Rafting on the Pacuare River, Wednesday, May 27, 2010

This is just a stream of consciousness blog, so it might not make a lot of sense.

On Wednesday morning, we got up and left the house in time for Chris and me to be at a downtown central plaza at 6 am. We got on a bus (Armando and Chantal, the couple from Isla Tortugas yesterday, was already there, so that was a nice treat!), picked up other people throughout the City of San Jose, and drove for an hour and a half or so to the base camp of Exploradores Outdoors. There we had a buffet breakfast, changed clothes, picked up more people and headed up to begin our rafting experience.

Our guide was a young man named Elber or Alber or Albert – I’m not really sure. Our class in rafting consisted of a lecture on the way up to the raft site. He told us how to paddle (with the upper body, not just the arms), how to get down in the middle of the raft, how one side can row one way and another side another way, how to row backwards, and how to jump to the high side. We got basic safety pointers like how to find our way out from under the raft if it flipped over, and how to properly adjust our helmets and safety vests. We also got tips on who and how to do rescues, and how to hold the paddles properly.

Then we were assigned to our guides. Our guide was Ivan. We got our helmets, vests, and paddles, and went into the rafts, off on our rafting experience. I don’t remember when I’ve had so much fun!!! Danny’s son Chris and Armando were the two at the front of the raft. I was behind Chris, Chantal was behind Armando, and two cousins from Mexico, Lilly and Sara, were behind us.

The first half mile or so, wee were just learning to row in unison, and learning to do basic rowing strokes. Then we had a couple of little rapids, which we took quite well. Over the next few hours, we went through class II, III and IV rapids. Our group, Group #2, raft #23, was AWESOME!!! Each of the cousins fell out once, but Ivan was able to pull them in quickly with no problem. We were caught in the middle of a huge hole for what seemed to be several minutes, and not only did we not panic, but we worked together. None of us was thrown out, and the raft did not capsize nor flip. That was an amazing experience. I remember Chantal’s paddle had slipped away, and Armando said to her, "never mind the paddle, hold onto me." But for some reason she couldn’t get to him. And then I remember saying to her “Hold onto me.” She did, and we balanced and swayed back and forth until we were through the rapid. It was an AWESOME display of teamwork – if we hadn’t done it right, our raft could very easily have capsized or flipped.

A guy from another raft fell in, and he was there floundering in the water. We were able to get to him and Ivan and the gujys pulled him in. He was choking and gasping for air when they brought him in. He said he’d gone under and was trying to follow the instructions they'd given us at the beginning (don't panic, feel your way to the edge of the raft if you're caught underneath, float with feet forward, how to grab the rescue lines properly, etc), but the water just sucked him in too quickly. We got him and got him back to his raft, with nothing worse than a skinned knee.

On one of the rapids, Ivan had half the raft sit backwards and pull forward while the other half faced frontwards and pulled forward. The effect was that we were doing 360s, right as we came up to a rapid. Not that we were showboating or anything, but no other team did anything like that. We were also able to recover a paddle lost by one of the other teams.

In the midst of the turbulence, I found myself remarkably calm. Before the trip, I was afraid – I didn’t know if I could do it or not, and when they shouted the commands to “get down!” I wasan’t sure if my knee would let me (It is stiff and hurting today, the day after). But I got through it and Ivan even complimented me on how well I rowed (It was just working abs and obliques for me).

Ever since the cancer, I've made peace with my mortality. I don't fear death any more, cuz I know death is not the end of the story, and because of my big brother Jesus, I know how the story ends. As I look back on this experience I think about how, when we’re on the raft of life, we might go through storms or turbulence or rapids. There may be rocks in the way. But if we can work together as a team, as the Body of Christ, and if some survival training (the Word) has been planted in us, then the probability is that not only will we survive, not only will we thrive, but we will also be able to render aid and assistance to those in our midst. We will be able to pull in someone who is sinking. We’ll be able to return an oar to someone who needs it to paddle their own raft. And we can do it all with the assurance that this experience, no matter how scary it may seem, is not the end of the story -- it's just another chapter. The key, it seems to me, is our ability to apply our training, AND our ability to work together as one unified body.

So now I’m on my way to Guanacaste, in the north of the country. Silvia lives there with Daniela, and we are going to go to a thermal springs / spa. I think I’m there through Saturday morning.

This has already been an amazing trip. I’ll have to come back again.