White-water rafting and surreptitious crapping on Rio Pacuare

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Not finished with such exciting excursions, we next get on a tour for whitewater rafting. I was naturally a bit nervous before this little jaunt, being of a naturally nervous disposition with all such life-threatening things. So much so that I first had to take a crap behind a tree, with only large leaves as toilet paper, upon arrival at the river (and despite Sofie having warned her, a Dutch woman suddenly turned up - blindsided me so she did! She wasnt embarrassed though I was....mind you, Holland is a place that has 'shelf-loos' as I called them whilst living there, so they can examine their stools on a daily basis. So I think they're desensitized to such scatalogical things).

The whole escapade turned out to be roaring fun and we were bored when there were no rapids - apparently it was class 4 so we did quite well. Our craft wasnt exactly rowed in sync though, headed as it was by a large and round American man in his 40s who mistook himself for a great (white) American Comedian. As we were trying to plough away at the swells, he was telling his moustachioed pal (who looked like a badly dressed German, as many white Americans from certain states seem to do) very base jokes.....alienating himself from the women on the boat but particularly me, as I was TRYING to get this tub to move on the water. You can see his pug-face at the stern here, smug smile adorning it:







You can also see the results of my lateness from my need to poo behind a tree too - a completely silly orange hat! It's all they had left. Have a look at my countenance bearing sheer terror on this one...I guess I wasn't too confident in the first rapids. Sofie, to my right, having a whale of a time though. Indeed, smiles all around among the rest of the crew - either fatty at the front had told his most brilliant joke ever, or everyone else is just having so much fun.





Here's the splash-down that came next.





Starting to get into the swing now!








Nice one of one of the other boats slamming into a wave head-on.



Us, about to disappear.



Disappeared.





Alive!



We're back.



One of the river guides thinking he's cool.


Another guide, this time the one carrying lunch, who had got stuck here lodged against some rocks.



When we were having lunch at the water's edge (an amazing spread actually, once they'd managed to extricate the guy lodged in the river), it was clear that my shoulders were feeling the sun a bit since most of my sunscreen had washed off. A bit of a do-it-yourselfer, the Comedian also had these swipes that were soaked in suncream, which he slapped on me as he caught me trying to use my own stuff...berating me I got "buddy, use these". "Will they work? Seem a bit dry to me" "Sure they will", then with smug conceit, "I own the company", and then he began dishing them out to the masses crowding around the melon slices.

I burned, obviously, but not as bad as some of the others.

He got his comeuppance (how the hell does one spell that) though, but for that you'll need to read the next entry on Puerto Viejo....

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