Day 54 02.09.15
We got up this morning, from our awfully comfortable beds – making it so much harder, and got ready to get our lift into town. Here the group split up and either went to go see the hot springs or go water rafting.
The three amigos chose water rafting and so we headed out on a 1 hour and 45 minute drive to the white water rapids. The three amigos are made up of the two lovely people I have now been travelling with for about 5 weeks. The crazy Israeli Amit and the wonderful Gordon who have been my family away from home. I think we have kept each other somewhat sane throughout all this time.
We arrived at the river and realised, that we were on the construction and maintenance site of a live dam; 3 dams to be exact.
Our guide checked the water levels of each dam an as the first top dam was already opened to release some of its water, the second dam was filling up quickly. As soon as the second was full enough its gates opened too and the water came towards the third dam. All along you could see the water level of the natural river rising and rising. The water from the dams is used to power hydroelectric plants that supply the whole country. Therefore it is best to go water rafting during the week, as most electricity is used by companies during the week and hardly any is required during the weekend, giving the power company less reason to open their dam gates which would cause the water levels to rise, covering stones and making the water more “rough”.
We were lucky, it was Wednesday and after waiting about 40 minutes the water levels rose severely. The boat was pumped up and carried to the river. We all received a short introduction and safety briefing including all procedures that would apply if one of us were to fall into the water and off we went.
There were loads of rapids and every time we were approaching one, our guide would tell us the difficulty level. After the second bend the first of the amigos fell into the water. He was quickly pulled back into the boat, but it got my adrenaline going, seeing as this was my first time doing this and that keeping balance was challenging.
At the next rapid our guide manoeuvred the boat in a way that nearly tipped it, causing everyone to fall off apart from the guide itself. It was a scary moment, submerged by the white water, eventually being able to come up for air. Then we saw the emergency lifeline that was thrown out, we clang to it and were pulled back into the boat. Even though there was this initial scare, it was a lot of fun. I am glad that I will be able to watch it back as I was wearing my go pro on my helmet again. (Great little device!)
We stopped at the river side, everyone caught their breath, the life line was rolled back into its place and off we were again. I made it my goal from this point to stay in the boat.
We saw several different birds, from kingfishers to vultures, hawks and ingrits. At some part it heavily started pouring down rain. We didn’t mind, seeing as we were already wet anyways, but the rain got so hard it sometimes hurt the bare skin. We continued on the rapids and several other times had people falling out of boats. I however, managed to meet my goal and stayed in the boat – success. It felt a bit like riding a wild horse, where you never knew where the horse would jump to next or what would make it buck.
We had a splendid time and when the time came for lunch we were keen to get out of the rain. We stopped underneath the Panamerican highway, and what we experienced next was nothing like what we had expected. The lunch underneath this bridge was one of the best ones I have had so far on this trip. It was nothing special and I think that sitting on the boat we had conquered so many rapids with helped, but everything tasted so much better. We made our own sandwiches with a large variety of toppings. We had two different types of breads to choose from, mayonnaise, mustard, and a special sandwich spread, turkey ham, tomatoes, onions, lettuce and green peppers. Furthermore we got fresh pineapple, crisps, juice and water and had it topped off with little chocolates. Delicious! It was really a very surreal lunch.
After lunch we got back rafting. We had a couple more “dangerous” rapids, however as we were already quite far down the river the drops got smaller and the white water less vicious. We joked around instead and took a rapid twirling around in circles instead, or throwing each other into the water. We had a splendid time and I am glad to have done it with my two fellow travellers.
We eventually spotted our van, jumped out of the boat and swam the rest of the way. Delightful!
While the guide, the bus driver and the trainee guide were taking down the boat we chatted about what we were going to do the next day, and after I mentioned horseback riding our guide got really excited, telling us that the trails were amazing and recommending us horses. Apparently “Pepino” was good for a very fun ride, but you had to stay away from “Lulu” who was a right witch. I laughed and made sure to tell the others horseback riding with me when I returned.
We drove back in absolutely torrential rain. It got to the point were I asked whether we were going to pump the raft back up inside the van and then just go rafting on the main highway. The water levels were nearly high enough…
We got back to Boquete, hopped on our shuttle to the hotel and nearly halfway up the mountain we got to a road block. A large herd of cows were being led down towards town and we were stuck until they had past.
We eventually managed to drive by not without a large amount of honking and got ready for dinner – mainly drying off. At dinner I chose to have a Philly cheese steak sandwich, which was delicious and exactly what I needed after the challenging day. We popped another bottle of wine and after that was empty we headed back to bed to be ready for what was to come the next day. I was shattered and so had a wonderful nights sleep.
