day 483: river raft race continued!

Alright, boys and girls.

So last time, I left y'all with the pre-rafting story. Let's move on.

Day of the raft race and the boys and I are pumped. We will survive! is basically our motto. We get our stuff, head over to the meeting point, and we're off to Nauta to begin the race. Waiting for this bus, we're starting to realize that everyone else seems to have come with a load of stuff to pimp out their boats- plastic chairs, paint, flags, etc.

We brought... ourselves.

After the ceremonies and welcomes and all that, we have a little bit of time to wander around Nauta and we decide to start looking for some things we might want to put on our boat. We settle on some small plastic stools and one plastic chair.

Yea, that'll do.

The big boat comes, we get ourselves on it and off we go, just across the river to where our logs are waiting to be constructed into rafts!

On the boat, heading to the other side of the amazon river!

They use a lotto name drawing to assign us some logs that have already been pre-divided into 8 a piece. Of course, there are actually a couple of Peruvian teams who had shown up earlier that day and had already begun constructing their rafts. There is a mild uproar about it, stating how unfair that is, but nothing is done to solve the issue. We get issued our logs and start constructing. 

Moving our balsa logs to start constructing.

We were given a machete, an axe, a hammer, nails, and a rope. Prior to this, the founder of the raft asked us gringos to please not use the machetes, and to hire locals to do this part for us. Psh. We showed him.

Our initial plan was, do what we can and when we can't figure out what to do, higher a local to help. This didn't exactly workout because some Peruvian youth basically refused to let us do anything on our own and more or less started moving logs with us and constructing our raft. Ah well, we're all youth development volunteers for a reason, I suppose. Our raft turned out pretty boss though and it was dubbed "Duro as F*ck" because that's exactly what it was.

We finally finished our raft, starving and dehydrated. Lunch was provided at around 5pm that evening and when they ran out of water, they gave us beer. Warm beer, mind, but still - awesome. Sadly, I was seriously dehydrated and after informing one of the workers "if I don't get water, I will walk into this water and drown myself in it," I was lead onto the boat and given 4 bottles of water.

LIARS.

But now, I wasn't thirsty anymore. Histrionics really pay off sometimes! We got our raft built, ate our food (btw, the food was catered by people that the iquitos municipality uses to cater their events. Basically, it was seriously delicious. Except breakfast. Breakfast was rather weak considering it was going to be the meal fueling us. They gave us one piece of bread with a little bit of meat (think, a thin piece of deli ham). And juice. Basically, that's less than what I eat for breakfast when I'm NOT working out. Thank the dear lord we were warned about the lack of food and brought enough snacks to keep us mildly well fueled during the rafting!) and went to bed, pumped for the next morning.

The day of the race and oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boooooooooyyyyyy! Like the beautiful volunteers we are, all the PCVs helped each other lift their rafts and get them into the water. Almost brought tears to my eyes how easily we come to the aide of one another. During this time, unfortunately, while we were all trekking back to shore to get the next raft in, I see one of my boys on the sidelines, surrounded by peruvians and looking rattled.

What?

He looks over and is clearly concerned about what has happened- I GOT STUNG BY A STINGRAY, he laments.

WHAT?

We walk over, wondering where the medic is, and he explains that he lost his sandal in the water and was searching for it when he felt something stab him. When he shook his foot, something flew off and went back into the water. We can see that there is a hole in his foot (small, like a needle got jabbed into him) and finally someone comes to check on his foot.

The man smacks his foot a few times, squeezes the area, and asks how that feels. They conclude- it's not a stingray. He got stabbed by some other creature with a barb, but it's not poisonous and he'll be fine.

Sillyness.

So we get back on our raft and float on over to the center of the river. THE RAFT FLOATS! YES! Finally, the whistle is blown and we start paddling. Paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle.

Photo courtesy of Sarabeth B

Clouds above are starting to look a bit ominous when flash! Lightning! Thunderstorm! Woo! The water is amazing bliss and the choppyness of the waves is actually a relief- anything that isn't still water is welcome. But wow, I'm losing it. We're so close, I can see the boat. We'd been playing catch up and pass with a number of other rafts and feeling the urge to stay ahead (turns out, all of us are kind of secretly really competitive people), we paddle. I feel like I'm going to cry. I'm exhausted, hungry, and I just want this stupid race to be over. I scream obscenities at the water, and curse the race. "Woah, look at that." We look behind us and see the wind from the storm has kicked up a giant cloud of sand that's whipping around behind us. Wow. Glad we missed that. Finally, we make it to the end and grab some food. 

You're the second international team to make it! Katoo is there, apparently we were right on his tail. Woah, nice! There are cameras immediately in your face and you're not even off the raft yet. They ask for words of advice, and Z responds "just keep paddling."

Lol.

We get off the raft and head straight for food. I apologize for my freakout and my lovely lovely teammates assure me that it wasn't as bad as I thought I was (I'm sure they were lying to me, but I love them for it anyway). Then we get out of our nasty river clothes, grab some beers, and chill out on this super chill spot that one of my guys randomly discovers. Brilliant. 

At this point, I realize I am ridiculously burnt and my face hurts. But not so bad that a cold beer doesn't solve it. We watch as night falls and rafts slowly make their way in. Many rafts are towed that day, and some have to abandon ship and cannot complete the race. No one seems really bummed though, and dinner is delicious.  There's another presentation, and the dances are seriously awesome. It's obvious that these kids have practiced hard to coordinate their moves, but sadly the storms hits and it hits hard. Rain POURS and we move from the tents to random classrooms and spaces indoors. By the morning, though, the rain has cleared but clouds remain. 

Day 3. Competitive spirit kicks in. We realize we've done well these past two days, and today is the final day. We can continue this. International teams are sent off first, with national teams to follow afterwards. This does level the playing field a bit, as we realize that all of us are now clustered close enough to each other that we'll be rafting in view of one another for the most part. We had stocked up on more snacks the previous night, but snacks were more or less forgotten (except when Z would shove cookies into J's mouth). We kept paddling, trying to distance ourselves from the rest but finding that our pace was more or less the same. "We'll pass em through endurance" says Z, and he's right. When teams pause to drink water and stretch, we keep going- stopping only long enough to swap sides and reapply sunscreen. But the sun is hidden behind clouds and it's actually rather chilly. Captain's log: Peruvian teams started after us but are flying by already. One kind team (a family) notices us and gives us a lighter, smaller paddle for me to use. How sweet of them! Balls, as reported by crew, are at an all time high. 

Finally, the river bends and we're in this rather open area. We can see a few teams are on the left, but we stick to the middle of the river. Finally, all of us slow down. We can't tell where to go- the river seems to turn right, but the ms word paint map given to us shows nothing of the kind. Everyone slows and gets confused. I look over and see our support boat. Is that our support boat? "No, that's a bus" says J. Ah, so it is. It's on the sand. It's a sand bus. Suddenly, rafts are disappearing into this sand.

I think we all went kind of insane at this point. 

Turns out, there's a very small channel that goes upstream and can only be seen if you're on the left side, looking for it. We passed it. FRACK. We start paddling like maniacs, against a strong current, trying to get into this little inlet of a stream. We get grounded on the sand and I jump out and just push our raft. We finally get to where we're supposed to be and the entire battle is upstream. 

Remember that sand bus? Yea. It really is our support boat. It seems we're at the end when we see a boat waving a green flag and a red flag in circles. I don't think that means anything, in flag talk. What is going on. We see another raft ahead and realize, the support boat does not signify an end. There's still more to paddle. Exhausted, we keep getting caught on sand banks. I get frustrated. Captain's log: I hate everyone on this raft. Everyone on this raft hates me. I don't want to paddle anymore. Spirits are shattered and I want to strangle the person waving those flags... with those flags. 

A storm hits. Waves get super choppy, wind blows sheets of rain into our face. Locals stare and do nothing to help us. We reach a point where the river splits and we have to decide to go left or right. What? So many people are going to get lost at this point, why is there nothing here to indicate that you must go left or right? We stare in each direction and notice that there is a small, bright pink and green dot in the distance on the left. That must be another raft, we decide, and go left.

It looks so close but it takes us nearly another hour to cross this small stretch of water, battling rain and wind and current. We finally get there and shivering in the cold, crawl out. They tell us to head over to this giant building made of columns. It's freezing. Captain's log: No, this time balls are at an all time high. The boys agree. 

We get to the columns and are greeted with cold beer and girls in tight clothes advertising said beer. We down one, and grab a second before heading up the stairs. We find out that the support raft was grounded by the same sand banks we were getting caught on, but the bigger problem was that some mechanic bit was destroyed. All of our stuff (aka dry clothes) are on this boat. 

Shivering, we're immediately swarmed by people with cameras and microphones. Someone puts a mike in my face and asks, "do you plan on doing this again?" my immediate response is "no. absolutely not." I get food, get water, and I can tell that the team feels kind of bad- we could have won had we not missed that left turn. Argh. But still, we finished! WE JUST FINISHED THIS MOTHER EFFING AMAZON RAFT RACE. 

#WINNERS

We continue to watch as people start coming in. The water is coming down so hard, now, you can barely see the river. We were right about that right/left split- teams who managed to get all the way to the end, missed the left and went right. They were literally within site of the end but due to a lack of visibility and directions from the raft race group, missed it. Obviously, they were disappointed at having to abandon ship in the last stretch so hopefully in future years, the race will do something to fix that. 

Everyone is cold and wet, hoping our stuff makes it back to us at some point. But before then, the winners are called up. First, the national teams- the family that lent me the oar won in the mixed category! Then they started calling the international teams.

As each first place and second place winners of the all male team, the all female team, the mixed teams are called up, my mates and I are looking at each other. We definitely made it in before some of these teams, or at least were right on the tails of some of the first place winners. I'm thinking, naw, we're not gonna win... but there's a part of me that refuses to leave and stays while they call the mixed team winners.

In second place, "Oar We There Yet?"

Eyes. Huge. We just look at each other for a second and then with giant smiles, make our way up to the stage. I can hear PCVs shouting and I just can't believe it. We won? This is insane. Absolutely insane. 

But insane as it is, turns out it's true! We came in second! I look out at the crowd of cameras and videos, and the man standing next to me asks where we're from. I tell him, all over the USA but oh! Peace Corps! He calls out "Cuerpo de Paz" and all the PCVs in the crowd start cheering. So Awesome. We're to collect our prize money the day after. On top of all that, we're allowed to keep our oars as a token! 

Actually, we ended up taking the money and eventually leaving the oars. I wanted mine, but in terms of luggage space, it just didn't make the cut :c

The boys < 3

Captain Song getting paid cash money
(S/3000 for the team!)

WHAT UPPPPPP!

Sadly, all this money was spent in an instant, paying for this jungle trip. Pretty sure I should have saved some of it, considering my general state of broke... but I had a fantastic trip!

Tell you more about that later, though. 

ALRIGHT forgot to end my last post with my usual so here, times two, I leave you with peace and love!