Tena

There are many times I have been closer to death than this weekend. Walking among criminals in Quito, hiking among grizzly bears in Montana, swimming among sharks in Florida are just a few instances in which I was probably in more danger. I know that. However, our perceptions often do not reflect our reality. And this weekend certainly felt like one of the most dangerous of my life.
This weekend, I and a handful of friends went to Tena, a small town just inside the Amazon, to go rafting. My friend Kelly is big into rafting, and she had been telling us how she wanted to go for so long, so she organized a trip, negotiated a low price for us, and recruited those people who were interested. In the end it ended up being myself, her, and our friends Karen and David, and our Swiss friend Daniel. So on Friday afternoon we packed our bags, met in front of La Catolica, and made our way to the bus station. The bus ride to Tena was not especially comfortable (bus rides in Ecuador seldom are) but we arrived in good time.
I had forgotten how uncomfortable the climate was in the Amazon. The climates in the Ecuadorian mainland’s three main regions are all starkly different. The coast is dry and blazing hot, the sierra is dry and cool (though nowhere close to cold), and the Amazon is incredibly humid, heavy, and very warm. Though not the blazing heat of the coast, you still sweat all the time, and a shower does little to help.
When arrived we were greeted by Diego, the person with whom Kelly had been corresponding to coordinate the trip. He took us in his truck to our hostel, at which they had pre-arranged rooms, and was located next door to the rafting center. We were shown to our rooms, girls in one room, guys in another. We went out for a beer and a bite to eat, and then returned to sleep. This can be difficult to do in the Amazon because of the extremely hot humidity that permeates everything. However, we all slept as close to naked as possible on top of the covers, with the fan on full power.
It rained all night, as it often does in the rainforest, and the next morning the rain had brought the temperature down considerably, to a nice feel. We gathered and went downstairs for breakfast. We knew we would be rafting with others, so while we sat and waited for our food, we kept an eye out for other potential rafters. Four American girls sat at another table, who we later found out were rafting with us, and two other people, a guy and a girl, approached us where we were sitting.
“I suppose this is the table for the people who are rafting,” he said with a bit of an accent. We said yes, and invited them to sit. As we learned, they were both from Israel—Benjamin and Inbam were their names. They were incredibly interesting people. They had both served in the Israeli military (as all Israelis must do) and now were traveling all around South America. They had been to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and they were finishing in Colombia. They were both very nice, and speaking to them about life in Israel and their opinions on the global affairs that affected their nation was enlightening to say the least.
After breakfast we met our rafting guides, loaded into trucks with the equipment, and drove out to where our rafting would begin. When we arrived, we were given life jackets, helmets, and a safety talk that definitely had us asking ourselves what we had gotten ourselves into. We had two guides, one named Daniel, and another named Danny. I will try to keep these two and our Swiss friend Daniel all straight.
Daniel (the guide) told us about the various things we needed to do to stay safe on the river. He said that if the raft tips, try to grab onto the rope on the side. If you can’t and are floating freely, lay on your back with your legs bent in front of you to protect against rocks, and breathe. There were two things to look out for in the water: washing machines and whirlpools. Washing machines succeeded rocks, and were the points where the water was forced down, spun like a washing machine, and then came up. If we were caught in one we were told to get into the fetal position and let the washing machine spit us out rather than fight it. Whirlpools were, well, whirlpools. If caught in one, we were supposed to just let ourselves get sucked in and spit out downriver. For safety, Diego was in a kayak, and could come pick us up and drag us back to the raft. Diego was a kayaking professional, and never had any trouble on the river. He would accompany us the whole way.
We split into two groups: the four American girls and two Israelis in one raft, the five of us in another. We were with Danny; they were with Daniel. In our raft we also had Diego’s nephew, Ryan, who was around eight or nine years old, and became a fast friend of mine. The rafting went easily at first. We went over some small rapids, and some nice calm patches. We all began to get the feel for the oars and the commands. Everything seemed to be going well. Then we came to one patch that was especially rough.
We began the rafting, going over rapids, until we hit one particularly big wave, and took it sideways. To our horror, the raft flipped upside down, throwing us all into the water with it. I fought to get out from under it, and popped up quickly on the other side. I positioned myself as we were told, but quickly found myself going over some rapids solo. Ryan and David were also with me. The others had managed to get back into the raft. As I went downriver I plucked two oars out of the water, and David had managed to grab an oar himself. We went over a rock or two, and then Diego arrived in his kayak. David grabbed one side, I grabbed the other, and then I reached an oar out to Ryan, calling for him to grab it. We were not out of the rapids yet. We continued down the river, grasping in my left hand an oar that Ryan was clinging to, and in my right hand both another oar and the handle on the kayak that was keeping me somewhat safe. Diego fought to keep us all away from rocks and above water. The ride was rough and difficult, but we finally made it out of the rapids and were able to rejoin the raft.
Our raft did not flip for the rest of the trip. Whenever we came to something that looked like it could flip us, Danny yelled for us to jump inside the raft. By centering the weight within, we escaped flipping. The other raft was not so lucky however. They flipped three more times. The first time they and their oars scatted. We gathered their oars, and even one of their girls. I saw Benjamin drag two girls out of the water by himself. Once we exited that set of rapids, we returned them their oars and their final person. They flipped twice more, but showed increasing skill at scrambling back into the raft.
The day was very fun, and they views were absolutely gorgeous. There are few things in this world as beautiful as the Amazon, and seeing it from a river is incredible. The American girls were unfortunately leaving that night for Quito, but the Israelis were staying for the next day to raft with us again.
That night we all went with Diego back to his house, were we made a small fire and showed him and the Israelis a great American tradition: smores. David and I headed up the smores project. I had brought marshmallows, he had brought chocolate, and the girls had brought crackers (there are no graham crackers in Ecuador that we have found). With that, we showed them the beauty of smores. That night, with a stomach full of smores and muscles aching from the intense rowing, I slept excellently.
The next day was more difficult. The first day had been class 3+ rapids. The next day was class 4+ rapids. Inbal decided not to raft, so it was the five of us and Benjamin, this time with the guide Daniel, rather than Danny. Diego was our safety kayaker once again. We took the river at the beginning, and it was easy, but our plan was to take it to the Misahualli River, which would have the stronger rapids. Indeed the first river was easy, and beautiful. But when we reached the Misahualli, it became much rougher. The first couple of rapids we made easily. But on our first class 4, the raft flipped. We all were scattered, as were the paddles. David, Karen, and I got stuck in front of a washing machine, though not in it, so we swam with all our strength to get away from it. Kelly was not so lucky. She got stuck in one and was under the water for quite a while before popping back out. However, we all got back into the raft and went off again.
However, it was not long before we flipped again. We came to a long stretch of class 4 rapids, and began to take them. We did well at first, but came to a big wave. We hit it hard, and the boat flipped. As it went, I grabbed the side rope, so I remained near the raft. As soon as my head broke water I heard shouting. The guide was climbing on top of the raft to flip it upright while shouting at everyone to get to the left. David and Karen broke for the left. I, not understanding what he was saying, stuck with the raft. He flipped it and jumped in. The danger was we were quickly coming up on some fast and dangerous rapids, and being in the water was not a good idea.
The guide Daniel, our friend Daniel, Kelly and Benjamin had all managed to jump back in, but I was struggling. Just before we hit the rapids, Benjamin reached down, took me by the life jacket, and hauled me into the raft. And just in time. We huddled in the raft as the currents batted us around like a pinball. All I could hear were the rapids and the guide yelling at us to stay in the raft. Suddenly he yelled at us to row. We grabbed oars and began rowing for our lives. We finally reached an easy place and rowed to the side. We were missing Karen and David.
Suddenly, Diego emerged from the rapids on his kayak, towing Karen behind him. He brought her over to us and we pulled her in. She apparently had taken many of the rapids by herself, and had not had fun doing it. But we were still missing David. We rowed upstream a bit, and the guide got out to look for him. All of a sudden, we saw him on the bank of the river on the opposite side. We had been most afraid for him, but he had fared the best of us all. We rowed over, picked him up, and prepared for the next set of rapids, which were immediately before us.
We flipped once more, but were much faster at pulling ourselves back into the raft. After the third time the guide realized what our problem was. He told us if it seemed like we were going to flip we should lean forward to throw our weight to the front of the boat, and we would increase our chances of clearing it. We quickly had a chance to test this out on a string of long class 4 rapids called paranoia. Paranoia was difficult, but we employed his strategy, and effectively cleared them without flipping.
After paranoia, we rowed to the side of the river. The next set of rapids was called Casanova, and was class 6. We could not raft them. So instead, the guides tied the raft to a rope and walked along the side, dragging the raft through the difficult rapids. We had to hike up into the forest and around a cliff side to reach the place where we would get back in. Here was the problem with Casanova: while we skipped most of it, there was one big rapid we still would have to clear in the raft, and flipping was a bad idea because further downriver, before Casanova ended completely, was an incredibly powerful washing machine, one that might now spit you out, or might actually just hold you under the water with the force of the water pressure. That meant if we fell our we would either have to hold desperately to the raft and hope, or make a break for the side and try to hold ourselves there until we could be rescued. Neither was an incredibly appealing option.
We were all incredibly nervous as we slowly boarded the raft. The guide gave us the instructions: we would have to row incredibly hard, and just as we hit the wave, we would have to all get in the raft to try to keep it from flipping. My heart was pounding and my adrenaline was pumping harder that in had yet. We pushed off and began to row. The first challenge was going over the rapid in the right place. If we went over in the wrong place we would smash against some rocks. We came to the right rapid, and here was the hard part. The guide yelled at us to row forward, as the rapid got louder and louder. “In!” he finally yelled. We all jumped in the raft, and hoped.
The raft smashed into the wave, turning up the nose. My heart leapt and I prepared to grab the rope on the side of the boat for our overturning. But, the nose fell back, and the raft was pushed over the wave, staying righted. “Forward!” the guide yelled, and we all scrambled back to our positions, rowing as hard as we possibly could. We cleared the final small rapid, and had reached calm waters.
We all cheered at having cleared the rapid, and breathed a sigh of relief. From then on the rapids were not as bad, and we never overturned again. We finally ended our journey at the port of Misahualli, which ironically enough was the same place we had begun our first journey in the Amazon in February. Then, I had come down to the bank of the river to look at the river. Now I was riding up to the town on the river, and the people on the bank were watching me. We arrived, dragged the boat up, and after eating a hearty and much needed meal, returned to Tena.
The weekend was incredibly fun, though terrifying at times. Our guides were very excellent, and we made some new friends from Israel. This will very possibly be the last big trip I take in Ecuador, and if it is, it will have been one of the greatest, and certainly the most extreme. Not only will it stand out as one of the greatest times in Ecuador, it will stand out forever as one of the greatest adventures in my life.