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White Water Rafting So a month or two back now, David calls me and tells me that I'm going to be busy for the long weekend. Heh, I was confused for a moment before he suddenly tells me that I'm going to be busy because I'm going to be rafting. The preparation...was...rather long actually. There was stuff to buy, money to pay to him for the trip and the food, new clothes were needed and a pair of sandals. I met two of the many people who would be going for the first time about a week before we were scheduled to leave. One that I met was Ivan and the other was Camen (sp? XD). We had to plan a bunch about who was bringing which tent, burners, more tents, food, cameras and so on and so on. The day before, the Wednesday, on the spur of the moment, we decided that we didnt' want to wait a week to watch Spiderman 2 so we went early in the afternoon before he started work XD. It was a pretty damned good movie and the rest of the day was spent wrapping up some things, packing and so on. David came by after work a bit past midnight and we stayed up most of the night doing absolutely nothing XD Yes, considering that we would have to get up a bit after dawn the coming day, that probably wasn't the SMARTEST thing we could have done but whatever. After an hour or two, I conked out to sleep for two hours before we woke up to get all the shit into the car and to get driven to Kennedy Commons where we would be picked up. Ran into a few more of the people who would be going in front of the theater before we tossed all our shit into the bus and got in. That bus ride took a good 5 hours. Most of it was spent sleeping, very little of it was spent talking (cause I didn't really know anyone there) and the rest was spent staring out the window at the passing scenery. Country scenery can be a lot nicer than you may think, looking at all those trees spreading below you in some valley is really pretty. Eventually, we got to the place, and though I didn't know it at the time, we were actually in the vicinity of Ottawa...thought you'd think that the french road signs would have tipped me off huh? From there, we had to unpack our shit and trek down to our campsite, lugging all of that shit with us. Right, I'm going to take a break here cause this is freaking me out. I'm sitting here typing when I hear the wind blowing. And this isn't like...the nice and breezy rush of wind through trees, but more like, the haunting sound of wind blowing through leaveless branches on a dark night. APPARENTLY, this sound is coming from my speakers. This was tested by turning the speakers on and off and all that happy horseshit and making sure I was running nothing that would make noise but hey, it's the sound of haunted wind coming from my speakers for absolutely no reason at all. Yeah so that was creepy...ANYway, moving on. Took everything down, got tired out (it's roughly a 10 minute walk from where we got off to the campsite) and went around setting up the tents. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and at the end of about an hour in the blazing sun, we had our little village. A small tent for a couple who were David's friends, a big tent for me, David and two of his friends, a big tent for a group of four girls, a small tent that we brought along to put all our bags and stuff in and a rather large tent to set up above the picnic table, the kitchen tent. We dubbed this little community of tents "The Village" and so it was called forever afterward XD. If I get pics like I'm supposed to, I'll update this with em and captions and everything XD. First day, we just kind of lazed around, got to know each other a bit more...well, more like I got to know THEM a bit more seeing as how most of them knew each other before already. We were told that we would have to get up to the place where we were dropped off at 8:45 in the morning to go rafting so most people turned in early. There was a bunch of white folkls by the bonfire drinking but what would an asian man have to do with that shit? XD The next day...rafting. First interesting thing of the day were the "fun straps" XD We had to wear these life preservers and among the multitude of straps designed to keep the damned thing on your body, there were two that went from behind you, up across your crotch and back up to the waist, presumably to keep the thing from sliding over your head if you happened to get caught in the rapids. There were a few...accidents where some people's fun straps were tightened TOO much XD. We piled onto a bus and rode for an hour or two to get to a spot on the Ottawa river where we piled onto rafts and began to paddle downstream. I gotta say right now though, rowing a raft on calm waters is pretty tough work. Or maybe it was because I'm just not used to exercise...but in any case, My arms started aching after the first half hour or so but we had to keep going and going and going. The rapids were fairly fun, in each one, there'd be a point where we'd drift up to it for a while...then our guide at the back sould suddenly shout "FORWARD HARRRDD!!!" and all 10 of us in the boat would have to ignore our fatigue and force our tired arms to paddle hard, to push forward and backwards with our full bodies to pull the oar back as well as with our arms to give the boat the momentum it would need to dip into the 'hole' in the rapids and then out the other side. Hitting each rapid would just be a bit of a bumpy ride at first, then it would be like those log, splash rides at amusement parks when suddenly, water would crash upwards and just drench/knock the boat around. It was kind of intimidating at times, especially at the biggest rapid, the one that the guides who worked there had appropriately dubbed the "coliseum'. The water level was apparently higher than it normally was, making the hole on the Coliseum pretty damned big. What made it worse was that the first boat that we saw go, it was a 20 man boat, filled with about 17-18 people paddling just flipped. No effort at all..the boat went into the hole, and on the way out, just flipped over backwards o.O. We all started getting kind of nervous considering that we were only a 10 man boat and all...none of us relished the prospect of falling out and having to swim through that shit. But eventually, it was our turn so we went and managed to get through it well enough. I slipped up a toenail from all the bouncing around and it started to bleed and shit but it was all good. I have a video of it that David bought if any of you are interested in watching it. On that day, I got majorly burned. All over my forearms, they turned a nice, lobster red; my nose and the back of my neck got burnt and worst of all were my feet. I'm not used to wearing sandals as I haven;t worn them in a long while and as a result, when I was putting sunblock on, I completely forgot that they would be exposed to the sun as well. As a result, while the sunblock wore off and my arms and face ended up burning (nobody told me that sunblock needs to be reapplied :P), my feet had no protection at all and burnt in the pattern of my sandals XD If you can picture it, my toes got roasted, a thick band across the top of my feet and a bit around my upper ankle. Like a red zebra. That night...man..when taking a shower, something funny happened. I was dead tired from the day of rafting, I walked into the shower, turned on the water and after being there for a second or two, noticed that the sound of the water hitting me was a bit odd. I looked down and hey look, I'm still wearing my shorts and boxers...then ntoice that all the lines and creases seem fairly sharp and voila, I'm still wearing my glasses too. That was a big O.o moment. The next day...when we all woke up, a few people were a nice golden brown, one person was a healthy pinkish, I was lobster red. Just exposing my arms to the sun made it feel like someone was holding matches all along the length of my arm -.- Then hooray, everyone wanted to go down to the lake in the middle of the day to do activities by the lakeside. I took a folding chair with me and stayed in the shade, chatting with a couple of the people who were also smart like me and staying in the shade while the people I went with played a bit with the canoes, swam and sunbathed. The walk back up to the campsite from the lake was a good 20 minute walk at a huuuuge uphill angle. With the sun beating down on us the whle time...wow, it killed. Turns out that I was sorta smart...by the evening, the people who had browned turned a darker brown, the light pinkish one turned a nice bright red...and I remained at lobster red. Throughout the whole weekend, we'd been living on cup noodles and canned pasta stuff and...we all suddenly remembered that we had like...a box of hamburger patties that we had neglected to eat. So...we cooked them all and ate em all that night XD Bacon, cheese hamburgers. With fruit punch and water XD. Oh yeah, and some mustard. No ketchup though...somehow, everyone that we went with forgot to bring ketchup XD. I knew I shouldn't have taken so many breaks of days while writing this...things are starting to slip away from me that I wanted to remember. From here, it's mostly NOT going to be in any particular chronological order...just the more vivid memories of my weekend. I remember on one of the nights, a few of us were walking up that damned walk up to the clean washrooms to brush our teeth and shit before going to bed and on the way, there was a lot of small blinking lights all around us. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that all of the blinking lights were fireflies! We caught one, commented on how ugly it looked XD then tried to let it go when it just landed on my arm and...stayed there XD. So I kind of walked along there with a little blinky light on my forearm for a time before setting the damned thing on the ground at the side of the path. Another thing that night...was the moon. Our campsite was kind of at the bottom of this depression in the ground and trees ringed the whole thing so it's hard to see the sky at night and as always when I go far out of the city, I was looking forward to doing a bit of stargazing at night, just because the nights are so dark that you can see like a million stars...it's really pretty and sort of intimidating at the same time...really makes a guy feel small you know? When we were heading out to the washrooms, the sky was brighter than I was expecting it to be...and while I could see more stars than I normally could, it wasn't something to go nuts over. Walking up the path...we suddenly came to a break in the trees and realized why the sky was so bright. It was the moon...and it was full but we've all seen that before and it's nothing special right? Until this trip...I'd never realized what I'd been missing. While I had gone camping many times...I never noticed that I'd never gone camping when it was a full moon. A full moon looks fairly pretty as is in the city...because regardless of light pollution in the air, the moon is bright enough to cut through it fairly well regardless...but out there, capming, with no ambient light...good god... We started out, saw nothing...started up that hill and suddenly hit a break in the thick line of trees and the light of the full moon untouched by any ambient light shone upon me and holy fuck...it was absolutely stunning. Honestly, I don't have the words to describe it. It was sooo bright and full and unbelievably beautiful. While I can't seem to get the right words to describe it all...I can at least say that seeing that bright and full moon suddenly made me realize why so many poets use the moon as symbolism and imagery to describe beautiful women XD I'm seriously not joking...it was so absolutely beautiful...and yes, in a way, I'm gushing but wow...it was way too cool. Some funny things...bunch of the white folks got drunk by the bonfire many nights...on one night, one of them snatched the riding lawnmower from the service shed up near where the washrooms and rode the damned thing all the way down into the campsite XD. He was heading straight for a bunch of tents when he ran out of gas and passed out ^.^ Another night, the same group of guys couldn't find any wood to get the fire started...so they took apart the door of the outhouse and chopped it up and used it for kindling o.O All in all, it was a fairly fun time. Lotta fun times, lotta weeeird ass shit goin on at nights, but it was just an awesome experience overall. An end tally of shit...bad sunburns on my forearms, medium burn on the back of my neck, and a peculiar striped burn on my foot...my toes have been roasted, then a band of white, then a dark, splotchy band, then another white band followed by more roasted flesh XD. Too many mosquito bites to count...especially on my right side and my back. Four bites close together on a sunburnt sopt on my right foot and strangely enough, most of my bites are on sunburnt areas so they like...multiply the itching. But regardless of that, it was a kickass experience XD. Bus ride home was a bitch...it was hell lugging all of our heavy shit up that hill multiple times in the glaring sunlight to the bus and we left at 2pm and arrived at Midland/Eglington at a little past 9pm :P So it took a hell of a long time, but still...was fun. New experiences, met new people (some of whom were at my school), and had a blast. My sis came to pick us up and gave me an obsidian bracelet that she'd bought me o.O And so..that was my trip ^.^ If you actually read all that, all the more power to you and thanks for your interest ^.~ As a last note, I simply must mention that resisting scratching my burns and bites is totally ripping into my self control...BUT, when I simply can't prevent myself and just scratch long and hard...hooooly shit does that EVER feel crazy good. Like..it feels AMAZING XD Better than a cool breeze, an unlimited shopping spree or a tall glass of ice cold water on a hot day. Feels great >:D...I mean, sure you pay for it...but while you're scratching, you don't think of that and it feels soooooo unbelievably good XD. |