too dangerous to be rafted today.
So, we drove on more to Rio Soruape. The guides took a long time preparing the rafts. It turned out, one of the rafts had sprung a leak and constant pumping of air into the raft was obviously not working. Gosh, I could not believe that they did not check the equipment first. But anyway, Ivan soon returned with some fixative stuff. Hope it works!
There were loads of Venezuelan holiday-makers right by the river, waiting for us to take off and some even impatiently gestured at us, asking why we were not off yet. Well, finally, at noon or so, the show started – we were on the way.
I was with the 5 guys in one raft with Alfredo and the family of fat people went with Ivan.
We were drilled on the commands – Izquierda (Left to paddle), Derecha (Right to paddle), Adelante (Forward paddle), Atras (Backward paddle), Abajo (Everybody gets down), etc… and we had some practices around the river. We were also told how to behave when we fell into the river – keep the arms and legs straight in front of you.
Then, the rafting began. Gosh, the rapids here were amazing! So scary, and so many rocks!! At the second rapid, I fell into the water! As I did not fall far, I was actually still holding onto the rope around the raft. But, we were still in the midst of the rapids, with rocks all around. As the guys could not haul me back into the raft in time, I was actually trapped under the raft and being knocked against the rocks all around me. They were all shouting at me in Spanish, but in a moment like this, I had no idea what they were all shouting at me about.
We soon reached the end of the rapids and they finally could pull me in. It turned out, they were shouting at me to let go of the rope! You see, if I let go, I would just flow down the rapids, getting knocked around by the rocks but they would pull me in later at the calm water. But if I continued to hold onto the rope, and yet, the raft was still negotiating the rapids, I could be trapped between the raft and the rocks – two very hard places, or UNDER the raft, thereby drowning.
Whoops! I had no idea! When I did a quick check around my body, I think I only had a couple of minor bruises, nothing seemed out-of-whack. But, gosh, I must be really lucky, especially when I glanced back at the rapids, with all the horrible rocks. I was shivering non-stop with cold or with fear by now, but the Spanish guys kept giving me encouraging pats and looks. Sweet of them.
Gosh, we rafted down a few more scary rapids and finally, stopped for a breather. The view here was STUNNING. At the very spot we stopped, the rock was jaspe, a kind of very hard red rock. Yet, constant erosion from the running water carved the rock into amazing shapes.
As the rocks were slippery, we had to walk with our socks on to enjoy the river. I kept on staring at the red rocks all around me and I could not find words at all to describe the stunning view. Antonio kept lamenting that he did not have a camera to take pictures here. Well, take them with your eyes, I told him.
OK, back to rafting! We were soon trapped on the rocks, unable to move. Alfredo shouted the command to jiggle around. Jiggle jiggle… jiggle jiggle… We jumped up and down, hoping to shift the raft a little to get off the rocks. He then changed to “Peso Atras! (Weight Behind!)” so everyone leaned back. I was simply crushed under Antonio’s weight! Finally, when we managed to move the raft a little, Alfredo yelled at us “Arriba! (Up!)” which meant to get back to our position to paddle. Just then, the raft moved with the currents and BOTH Paco and Antonio on the right side of the raft fell backwards. They flowed with the currents, getting themselves knocked around by the rocks like pinballs.
The right side was just left with me! Alfredo quickly got Max to move to the front right side to balance out, and the four of us then tried to move the raft down the rapids.
When we reached calmer waters, we looked for Paco and Antonio. Both of them looked like they were in a lot of pain. We fished them in, but gosh, both had been so badly knocked around by the rocks that they had massive bruises to show now. Poor things! Now I realised how LUCKY I was just now!
Gosh, the rapids here were really dangerous! I do not claim to have done a lot of rafting, this is my third time… but this rafting trip is thus far, the most dangerous and exciting one I had ever done. In other words, the BEST that I had ever done!
We negotiated more rapids and this time, Max fell in but he was not hurt as there was no rocks where he fell. We finally reached a section of the river that was very calm and we rowed til our destination. Boy, what a ride!
But once we climbed on the shores, we were all attacked by puripuris which are sandflies. Gosh, the bloodsuckers were relentless, practically eating us alive!!!
So, we had 4 who fell into the water, and for the family of fat people, I think, none of them fell in. Maybe they were too heavy to fall off the raft, I don’t know. But all of us sure had fun!!
We were only fed our ‘lunch’ at 5pm back at our starting point. When we were eating halfway, Alfredo pointed out Kukenan and Roraima out for us.
Kukenan and Roraima are two of the famous tepuys or table mountains around this region. The clouds had had them covered and now that they were lifting, I was stunned at how huge and steep and eerily near they were, just jutting right out from the ground. Incredible!! I was utterly speechless.
As we drove back to Santa Elena, again, I was in total awe of the incredible view around me, the undulating slopes, and with luck, some tepuys in the distance. Ivan had put on some lounge music, you know the kinds with Asian or Gregorian chant influences. Wow, as I gazed and gazed and listened to the music, I really felt like I was soaring in the sky.
I felt a lot of energy in this region and felt that this place must be one of the most gorgeous places in South America that one really just had to come here for a visit. I do not know how to rank amazing places but truly, I would put this place as one of the must-sees in South America.
I had really enjoyed the view so much that later in the evening, I tried to organise myself on a tour tomorrow around La Gran Sabana.
Tags: 05) Merchants of Little Venice
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