Near death.

Okay, well, maybe not quite, but it was really scary. I had my second day of kaying on Wednesday, and really, I thought all was going fine. We had some rapids, not huge, but enough for me. As I mentioned, the water was really high this week due to all the rain, and was moving really fast. So I am going down the river feeling pretty good, really. It´s beautiful. I keep trying to describe it, but I just don{t think that I can do it justice. The water is absolutely transparent, and is met by all the tropical plants on the side, or sometimes cliffs, while off in the distance are the Andes, the tops rising up into the clouds.

I go into the final rapid, which is the biggest. The waves are pretty big, much, much taller than me as I am sitting in my kayak. I am having trouble keeping facing forward, but I have had this problem in many of the rapids but have still been able to maintain my balance enough not to tip. Not this time, I am afraid. I got knocked down and pushed up against the cliff. It took me some time to find the safety handle so I could get out of the kayak and above water, mostly becuase it was hard to reach due to part of the cliff jutting out at an angle that I had trouble getting my arm around.

I get up and get the air I need for about one or two seconds, but am being pushed along with the rapid, over some rocks I think and into a hole. Or a whirlpool, I am not really sure which. Scary as all hell. You are being held under water, being thrashed about, with not nearly enough force to be able to get up to get a breath. The force of the water is stunning. At the back of my frantic mind I remember, or think I remember, that you will always eventually rise to the top. But in as much as that was not happening, and I was running out of breath quickly, I was trying to remember if there was some time frame that went with that ´´eventually.´´ I don´t know how much time went by, but it felt like an eternity. Eventually I did get pushed out. I was nearly at the end of the rapids, and was so happy to breathe and feel the water gentling that I did not care too much about the occasional cuts and bruises I was getting from the rocks below.

They caught my boat upstream some, so I beached it, emptied it out and continued the way downstream. Not too much left, thank God. I had a beer when I got to shore.