Swimming Adventure

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Outside Forecariah is a great spot where volunteers and trainees go to swim in a large river. The scenery there is beautiful - high mountains and rocky plateaus rising in the distance, palm trees sticking up from the lush greenery that crowds the riverbank. At our swimming area the bank has been cleared to produce a landing for dugout canoes that carry goods to villages on the other side. The little beach provides a great place to cool off in the afternoon, peaceful and secluded since the locals don’t like to swim.
During the aforementioned bike adventure we discovered a path that led (through two streams, a village, two swamps, and a cattle-grazing field) to another small clearing that provided access to the river upstream from our usual spot. We decided to return to that spot without our bikes and swim/float with the current to our usual swimming spot. Frank predicted it would take about 15 minutes, just around one bend in the river.
A group of eight of us headed out on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The hike took about an hour, which probably should have been a clue. We trudged across swamps and rice paddies and then jumped into the cool, relatively clean riverwater. We swam away from the bank and allowed the current to start pulling us downstream. The weather and the water were perfect and the scenery was lovely as we floated around the bend. We did not see our little beach yet, and assumed it must be around the next bend. After 30 or 40 min we started making fun of Frank and Patrick for saying the beach would be just around the bend. After 50 or 60 min we started making fun of ourselves for being dumb enough to jump in an African river without knowing where we were going or what lived in the water. After about an hour and 15 min without seeing our usual swimming spot (or any place to get out of the water, for that matter) we started to get a little tired of swimming and the water began to get choppy. We floated around our sixth or seventh bend in the river and saw a radio tower that marked the town of Forecariah. We floated past it. Finally, after being in the river for over an hour and a half, we spotted the beach we were looking for. We clawed our way out of the current and walked up onto the sand, dripping and waterlogged. I was a little disappointed there was no one on shore to see us all drift in from nowhere. I was also very thankful that our bikes had not floated on our previous trip - they would have been quite a burden to swim with.

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