Had a three day trip on the Kali Gandaki ... are grade 3 or 4-ish river. Bit nervous as we'd never done it before and I'd heard a few stories of rafts going over and people being pinned underwater against a boulder by 2 tons of water pressure. Tension was not eased when we discovered that of the 6 rafts ours was the heaviest with 7 paddlers (2 ageing Americans, one Singapore girl training to be a doctor ... handy, 2 Slovakians, and us) and one leader. Few instructions on the commands - "Right back .... left back ... all forward ... harder ... all stop ... jump left! (for when the raft is about to capsize!) ... hold on! (oh bugger ... we've cocked it up and if you hold on there's a chance we'll find the bodies)" ... that sort of thing. Also how important it was for the front two paddlers to listen carefully as they determine what all the other paddlers do. Our lead paddlers were ... er ... the Slovakians of course ... one of which didn't speak English very well
... oh dear.
And the hardest part of the whole 3 day trip was the first rapids we were to hit.
.... oh dearey me.
We went tanking in completely uncoordinated ... hit a bad spot ("Hold on!") and put the raft on it's side into a 60 degree angle against a rock. I'm face to face with a 2-3 meter wave, but somehow we managed to bounce out of the way. Then we coasted along the largest canyon in the world, under wirey suspension bridges with waving children. The Annapurnas were framed in the valley behind us as we floated by and through waterfalls coming from springs above us. Massive vulturey-eagle type things circled above us ... obviously impressed by our first effort at shooting the rapids. The silence broken only by the splish splash of paddles and the bubbling river.
That night we camped on a beach by the river and slept under the upturned rafts with canvas suspended accross them. The place was magically illumintated by the occasional candle in the sand as we sat and chatted, eating our spaghetti and chips (!). Then lying back on the beach gazing at the stars, the silence was only marred by the occasional member of the staff crashing to the ground, pissed as a fart on rum.
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