Return to Base Camp
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sun 11 Oct 2009 22:59
|
Return to Base
Camp
All too soon it was time to get back
into our faithful canoe for the return journey. The boys said this was actually
the trickier journey. Controlling the canoe in the rapids was much more skilled
when the water was taking you rather than fighting, as in the upward journey. We
were in for a hairy ride at times and many more stops with the men having to get
out and walk, once most of us got out, to get round the very shallow
bits.
   The usual view of
the gang, everyone happy and still dry at this point. A hairy bit with Fred saying it all who excelled as and was promoted to
Bilge Undertaking Manager. Traudl gained her first title as Assistant
Bailing Manager. And boy, did they
have to do some bailing out.
  Then it was time to get REALLY wet. I put a picture took by Pat of the "hello" we
got from a passing helicopter in the blog 'Angels by others'
Bill had set up his hand held GPS for
the return journey. At one point we were doing over twenty miles per hour, Beds
retreated to the luggage pile hiding under the tarpaulin. Our total journey was
44.3 miles. On this return journey Fred, Connie and I got to act as ballast for
the boys to ride the final set of rapids, so as the rest of the gang had to do a
the half hour hike in the failing light. We spread our weights through the canoe
and were told to hang on tight. The skill of the lads was impressive and we did
it in record time. That meant we had to stand on the beach for about twenty
minutes watching the beautiful firework display of the glow-worms whilst being
eaten alive by the sand flies.
The trip was a little slower than our
guides had thought with so many stops so we reached Mayupa in the twilight and
the last ten miles in the dark - a little unnerving - just a tad. The trip down
river may have been a hole two hours shorter but to have sat in a wet canoe for
twelve hours over the two days meant some seriously stiff bodies and some
incredibly sore botty tots. We docked higher
in the river than where we had originally got on at the upper end of Isla
Anatoliy, at the back of our local falls between Salto Hacha and Salto El
Sapo. Meaning nothing to us in the dark, bearings wise, we depended on
Danielle to lead us in a column each calling to the one behind re lumps, holes
and overhanging objects. We made it safe and sound back to base camp as a few of
the ardent travelers had their head torches on.
 Impressively our only "casualty" of
the trip, in fact the whole week was Anne's plimmy, a
local took the shoes as he felt he 'could do something with them'
ALL IN ALL WHAT A
DAY
. |