Home » Peru » Day 5 The Final Stretch

In the morning I returned the mosquito net to the villager, we said our good byes and pushed off. A majority of the locals were still sleeping when we left. I guess I assumed that rural people always wake up at the crack of dawn.
<br/>

Day 5 The Final Stretch

Brennick
2005-11-10 18:25:46

Displayed times (last time: )

In the morning I returned the mosquito net to the villager, we said our good byes and pushed off. A majority of the locals were still sleeping when we left. I guess I assumed that rural people always wake up at the crack of dawn.

In the morning we drifted well. I had finally figured out the pattern of the weather. The mornings were usually calm and clear while the afternoons were breezy and would often get cloudy. We only had to row hard a few times to break away from the shore. I was actually getting a bit bored of sitting on the raft and just floating along.

During the middle of the day I took a nap. I asked Pali to keep an eye out and make sure that we stayed on the main river course and did not diverge on to one of the slow flowing channels. Pali was tired too and she took a brief nap. During that time the river forked and we drifted to the smaller channel. I awoke and realized that the raft had reached stagnant water. We could not rely on the current to carry us so we had to paddle to make any headway. I was mad at Pali. I think my tiredness, the mosquito bites and the constant fight against the river and winds had taken their toll on me. I unfortunately vented my frustration on her. We yelled for a while as we paddled until I did not feel like talking at all. We reached a point along the channel where we met fishermen. We asked the fishermen about the closest town. They told us that there was a large town called Contamana about 8 hours down river. By their estimates, we would not make it until midnight.

We finally reached the main river and its strong current. We decided that we would try and make it to Contamana. The river moved fast, there was no wind and we made good time. As we floated along I inspected the logs that made up the base of the raft. The bark lashings keeping the logs together were slowly breaking apart. We had lost two logs already. Other logs were barely held together. The raft was falling apart. ...

Pages: [1] 2